As the saying on sappy birthday cards goes: You're not getting older, you're getting better. The same could be said for Occupational Hazards, now in its 70th year of publication. Occupational Hazards is the proud recipient of ASBPE, APEX and TABPI national journalism awards in 2008!
In July, we were notified that we won both national (for government coverage) and regional (editorials) AZBEE awards, given by the American Society of Business Publication Editors. This is the second national award for government coverage Occupational Hazards has won in 3 years.
Our national prize-winning entry for the category of Government Coverage requires submission of three articles related to government and regulatory issues that appeared in three consecutive issues, in our case: “Regulating Arc Flash Hazards” (May 2007), “The Multi-Employer Doctrine: End of the Line or a Chance for a Fresh Start?” (June 2007) and “Preventing Lockout/Tagout Fatalities and Injuries” (July 2007).
Our regional AZBEE award was for the category Editorial/Editor's Letter, which required the submission of two editorials. The first, “Paris Hilton – 23 Days; BP Officials – 0” (July 2007), takes a hard look at former BP CEO Lord John Browne and other top BP officials who contributed to and later ignored a broken safety culture. The second, “Making Your ‘Neighborhood’ a Positive Place” (December 2007), encourages occupational safety and health managers to view the workplace as a neighborhood and their coworkers as neighbors.
In addition to the prestigious AZBEE awards, our February 2007 cover, showing a food service working taking a nasty tumble, was selected as a winner in the 2008 American Inhouse Design Awards. These awards honor the first-rate work being done by corporate, non-profit and institutional in-house design departments – in this case, our own art director, Samantha Himes. There were more than 5,000 entries in this year's program from all over the country.
Last but not least, we won a 2008 Apex Award of Excellence in the category of Magazines and Journals – Print Over 32 pages. Apex (Awards for Publication Excellence) are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence.
Just as all of you strive for continuous improvement and excellence, so do we. While none of us do what we do to win awards, I think the philosopher and scholar James Brown said it best: “IT FEELS GOOD!!!”
