The two-million-square-foot Kay Bailey Convention Center in Dallas, Texas is bustling with activity, with thousands of safety professionals in town for the American Association of Safety Engineers’ Safety 2015 sorting out their schedules and heading to various sessions.

There are plenty of options and a multitude of EHS topics being covered.

Construction safety, not surprisingly, is the subject of many sessions: A Case Study: Best Practices to Ensure Safety on a Construction Project; Hearing Conservation Programs in Construction – New Perspectives; ANSI/ASSE A10 Construction Standards - Standards Impacting the Profession; Safety Culture & Safety Climate in Construction: Bridging Research & Practice; A Strategy for Reducing Construction Fatalities and Safety Culture, Green Construction and a Multi-ethnic Workforce: A Case Study.

The importance of training to the profession can be seen in the number of training-related sessions being offered: Master the Art of Using Video in Your Training or Toolbox Talk!; How to Approach and Achieve Success with Your Risk Assessment Training Program; Top Five Strategic EHS Training Tips;
Pick 3 - New, Existing and Temporary Employee Training; Wild, Wacky & Highly Effective Training - Great and Fun Ideas to Use Now; Who's Got Your Back? An Alternative Approach to Back Injury Prevention Training; How to Become a Safety Training Ninja; Image-Based Safety Training; A Modified Model of Experiential Training for Safety Professionals and Engineers and Step Up Your Game! Using Gamification Techniques to Enhance Training Delivery.

Fall prevention-related sessions include: Fall Prevention vs. Fall Protection: A New Safety Category; The Changing World of Slip-and-Fall Analysis; How Does Your Fall Protection Program Rank? and Preventing Slips, Trips, and Falls in Restaurants: A Success Story.

The oil and gas industry is represented (The Cost of Complacency - Survey Results from the Oil and Gas Industry; Designing a FR Clothing Program for Oil and Gas). Ergonomics is a well-covered topic: Conducting Risk Assessments on Ergonomic Exposures; Show Me the Money – Demonstrating the ROI of Your Ergonomics Program; Psychophysical and Demographic Changes Require Rethinking Ergonomics Strategies; Key Issue Roundtable: Evaluating the Synergy of Engagement and Ergonomics andErgonomics Successes in Setting up the New F-35 Production Line.

Compliance gets a great deal of coverage in Safety 2015: OSHA's Hazard Communication Revised Compliance Directive - An Enforcement Overview; OSHA's New Confined Spaces in Construction: 1926.1200 Compared With ANSI Z117.1; Implementing the Hazard Communication Standard Final Rule: Lessons Learned; OSHA's General Duty Clause: A Guide to Enforcement and Legal Defenses; OSHA's PSM Standard: Achieving Compliance and Avoiding Pitfalls and OSHA Construction Update, Standards, Enforcement and Outreach Initiatives.

Communication skills, workplace violence, combustible dust, Lockout/Tagout, crane safety emergency preparedness, hazmat management, healthcare safety and other subjects are being explored in sessions as well.

When they’re not learning, attendees can dine at one of the city’s many barbecue, Mexican, and Tex-Mex restaurants and enjoy a frozen margarita (the city claims to be the birthplace of the popular drink).

If they don’t have much time for sightseeing, there are a couple of historical sights to see that are right on the convention center grounds. Pioneer Cemetery is composed of the remnants of four early graveyards. The graves, dating back to the 1850’s, include many of Dallas’ early settlers and civic leaders. Pioneer Plaza commemorates the trails that brought settlers to Dallas and cattle to market and features native plants and trees, a flowering stream and a larger-than-life bronze cattle drive --49 longhorn cattle being herded by three cowboys on horses