USU Industrial Hygiene Student Receives Top State Award

Utah State University undergraduate Dan Kidd received the 2014 Outstanding Student of the Year Award from the Utah Local Section of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. Kidd was honored in a ceremony held during the section’s annual meeting held Oct. 16-17 in Salt Lake City.

“We congratulate Dan on his accomplishments and outstanding academic record,” said Jeremiah Mohr, who presented the award.

A native of Bountiful, Utah, Kidd entered USU after graduating from Bountiful High School in 2008.

“I started off my career at Utah State majoring in biology and thinking I’d like to go to dental school,” Kidd says.

After considering career opportunities he might want to pursue if dentistry didn’t pan out, he changed his major to industrial hygiene.

“It had all the prerequisites I needed for dental school, yet gave me an alternative career path,” says Kidd, who’s maintained a 3.77 GPA during his undergrad studies. “A couple of weeks into my first industrial hygiene class, I could actually see myself in this career field.”

A summer internship with Sinclair Wyoming Refining Company near Rawlins, Wyo. afforded him the opportunity to experience industrial hygiene duties first-hand.

“I did a ton of sampling of health hazards because the refinery was in the middle of a ‘turnaround’ — that is, a period when the refinery has a planned, temporary shutdown in preparation for new operations,” Kidd says. “After two weeks, they basically turned me loose to sample on my own. After that summer, dental school was no longer a consideration; I wanted to be an industrial hygienist.”

A second internship with Chevron Richmond Refinery on California’s San Francisco Bay followed.

“At Chevron, I was able to develop my own hazards exposure profile for the refinery’s quality control lab,” Kidd says. “This included creating my own sampling plan and carrying out all of the sampling. After that experience, there was no longer any doubt in my mind that I wanted to be in the health and safety profession.”

Just last week, Chevron offered Kidd a permanent position following his spring graduation.

“I look forward to continued growth in this profession and plan to become a Certified Industrial Hygienist,” he says.

USU’s industrial hygiene program, part of the Department of Biology’s public health program, is one of only four undergraduate programs in the nation accredited by the Applied Science Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology. Industrial hygiene is a component of workplace safety that deals specifically with protecting workers from health hazards.

USU’s AIHA student section was named the 2012-13 “Student Local Section of the Year” by the American Industrial Hygiene Association.

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Contact: Carl Farley, 435-797-2566, carl.farley@usu.edu

Writer: Mary-Ann Muffoletto, 435-797-3517, maryann.muffoletto@usu.edu