SRS News

Today marks the official start of Frank Laezza’s tenure with UBC as our new Vice-President Finance & Operations. As a strong believer in connected leadership, Frank is looking forward to working with the VPFO team of 1400+ people in the oversight of UBC’s core financial, facilities, and safety functions, across both the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses.

Rosanna’s experience in the Research Compliance and Occupational Hygiene team in SRS and consulting industry will be extremely beneficial in her new role. She will be transitioning from the Donald Rix office to join the Facilities Safety team in the University Services Building. 

Whether you work in a lab, animal facility, workshop, museum — or even an office, you may come into contact with sensitizers at your workplace that can trigger an allergic response following contact and damaged immune response with repeated exposure. UBC Safety & Risk Services has invited industry and academia experts to educate the community on why sensitization is an important workplace safety issue and how to protect yourself.

Janet Hankins leads a team of specialists in biosafety, radiation, and chemical safety and occupational hygiene responsible for the handling of hazardous substances across the university. Learn how Janet resonates with the VPFO’s strategic directions and values, and how her team came together to support the university community through the onset of COVID-19.  

Bella will be responsible for providing financial analysis to the overall VPFO/VPHR Finance team with a primary focus on Infrastructure Development, Safety & Risk Services, and Financial Operations, replacing John Mendes who is transitioning into the new Manager, Insurance & Loss Prevention position.

In his new role as Manager of Insurance & Loss Prevention in Safety & Risk Services, John will be responsible for the ongoing support of the Insurance & loss prevention program, ensuring succession planning and knowledge transfer and increasing team capacity.

Designed for supervisors and workers that are at risk of hazardous noise exposure, this online, self-paced course will increase your awareness of the risk factors and associated health effects related to hazardous noise exposure, identify controls to protect against overexposure to hazardous noise levels, and introduce you to audiometric testing.

Facilities’ Energy & Water Services and Building Operations recently completed their annual Confined Space Rescue Team on-site exercises. Rescuers were presented with different scenarios that required them to take the necessary steps to recognize, evaluate and develop a rescue plan to successfully rescue an individual from a confined space. 

Join us in a webinar on September 21 at 2:00 pm to learn about inventory management requirements and best practices from UBC Safety & Risk Service’s Chemical Safety Advisor, Dr. Peggy Paduraru. Click through for more information, including Zoom details.

Lower Mainland continues to see poor air quality values as a result of the thick wildfire smoke in BC. Find resources about air quality health and safety awareness and the best ways to protect yourself.

Steve will be responsible for the successful operational delivery and management of Privacy Impact Assessments and related services. He comes to us from SFU where he was instrumental in ensuring that SFU had proper controls and processes in place to meet their regulatory requirements.

Starting June 1, Karamjeet Heer will begin serving as the Interim Vice-President, Finance, and John Metras will become the Interim Vice-President, Operations following the departure of Peter Smailes, former Vice-President, Finance & Operations.

In her new role, Susan will continue to oversee the PIA process, including major projects such as the Integrated Security Program Student (IRPS) as well as the portfolio of operational PIAs and advisory services.

Sam has a diverse background, with extensive experience leading projects and teams within Compliance, Security and Risk Management roles for organizations in the public sector.

Workplace inspections are a vital component in our efforts to ensure a safe workplace and help prevent incidents, injuries, and illnesses at UBC. Some inspections are conducted by specially trained individuals, while general inspections are typically conducted by members of the Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committees and/or Local Safety Teams.

Liz Cockfield is the new Project Coordinator, joining Privacy and Information Security Management (PrISM), and will be leading projects across the PrISM team.

The Screening Mammography Program (SMP) Mobile Services will once again be visiting the UBC Point Grey Campus on April 5, 2022. BC women ages 40 and up with a primary care provider (doctor, nurse practitioner or naturopath) can book a screening mammogram directly through the program without a doctor’s referral. 

According to the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, over 700 Canadian workers sustain eye injuries resulting in lost time and/or temporary or permanent vision loss every day. Simply using the proper eye protection on the job could prevent 90% of these eye injuries from occurring.

Teela began her career at UBC in 2015 where she has been an Occupational and Research Safety Associate with a focus on the development and implementation of the university’s safety program. Over the last 6 years, she has been instrumental in redesigning and updating SRS’ safety training.

Fatigue in the workplace has been recognized as a major cause of accidents. In fact, an Australian study found that after being awake for 17 hours straight, a person’s reaction times can be just as impaired as someone with a blood alcohol content of 0.05 percent. 

As mentioned in last month’s announcement, Safety & Risk Services is making changes to the reporting structures to strengthen alignment with the university and VPFO’s strategic priorities. Janet Hankins has been promoted to Manager – Research Compliance and Occupational Hygiene, Paul Gill to Manager, Health & Safety Partnerships, and Paul Nakagawa to Manager – Safety Program Management and Systems.

In alignment with the VPFO and SRS strategic plan, Safety & Risk Services (SRS) is moving to the next step that builds on our strengths and opportunities to continue to align around enhanced safety and reduced risk for faculty, staff, and students. ​

Cassandra Torres (she, her, hers) and Evan Lloyd join the Emergency Management team in Safety & Risk Services as Emergency Management & Continuity Planning Advisors. Their education and backgrounds in emergency response will be great assets to the team.

UBC’s Earthquake Engineering Research Facility (EERF) will shake, rattle and roll for the public this International ShakeOut Day. EERF will open its doors to the public from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, October 21, after the shakeout drill at 10:21 a.m.

To support the safety and security of students, the library has partnered with UBC Campus Security to launch a Theft Prevention Pilot campaign that will run throughout the fall term. The goal of the campaign is to ensure students have peace of mind when visiting library branches and to foster good habits when using public spaces.

Over the past 18 months, learning, research, and work at UBC have been taking place remotely, wherever possible. But one group of people has diligently stayed on campus to keep its infrastructure humming through all this time: the teams responsible for ensuring that heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are functioning properly across the university.