About Vantage EHS Solutions

The name

What “Vantage” refers to

The name describes the function of outside technical review. Familiarity reduces hazard recognition — a process that has always run a certain way stops being visible to the people who run it every day. An outside assessment is not a better view of an operation than the operator’s. It is a different one, and its value comes from the difference.

• An independent read on what is present and what it means.
• A perspective built from 25+ years in high-hazard facilities, which is what distinguishes the findings that matter from the ones that do not.
• Health and safety hazards evaluated in the same pass rather than in two engagements.

Method

How the work is approached

Assessment begins with the task — the materials, equipment, energy sources, work environment and the people exposed — rather than a preselected service package. Sampling is planned against exposure determinants and similar exposure groups using calibrated methods and defined data-quality objectives, so that a limited number of samples supports a defensible conclusion about a workforce.

Recommendations follow the hierarchy of controls. Findings are documented to connect hazard recognition, exposure data, field controls, written programs and verification, so the basis for a decision remains legible to a reviewer years later.

Two things the practice does not do: recommend monitoring that will not change a decision, or write a program that duplicates one already in place.

Leadership

Colby M. Smith, CIH, CSP — Founder and Principal Consultant

A Certified Industrial Hygienist and Certified Safety Professional with 25+ years in industrial hygiene, occupational safety and program management. B.S. Environmental Health, with an emphasis in industrial hygiene and safety, Bowling Green State University.

Most of that career has been in the Department of Energy nuclear complex — Hanford, Rocky Flats, the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant and NETL-Albany — where the hazard set is beryllium, radiological contamination, silica and chemical exposure, and where health effects are long-latency. That work establishes the documentation and defensibility standard the practice applies to commercial engagements as well.

Specialization: beryllium and chronic beryllium disease prevention programs under 10 CFR 850, exposure assessment, respiratory protection, silica, noise, metals, and safety program development.

Prior practice

This is the second practice

Health & Safety Compliance, Inc. was founded in 2005 and built into a $3.5M consulting practice serving 25+ client offices, including DOE and DOD remediation contractors, engineering and construction firms, aerospace, brewing and general industry. Services covered assessments, sampling, training and project oversight.

Vantage is the same discipline, weighted further toward industrial hygiene.

Locations and status

Pacific Northwest & Intermountain West  ·  WA, OR, ID, MT, WY, UT, CO, NV, Northern CA & AK

Vantage EHS Solutions LLC is a Wyoming limited liability company.