What’s cooler than helping keep people safe? Kim May, senior manager of EHS by design at Danone North America, loves being a safety professional because of the impact it has on workers’ lives.
Danone North America is a major food manufacturer with about 6,000 workers and headquarters in White Plains, N.Y., and Louisville, Co. In her role, May collaborates with various teams to identify risks, implement safety strategies, develop capital investment plans, and ensure compliance with standards, among other duties.
May has been in the EHS industry for 12 years. She joined Danone about seven years ago, starting as an industrial hygienist and moving up to her current senior EHS role. Before that, she worked at Infineon Technologies and Air Liquide.
May holds a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and a master’s in environmental health from Texas A&M University. In addition to her role at Danone, she serves as the AVP of marketing for the Dallas chapter of the American Cancer Society’s GenNow Network, a nationwide group of young professionals.
To learn more about May and her take on industry issues, please read the Faces of EHS interview below:
Q: How did you get your start in the field?
I wanted to work in pharmaceuticals regarding cancer research, but as I went through college, I couldn’t quite find the right path that I enjoyed. I spoke with an advisor on other paths to reduce risk of toxicological exposure and ended in microbiology. After graduation, I opted to continue education in pursuit of a Master of Public Health – Environmental Health degree. A summer internship at Air Liquide dropped me into the occupational side of safety and less environmental, and I fell in love!
Q: Who has been your biggest influence in the EHS industry, and why?
My dad passed away from cancer when I was in high school, and I wanted to find some way to prevent others from experiencing the same tragedy. Although we will never know the cause of his cancer, it was always suspected that there was a piece that involved pre-treated wood while working in the lumber industry.
Q: What’s your best mistake, and what did you learn from it?
My best mistake was trusting myself that I could create an industrial hygiene program even though I had no experience. The first few months felt like “I have made a huge mistake and have taken on too much!” but ultimately, the end impact far exceeded the pain and frustration of the start.
Q: What are some of the biggest EHS issues at your organization?
Varying safety cultures site to site—how you work with one site is very different than how you work with another depending on where they are at on their safety culture journey. One size does not fit all.
Q: What’s your favorite part about working in the industry?
Watching the change in products we make as fads change in society is so cool! There are challenges with this, however, as we navigate the change in how these changes impact our operators who make the products.
Q: What are your thoughts on safety culture? How can company leaders make safety a value within their organization?
Safety culture improvement is at the heart of what I do. To teach and influence our people to look out for one another is critical. Without leadership commitment at the center, it’s impossible to do. Why should I care for the person next to me, if my leaders don’t care?
I work very closely with our engineering and PMO teams to ensure that projects proposed to better the business have EHS design concepts built into them and that we’re not bettering one thing and in turn harming our operators. Most days are spent on project calls and influencing the culture of safety across all functions.
Q: How will new safety technologies influence the work being done by EHS professionals?
I believe that they could make us better, but I also fear that they could impact our existing safety cultures. We will have to be careful not to treat AI systems as “cops” looking to catch employees doing the wrong thing. When thinking about the Bradley Curve, this would set us back into a dependent culture.
Q: What are you most proud of?
Some people think that doctors have the coolest job in the world—they save people. But what about having a career where you can save people from ever having to see a doctor because of their job? That’s truly incredible when you think about it. The standards, processes, and designs we put in place ultimately allow people to go home and be with their loved ones at the end of the day, the same way they left that morning.
Q: Do you have any advice for people entering the EHS profession?
Try it out! There is always room and an opportunity for people to move from more traditional operational, engineering, and learning and development type functions to EHS. In fact, I think we need to do a better job of recruiting from other functions to open our minds and see things from directions we may not traditionally look at.
Are you or a colleague an EHS professional interested in being profiled for the Faces of EHS series? Please contact Joe Bebon at JBebon@BLR.com.