ORLANDO, FL, November 28, 2012 — So you are a newly appointed Laser Safety Officer (LSO) with a staff to train. Now you have decisions to make. Do I train my staff myself? Should I have someone else train them? How do I coordinate their work schedules with training so everyone can make it? Do I have to create a PowerPoint presentation? Well, the Laser Institute of America (LIA) has just the course for you.
LIA, the recognized leader in laser safety education and resources since 1968, has created a new online Laser Safety Awareness course tailor-made for the rapidly increasing nonmedical laser workforce. LSOs or “laser area personnel” can sign up from anywhere in the world to complete this highly focused training session in about two hours. And, since LIA is the secretariat of the ANSI Z136 laser safety standards, you know you are receiving proper training from the foremost experts in the field.
The Laser Safety Awareness course, similar to other LIA online programs, allows three days of access, so users can review the material at a pace that works best for them. Study the slides and accompanying audio lesson in consecutive order, or choose which areas you’d like to study first. At the end of your training, you will receive a certificate via email acknowledging you completed the course.
“We are trying to give LSOs the ability to train staff without having to hold an in-house session or having to send people anywhere for training. This is a training tool for the LSO.” explains LIA Education Director Gus Anibarro. “It will be short and to the point, covering the basics of laser safety for people who are operating the laser or who are going to be working within the laser environment.”
The course will address basic laser physics, beam and non-beam hazards, laser system control measures and current standards and regulations. Based on the ANSI Z136.1, Safe Use of Lasers standard, this course will detail the all-important parameters that can cause bodily harm.
“Laser area personnel need to know the hazards that may be present when working with Class 3B or 4 lasers” Anibarro says. It does not matter who makes the laser, whether it is fiber, disc or diode, or what application — cutting, drilling, welding, cladding — the laser is used for.
Not only is the Laser Safety Awareness course convenient, it is cost-effective; while the individual cost per trainee is $70, LIA is offering a bulk discount based on the number of “seats” an LSO purchases. An LSO supervising many laser personnel at multiple manufacturing sites will not only save time by not having to create a laser safety course, they can be even more efficient by giving all their staff the same expert course no matter where they work.
How urgent is the need for this course? “In today’s workforce, LSOs are faced with trying to balance their day jobs with the duties and responsibilities as the LSO. This is not an easy task. If we can help the LSO with training their employees in a convenient, simple and quick way, then we have helped the LSO effect the training duty that is required by the ANSI Z136.1, Safe Use of Lasers standard.” Anibarro says. “This is a timesaver for the LSO,” Anibarro concludes.
To register for LIA’s new Laser Safety Awareness course online, visit www.lia.org/education or call 1.800.34.LASER.
About LIA
Laser Institute of America (LIA) is the professional society for laser applications and safety serving the industrial, educational, medical, research and government communities throughout the world since 1968. www.lia.org, 13501 Ingenuity Drive, Ste 128, Orlando, FL 32826, +1.407.380.1553.