For Immediate Release
Contact: Sonya Johnson
Sonya.Johnson@orcc.doe.gov
(702) 219-1073
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Oct. 15, 2019 – Spring City’s Billy Edington was recently recognized for his outstanding work in safety by the Voluntary Protection Programs Participants’ Association (VPPPA) at their National Symposium in New Orleans. Edington was awarded the 2019 Safety and Health Outreach Award for his work at UCOR—an AECOM-led partnership with Jacobs — where he helps to build the company’s award-winning safety culture.
For the past several years, Edington has demonstrated a deep commitment as a trainer and mentor to countless individuals. In fact, for 15 years, he served as a trainer for the United Steelworkers Tony Mazzocchi Center (USW/TMC) for Health, Safety, and Environmental Education. USW/TMC provides safety and health training to thousands of USW employees and member of the public throughout the United States and abroad. He is a key member of the USW/TMC curriculum development team and invests an extensive amount of time with the selection, mentoring, and training of USW workers and trainers.
In 2016, Edington spearheaded a collaboration between USW/TMC and UCOR that has provided safety and hazardous waste training to high school students in remote, sparsely populated areas of East Tennessee. The program is funded through the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and marks the first of its kind in the southeastern United States.
“Offering these training classes to local high schools is very gratifying because it helps to ensure a pool of talented, skilled workers to address cleanup needs of the future,” said Edington. “It also gives students in these rural areas an advantage as they transition into the workplace.”
UCOR is DOE’s leading environmental cleanup partner. Since August 2011, UCOR has worked to reduce environmental risk by cleaning up legacy facilities from the former Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, allowing DOE to repurpose the land and buildings for use as a multi-use industrial park, national park, and conservation area. The company is also cleaning up contaminated facilities that are no longer in use at ORNL and Y-12, reducing environmental risk and helping the DOE Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration to continue their missions.
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Photo attached: Edington_teaching.jpg
Caption: Edington (center) trains Tennessee School for the Deaf students about handling hazardous waste.
UCOR NR 2019-7
