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Graduates who’ve come through RMCOEH in recent decades have become familiar with “Effective Management of Health and Safety Programs,” a textbook created by late former Center Director Royce Moser, Jr.

The book is the content for RMCOEH’s Administration and Management in Health and Safety Programs class, a core class required for all trainees in the center’s graduate programs. It is a practical guide that provides invaluable information for anyone charged with leading a health and safety program. Chapters include topics ranging from strategic goal setting to recruiting personnel and are aimed at providing guidance that will serve the reader in the real world.

But the textbook, for all its value, has crept up in age in recent years. The third and current edition was published 15 years ago — following initial publication in 1992 and a second edition in 1999 — and there have been many advances within both occupational safety and health and managerial philosophy since the edition hit bookstores in 2008.

That’s why RMCOEH Center Director Kurt Hegmann, MD, and Deputy Director Matthew Hughes, MD, set about updating the textbook for a new generation. After a few years of effort, including a delay forced by the coronavirus pandemic, the fourth edition of the book, edited by Hegmann and Hughes and published by OEM Press, was released in September.

The book includes three brand new chapters — respectively focused on Total Worker Health®, product stewardship, and establishing and maintaining a safety-first culture — while the majority of the remaining chapters have been rewritten or substantially revised. Some of the most significant changes include the addition of case studies from management during the pandemic, detailed guidance regarding running effective meetings, and instruction about how to manage a team of people with different personality types.

“This textbook has been a tremendous resource to RMCOEH students and many others for a long time,” said Hughes, who teaches the Administration and Management in Health and Safety Programs class each spring. “Updating the book presented an exciting opportunity to ensure it retains its value for the next generation of occupational and environmental health and safety professionals.”

In addition to refreshed content, the book also has a new name. The fourth edition is titled “Moser’s Effective Management of Health and Safety Programs” in an homage to Moser, who led RMCOEH from 1987 to 2003 and died last year at 86. What’s more, 100% of royalties from the book will go into the Dr. Royce Moser Jr. and Lois H. Moser Endowed Scholarship Fund in Occupational Health, which supports RMCOEH students.

That’s a fitting tribute to a man who left a monumental impact on both occupational and environmental health and safety and RMCOEH.

“This book was always a passion project for Dr. Moser,” Hegmann said. “He knew as much about management and how to achieve team success as anybody, and the text is littered with his personal anecdotes and expertise. One of the wonderful things about this fourth edition is that we were able to significantly update the text while preserving what he had created in the first three editions. Readers will still benefit from his wisdom and gain insight and entertainment from his lively stories depicting what to do — and what not to do — as a manager.”

Many of the chapters retain Moser’s authorship, while the book also bears contributions from nearly 30 other authors who are experts in various areas within occupational and environmental health and safety. The contributing authors include prominent names such as John Howard, the director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; Pamela Hymel, the chief medical officer for Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products; and Ronald Loeppke, the president and vice chairman of U.S. Preventive Medicine.

Bubba Brown, a technical writer at RMCOEH and former journalist, performed the initial round of editing on the book and also wrote a chapter focused on interacting with the news media. He said the time readers spend with the book will yield a significant return on investment. And although the book is presented through the lens of occupational and environmental safety and health, its core concepts apply to management and leadership in any field.

“There are so many great lessons in the book, and I’m guessing readers are going to want to keep it on hand and pull it out from time to time to revisit certain chapters,” he said. “This is definitely not meant to be a book that you read once and never think about again. Readers will want to keep it on their bookshelf for a long time.”

For more information about the book, or to purchase a copy, visit the OEM Press website.