The National Safety Council’s Safety Congress and Expo 2026 was held recently in Indianapolis. The show drew 11,000 attendees and roughly 1,000 exhibitors throughout the week, which would make it probably the biggest collection of safety professionals in the United States this year. Dave Blanchard, EHS Today’s editor-in-chief, attended the event and offers his capsule summaries of some of the NSC 2026 show highlights. That includes:

·       A look at the winners of NSC’s New Product Showcase.

·       BASF’s Adam Walters on what “safety excellence” really looks like.

·       Qnity Electronics’ Jeffrey Kozub on why safety leaders should get out from behind their desks and go where the work is happening at their companies.

·       And a countdown of the Top 10 OSHA violations of 2026.

Click on the player below to hear the full podcast.

[Following is an excerpt from the podcast. Click on the podcast player above to hear the full program.]

On this podcast and in our regular coverage at EHS Today, we frequently refer to “safety excellence” but what does that actually refer to? There are probably as many definitions for safety excellence as there are safety leaders, but Adam Walters, EHS manager with chemical producer BASF, offered his own definition at the NSC 2026 Safety Congress & Expo. He sees safety excellence through the lens of culture, not compliance. He describes it as: “Recognizing and controlling exposure for self and others.”

The behavior of safety leaders, Walters said, shapes norms and expectations among workers. What leaders tolerate ends up becoming the culture of the company. He explained that he would often get a pat on the back whenever he kept production going, which ultimately came at the expense of establishing a safety culture. “Nobody wants to go to work wondering if today is the day they get hurt,” Walter said, but when a company is focused more on production than on worker safety, the corporate culture has definitely shifted away from a safety culture.

Safety leaders, Walters said, should be role models for rule adherence. And that requires consistency – leaders need to follow the rules themselves, and they need to be consistent when giving discipline and enforcing the rules. At too many places, he noted, it’s not normal for people to work safely. Safety culture is built in moments, not meetings.

He offered three leadership habits that drive excellence:

1. Normalize speaking up, so people feel empowered to question unsafe conditions.

2. Simplify life-critical rules – the kind that put people at risk of their lives – and reinforce those few but vital rules.

3. Make safety practical and visible.