At the core of GEAPS Exchange program is a timely and topical slate of sessions planned and produced by the Education Programming Committee. Led by Ken Schmenk of The Andersons, the EPC is made up of industry professionals—just like most other Exchange participants.
Most sessions are scheduled for concurrent presentation as shown below. You can customize your own slate of sessions to best meet your specific needs. With more than 30 hours of focused education programs over three days, there are a lot of options from which to choose.
In addition to the hour-long sessions, don't miss the other educational programs. This year's Opening Workshop will concentrate on developing a safety culture in the workplace. The Idea Exchange will offer 13 six-minute presentations on ideas and equipment new to the industry. For a more hands-on experience, check out the Expo Pods, focused on various process control components.
Hour-Long Educational Sessions
Agribusiness Environment and Management Practices
The Bigger Picture: A Look at the Future of Grain Operations
Speaker: Dr. Charles Hurburgh, professor, agricultural and biosystems engineering; professor in charge, Iowa Grain Quality Initiative, Iowa State University, Ames, IA
As grain prices rise and production continues to increase, the grain-operations industry will have to grow, too. Of course, the additional grain will have to go somewhere, and more storage capacity will be needed. But the post-harvest grain industry will have to evolve in other ways, too. This session will explore current price-and-production trends and show how they're likely to drive changes at your company or grain facility. Key issues are inventory management, dryer capacity, food and feed safety, biotechnology approvals and specialization. The presentation will also discuss USDA-GIPSA’s plans to expedite use of new moisture-meter technology for official moisture measurements, starting in August of this year.
Current Research in Grain Handling & Storage:
What it Means and Where Do We Go From Here?
This double session will feature presentations on the practical application of four current grain-handling research projects being undertaken by NC213, a consortium of public universities meeting this year in conjunction with the GEAPS Exchange. The presenters are university researchers who will be attending the NC213 annual meeting, which will run concurrently with the Exchange. All of the research presented is intended to tackle real operations challenges in the grain industry. Led by Dr. Charles Hurburgh of Iowa State University, the session will also ask for industry input about what real-world issues NC213 scientists should address next.
Property and Casualty Risk Management
Current Issues in Food Defense
Speaker: Richard A. Ryan, assistant deputy director, asset protection division, corporate security department, Archer Daniels Midland, Decatur, IL
Food defense remains one of the most complex issues facing all segments of the food and feed industries. This session will provide an overview of current efforts to characterize and mitigate food defense-related risks. Food defense will be regulated through the Food Safety Modernization Act. Potential industry impacts resulting from the regulation will be discussed, as well as the importance of maintaining a good-faith partnership towards substantive food defense.
Enter at Your Owner's Risk!
Speaker: Jeff Green, product manager commercial storage, GSI Group, Assumption, IL
This session will discuss the pitfalls of operating sweep augers and the solutions that our industry has to offer. It will look at the options of adding vehicle traffic doors, how to redesign your new or current tank to install entry doors, and how to safely utilize automated augers—all in the interest of keeping employees from having to enter bins while equipment is operating.
Innovations in Fall Protection
Speaker: Mark Damon, president, Process Marketing Group, Blue Springs, MO
Providing effective and appropriate fall protection at a grain facility can present some unique challenges. This session will discuss best ways of protecting employees from falling whether they're working in bins, on top of railcar rolling stock, or other areas within a facility. The session will also cover fall-protection equipment and illustrate innovative solutions to some of these difficult problems.
Do-It-Yourself Disaster Planning
Speakers: Mark Whalen, field consultant, property claims, Nationwide Agribusiness Insurance, Des Moines, IA; Don Jones, president, Houston Grain Trading, Houston, TX
What do you do in case of fire, tornado, flood or bin collapse? This two-part session will examine a couple of steps. The first will cover pre-disaster planning for business continuity—a route to reducing monetary loss. The second part will cover the post-disaster process of safely and efficiently salvaging grain from the disaster area.
Know Your Rights: Preparing for an OSHA Inspection
Speaker: Kip Reiher, consultant, Safety Services of Northwest Ohio LLC, Perrysburg, OH
OSHA has legal obligations, but your company has rights, and it's useful to know what they are in detail before the feds come knocking at the door. This session will feature the accumulated wisdom of former OSHA inspector Kip Reiher, who spent years in the field. With an insider's perspective, Reiher will discuss the OSHA processes, offer real-world examples about the perils of uncontrolled inspections, and provide advice about how they can be mitigated. When it is OK to say no?
Taking the Mystery Out of Air Monitors
Speaker: Ken Bouwman, senior safety specialist, Regulatory and Industrial Safety Consulting, Granite Falls, MN
This show-and-tell session will provide fundamental and practical information about air monitors. It will answer questions such as: When do I use them? What kind do I need? What are the costs/benefits? and How do they work? Simple and understandable step-by-step procedures, required for proper use in identifying life-threatening hazards will be demonstrated. Calibration will be made simple and understandable, based on the manufacturers' recommendations. This session will help take the mystery out of selecting and using air-monitoring equipment in your workplace.
Arc Flash: Personal Hazards and Employer Responsibilities
Speaker: Joseph Weigel, president, Electrical Safety Works LLC, Nashville, TN
This session will present an overview of the NFPA standard for electrical safety in the workplace. It will discuss types of major electrical faults that can occur in electrical equipment, with a focus on arcing faults as particularly damaging and dangerous. Statistical occurrences of arc flash accidents that cause significant injuries and fatalities will be discussed in both human and financial terms. The presentation will also cover all aspects of facility and employer responsibilities for compliance with the NFPA electrical safety standards and OSHA enforcement.
Managing Contractor Safety
Speakers: Craig Snyder, manager, environmental safety & health, MillerCoors, Golden, CO
When a contractor enters at a project site to tackle a construction project, who's responsible for safety? Is it the contractor or the customer? Or both? Whose safety program takes precedence? What roles should each organization have to protect workers, buildings and equipment at the site? Where does the liability fall? In this session, a contractor and a customer with a record of working together will examine ways of effectively managing work-site safety.
Handling Systems and Operations Technology Management
Tying the Islands of Automation Together
Speaker: Jason Grahek, vice president, Industrial Automation Engineering Inc, Ham Lake, MN
Grain facilities operate as unified entities, but their automated components sometimes function independently. Systems used for hazard monitoring, grain temperature control, equipment maintenance, inventory management, power-monitoring, dust systems, bin sweeps, document management, and so on, are sometimes treated as separate islands. Why not bring them together? This session will discuss the multiple advantages of unifying all automated systems in a grain facility, and how to get the job done right.
Grain Quality Management
Planning for Safe and Effective Grain-Bin Fumigation
Speaker: Thadd Bigler, vice president of Inland Division, Central States Enterprises LLC, Salina, KS
To be done safely, in ways that maximize effectiveness, all grain-bin fumigations need significant amounts of planning, preparation and knowledge. This session will discuss the planning process, fumigant options, costs that can be expected with fumigation, and proper fumigation-application methods that can be incorporated to enhance safety and pest elimination.
Facility Operations Management
Cutting Energy Costs at Your Grain Facility
Speaker: Gary Ambach, director of energy programs, Michaels Engineering, La Crosse, WI
Energy costs can take a serious bite out of a company's bottom line, but the pain can be mitigated with modest investments in time and equipment. This session will discuss how the grain industry and other industries are increasing energy efficiency, and how to get the most out of an energy audit. It will also provide examples of potential savings opportunities—immediately and over the long term.
Steel Bin Construction, Use and Maintenance
Speaker: Sid Fey, property risk management director, Nationwide Agribusiness Insurance Co, Des Moines, IA
This session will provide expert advice on the construction, use and maintenance of corrugated steel grain bins. Included in the presentation will be thoughts and ideas on the construction of foundations and tunnels, identification of the critical connection points of corrugated steel grain bins, the proper methods of loading and unloading and the proper use of sidewall unloading, and recommendations on the inspection and maintenance of corrugated steel grain bins.
Combustible Dust Regulation and Compliance
Speaker: Jim Maness, consultant, JEM Safety Consulting, Rehoboth Beach, DE
This session will provide an overview of combustible-dust standards, and point out which are mandatory and which are not. It will help eliminate uncertainty about whether grain facilities will soon be facing a 1/32-in. standard, or whether OSHA's current 1/8-in. standard will remain in effect. The session will also discuss how grain facilities can be in compliance with OSHA standards, and take a look at the future of dust regulation.
Human Resources Management
How to Recruit and Retain Good Employees
Speaker: Jay Lux, director of organizational effectiveness consulting, FCC Services, Forest Lake, MN
Finding good people to work in grain facilities and then keeping them on the staff can be frustrating, time-consuming and expensive. This session will help you understand where and how your company connects with the workforce, suggest steps for improvement as the ag industry expands, and provide expert advice on how to accomplish these necessary tasks.
Grain Handling Equipment Management
Innovative Conveying Solutions: A Look Outside the Box
Speaker: Roberto Hajnal, international business director, Tecnologia em Movimentaçao SA, Brazil and Bulktech Argentina SA; Board officer, APOSGRAN, Rosario, Argentina
This well-illustrated session will take a look to some innovative bulk-solids handling systems that may not be well-known to the grain-handling industry. One combines rope-transport and belt-conveyor technologies, allowing overpass of geographical obstacles such as rivers and roads with spans of more than 1,000 meters and no need for supports. Another, a pipe-conveyor system developed in Japan, overcomes spillage, belt training, horizontal and vertical curves. Others that will be shown include an enclosed belt conveyor running inside a plastic tube with no idlers—dustless technology.
Preventive Maintenance Programs: Implementation and Verification
Speaker: Gary Sondgeroth, president, PMI LLC, Ames, IA
There's no choice at a grain facility: You're going to need a good preventive-maintenance program. But what should it cover and how should it be carried out? This session will describe how to set up a program and cover the main equipment that needs maintenance oversight, but it will also discuss the hardest part—verifying that the oversight and preventive maintenance is getting done on schedule.