In an entertaining series of brief five-minute talks Tuesday morning called Ignite, experts shared stories from their work as an industrial hygienist or tips on how to make the most of your career. In his presentation, Mark Rollins compared his work in industrial hygiene with his love of good beer. He said the craft beer industry has grown over the past couple decades in much the same way the industrial hygiene profession has grown.

He said he has traveled the world in his career and visited breweries all over the world as well. Rollins said just as developing a quality craft beer requires the right balance, being an industrial hygienist means you have to have the right solution for different problems and that requires mixing a unique blend.

Another Ignite presentation offered some useful advice on how to make more money in the IH field. Jeff Burton of IVE Inc. said the most important way to move up the chain is to keep educating yourself and diversity your portfolio by learning more technical skills and specialties. He also said it is beneficial to work in government agencies for at least a few years to learn how both sides work.

In his Ignite presentation, David Regelbrugge, of Bureau Veritas North America, said industrial hygienists often mistakenly believe that they have all of the tools necessary to measure and solve just about any exposure issue that comes up. As good as our sampling methods and equipment are, they are often useless against the dreaded odor investigation, he said. Nothing is more humbling to an IH than being called out on an odor investigation, but not being able to detect it with any equipment or identify its source. He shared some difficult indoor air quality odor investigations he has tackled in his career.