Public Works Response Team deploys to West, TX

At the request of the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM), the State Operations Center (SOC) has asked TEEX to mobilize a Public Works Assessment Team to deploy to West, TX.

Twenty-four courses and more than 320 hours of training will be offered during the Infrastructure and Safety Summit on May 20-24 in San Antonio. Courses range from 4 hours to 31 hours in length, and will be conducted by subject-matter experts from TEEX’s Infrastructure Training & Safety Institute. Reduced tuition fees range from $0 to $100 per class.

Tarleton State University is the latest institution of higher education to grant college credit for the TEEX Certified Safety and Health Official™ (CSHO) program. Under a new agreement, Tarleton State will provide up to 36 hours of college credit toward a Bachelor’s of Applied Arts and Sciences (BAAS) in Manufacturing and Industrial Management for those who earn the CSHO.

TEEX Infrastructure and Safety Institute is offering no-cost compliance training on the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) at locations across the country through a $3 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The training is targeting small drinking water systems that serve communities with a population of less than 10,000.

Oil and gas workers in the Permian Basin will have easier access to safety and health training through a new agreement between Odessa College and the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX). Odessa College has been designated a TEEX Cooperative Learning Center (CLC), authorizing the college to teach TEEX safety and health classes within the college’s service area.

The federal government has renewed TEEX’s OSHA Training Institute (OTI) Southwest Education Center, which is one of 28 OTI Education Centers delivering vital occupational safety and health training to U.S. workers and their employers. The OSHA Southwest Education Center is operated by TEEX’s Infrastructure Training and Safety Institute (ITSI) and serves Region VI, a five-state region covering Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana and Arkansas.

The Federal Highway Administration has awarded TEEX’s Lone Star Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) a special grant to provide direct technical assistance to traffic signal technicians. It is part of FHWA’s Accelerating Safety Activities Program (ASAP), which provides “seed” funding to spur innovative efforts to improve safety and drive down traffic crashes.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $3 million to the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service to provide training and technical assistance to small public drinking water systems nationwide to help ensure citizens in these communities have clean, safe drinking water.

TEEX’s OSHA Training Institute Southwest Education Center has received a $120,000 Susan Harwood Training Grant from the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) to provide training about changes to the Hazard Communication Standard 2012. The funding will allow TEEX to offer a 4-hour training course for workers in high-hazards industries with high-fatality rates.

The TEEX Infrastructure Training and Safety Institute (ITSI) Water and Wastewater program has launched a new Certified Water Professional (CWP) certificate program.