The Dow Chemical Company was presented September 9 with its second consecutive TRANSCAER National Achievement Award for extraordinary support of the TRANSCAER chemical rail transportation safety training initiative. Tim Scott, chief security officer and corporate director of emergency services and security for Dow, accepted the award at the 20th Continuing Challenge Workshop taking place September 9 through September 11 in Sacramento, Calif.
Founded more than 20 years ago, TRANSCAER (Transportation Community Awareness and Emergency Response) is a national outreach effort and voluntary educational initiative that brings chemical and transportation industry experts into local communities to provide free transportation and chemical safety training to emergency personnel. As a founding member of this program, Dow has helped advance TRANSCAER into a growing consortium of chemical manufacturers, transportation companies and related associations that trains nearly 20,000 emergency personnel each year.
"Every year, Dow continues to demonstrate a strong commitment to communities across the country and to the safety and security of chemical transportation," said Brock Lowman, vice chairman of the National TRANSCAER Task Group. "This year, we recognize Dow once again for its continued dedication to enhancing community awareness and emergency response capabilities of hundreds of communities nationwide."
In 2007, as part of the company's focus on a specific set of sustainability performance goals, known as the 2015 Sustainability Goals, Dow jointly committed with Union Pacific Railroad to host chemical rail transportation training sessions for the communities located along the shared companies' highly hazardous material transportation routes by 2012. Responders participate in a variety of classroom and simulated activities, focused on railroad equipment training, hazardous material handling and advanced training with interactive emergency response drills.
"We have a desire and an obligation to work with our business partners to ensure the safe movement of our products – the chemicals that are the essential building blocks for the products people use every day," said Scott. "TRANSCAER remains an integral part of how we deliver on this responsibility and our commitment to local protection of human health and the environment, a core element of our 2015 Sustainability Goals."
The National Achievement Award is given in recognition of extraordinary achievement by an individual person, individual company, individual organization, or a team support of the TRANSCAER initiative that extends beyond the geographic boundaries of any one region. Since the award's inception, Dow has been recognized twice as National Achievement Award recipient. Additionally, dozens of Dow's employees have been recognized for their individual contributions through Dow's involvement with TRANSCAER. To learn more about the award and its recipients visit, http://www.transcaer.com/awards/past-award-recipients.
Additional participants donating time and resources to the TRANSCAER Training Tour include Union Pacific Railroad; the Firefighters Education and Training Foundation; CHEMTREC , the Chemical Transportation Emergency Center; and the many State TRANSCAER organizations along the route of travel. More information about the TRANSCAER Training Tour can be found at http://www.dow.com/transcaertours.
