Your Instructor
The LEAD Consultancy, LLC was founded in 2007 by Dwight Gerdes to offer professional training programs to company leaders, their employees, and future leaders throughout New Jersey.
In 1994, Mr. Gerdes graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Science, and promptly secured a Sanitary Inspector, First Grade license. It would be more than a decade before he would perform sanitary inspections as a 'health inspector". In the interim, he continued to build upon this educational foundation by amassing numerous environmental, health and safety licenses, permits, and certifications in multiple states.
For more than ten years, Mr. Gerdes worked in the private sector and began his environmental career as an industrial hygienist and a project manager on commercial building and superstructure de-leading projects. Projects utilizing dry abrasive blasting on large tanks, roadway overpasses and bridges, from Connecticut to Maryland, required environmental oversight. The collection of air, water, soil, dust and bulk samples on site for laboratory analysis to verify environmental compliance were important daily responsibilities. This led to the training clients and co-workers in 1995 through simple “Tool box training sessions” designed to prevent problems on the job and focus on timely correction of health and safety issues. Close monitoring of workers through medical surveillance kept workers healthy and projects moving forward towards timely completion.
The move into the housing market was a smooth transition with OSHA compliance issues, lead-based paint testing, and lead abatement well understood and practiced. Radon and asbestos testing, consulting and instruction work followed and difficult lead-poisoned child litigation cases were tackled as an expert witness. Providing training for clients in multiple states became the norm.
In 2005 Mr. Gerdes followed his longtime interest in public health to a job in a Health Department where he now uses the health inspector license he earned so many years ago. Mr. Gerdes currently works as a full-time Senior Registered Environmental Health Specialist (SREHS) performing daily food establishment inspections, complaint investigations and plan reviews. He continues to complete duties in other health department programs and has performed, environmental enforcement and acted in the capacity of lead-poisoned child inspector/ risk assessor.
As an instructor, Mr. Gerdes shares his real world environmental, health, and safety (EHS) experiences in the course of the training programs he conducts for the LEAD Consultancy, LLC. He has provided instruction services for other well known and respected training providers, companies and organizations in New Jersey such as Rutgers University, the National Asbestos and Environmental Training Institute (NAETI), Access Training, LEW Corporation, New Jersey Environmental Health Association (NJEHA), Union County Health Officers Association (UCHOA) and the National Apartment Association (NAA).
Mr. Gerdes is a United States Navy veteran and is the former chair of the Environmental Commission in his New Jersey Borough. He is serving as a school board member for the 14th year in the local Board of Education. In addition to maintaining numerous professional certifications in a variety of disciplines, he was an active member with the New Jersey Lead Task Force, the Monmouth/ Ocean Childhood Lead-Poisoning Prevention Coalition, New Jersey Environmental Health Association (NJEHA), and the Metropolitan Association for Food Protection (MAFP).
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