Beth Baker joined NHTSA as the Regional Administrator for the Mid-Atlantic Regional office in Baltimore, May, 1998 after serving as Maryland’s Highway Safety Coordinator for four years.  Beth has been involved with highway safety since 1980, when she began teaching driver education while pursuing a Master’s Degree at The Ohio State University.  After several white-knuckle years of teaching, she moved on to the University of Maryland, teaching health and safety education courses while continuing her graduate studies.  After receiving a doctorate in Health and Safety Education in 1989, she joined Maryland’s State Highway Safety Office.’

During her tenure with the Maryland DOT, Beth held several positions, finally serving as Traffic Safety Division Chief and Maryland’s Highway Safety Coordinator.  As Highway Safety Coordinator, Beth set out to expand the program, create new partnerships, and vigorously support efforts to enact highway safety legislation in Maryland.  During this time, she also held an adjunct faculty position with the University of Maryland, remaining active in ignition interlock research.  Beth has done extensive teaching for NHTSA and was active in the National Association of Governor’s Highway Safety Representatives.

As Regional Administrator, Beth focuses on NHTSA’s mission of saving lives, preventing injuries, and reducing traffic-related health care costs by promoting her philosophy that people make this program work.  Implementing effective and efficient highway safety programs through a close partnership with the states in the Mid-Atlantic Region is the cornerstone of her work.  Beth facilitated the participation of all six jurisdictions in NHTSA’s “Click It Or Ticket” safety belt program and she conceived and continues to promote the Region-wide “Checkpoint Strikeforce” sobriety checkpoint program

Beth lives in College Park, Maryland and includes home improvement, letterboxing, and cheering on the Baltimore Orioles among her interests.

Dr. Dorothy Blum is founder and president of SELECT, Inc. (Services for Employees Looking for Education, Counseling or Treatment), specializing in the design, implementation and management of Employee Assistance Programs (EAP).

SELECT, Inc. received the 2006 Small Business Achievement Award honoring SELECT’s outstanding performance for the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Agency of the Department of Homeland Security. Dr. Blum is the Program Director of CBP’s Nationwide Employee Assistance Program.

Prior to her work in the employee assistance field, Dr. Blum was a probation officer for the Alcohol Safety Action Program, a court referral program handling Driving While Intoxicated defendants.  Through this work Dr. Blum recognized the negative impact of alcohol on transportation and highway safety and the effects on workplace productivity, safety and profit. Her previous work experience includes Senior Substance Abuse Counselor for the Bureau of Prisons Special Drug Abuse Unit, and Monitor for Fairfax County Alcohol Safety Action Program’s Defensive Driving Education Course, which focused on the issues of driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.

Dr. Blum earned her Ph.D. from George Mason University, Fairfax, VA conducting primary research on “Structure, Operation and Service Delivery Characteristics of EAPs in Law Enforcement Organizations”. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Virginia, specializing in Human Services and Agency Counseling and an undergraduate degree in psychology from George Mason University.

Dr. Blum is a Licensed Professional Counselor with a specialty in substance abuse counseling and education. She is a Certified Employee Assistance Professional, an International Certified Drug and Alcohol Specialist, a Master Addictions Counselor, a Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor and a Certified Criminal Justice Specialist.

Dr. Blum has been an active leader of the International Employee Assistance Professionals Association (EAPA) since 1987, serving on the Board of Directors since 1994.  She is currently the President of EAPA.

W. Dennis Derr is the Project Officer and Manager for Federal Occupational Health’s contract with the United States Postal System for Employee Assistance Services. Dennis joined FOH in 2000 under a personal services contract specifically to work with the USPS program. Prior to FOH he spent 13 years as the Global Director of EAP and Special Health Programs for Mobil Oil Corporation. Before joining Mobil, he was the Director of the joint Ameritech/Michigan Bell Employee Assistance Program, serving employees throughout the Midwest for 14 years.

Dennis holds degrees in counseling psychology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and Wayne State University in Detroit is a licensed professional counselor and has a Doctorate in Organizational Leadership. He has served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Michigan’s Labor Management Institute for Industrial and Labor Relations and is the author of numerous professional articles and is a frequent speaker on workplace behavior issues through out the world.

Eric Goplerud, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and research professor of health policy at the George Washington University Medical Center.  Since 2002, Dr. Goplerud has directed Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems, a research program at GWU supported by grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and various federal agencies.  He also is president-elect of the American College of Mental Health Administration. 

Previously, Dr. Goplerud was associate administrator for policy and planning at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). He also has held senior policy and research positions at the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention and the Division of Demand Reduction, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Executive Office of the President.

Dr. Goplerud directs policy and research at GWU focused on improving access to effective and affordable alcohol screening and treatment, integration of primary health and behavioral health care services, performance measurement in managed behavioral health and public/private quality improvement initiatives in behavioral health care.

Dr. Goplerud has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and has received many awards and honors, including the DHHS Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award for individual service and the DHHS Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award for group services, which he received four times. He also received the Walter Barton Distinguished Fellow Award from the American College of Mental Health Administration.  He has been a member of the Behavioral Measures Advisory Group of the National Committee for Quality Assurance for 10 years, and frequently chairs behavioral health quality and performance measurement committees for the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the National Quality Forum and the federal government.

Dr. Goplerud earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a doctorate in clinical/community psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. 

Michael W. Heembrock, CSP, is Vice President and manages the Commercial Auto and Workers Compensation Loss Control Services of the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, a leading worldwide property and casualty insurer. Mike received both his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Industrial Safety and for the past 27 years has been employed by Chubb in various loss control positions around the country. His job has brought him into contact with thousands of businesses seeking to reduce their exposure to operational losses.

Mike is a Certified Safety Professional, a member of the American Society of Safety Engineers and the National Safety Management Society. He is co-chair of the Loss Control Roundtable of the American Insurance Association and serves as a member of the task force developing a voluntary standard for fleet safety management for the American National Standards Institute. Heembrock is a Past Chair of the NETS National Board of Directors and currently serves on the Executive Committee.

Dave Melton is responsible at the corporate level for developing and supporting transportation related safety and health products and consulting services. He advocates and participates in transportation-related research projects at the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety.

Mr. Melton has held numerous positions in both field and executive management and senior technical roles. His 37-year career with Liberty Mutual has moved him frequently throughout the United States and Canada.

Mr. Melton represents Liberty Mutual on the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS) where he is the Chairman of the NETS Board of Directors for a two-year term.

He is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI). He was Chairman of the Board, Elect, of the Texas Safety Association and served on the Board of Directors.

Mr. Melton has received an appointment to the permanent Committee on Truck and Bus Safety, A3B57, of the Transportation Research Board, National Academy of Sciences & Engineering. He also represents NETS on the ANSI Z-15 Accredited Standards Committee on Safety Requirements for Motor Vehicle Fleet Operations.

Mr. Melton holds an A.B. degree from Eastern Kentucky University. He is a Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP) and a Certified Director of Safety (CDS).

Ryan Rebman
Manager, Corporate Safety
Ecolab, Inc.

Ryan Rebman is the Corporate Safety Manager for Ecolab, Inc.  Ecolab Inc. is the Global provider of cleaning and sanitizing products and services with over 6,500 fleet vehicles in the United States.  Mr. Rebman is responsible for Driver and Associate Safety for Ecolab’s 22,000+ associates worldwide.

Prior to Ecolab, Mr. Rebman was the Safety Director for United Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota and the Corporate Safety Engineer for Tennant Company in Golden Valley, MN.

Mr. Rebman is a current member of the ASSE Northwest Chapter holding past positions as the newsletter editor and membership chairperson.

Mr. Rebman earned a Bachelor of Science and Education degree in Occupational Safety from the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater.

Tom Walsh currently serves as the President for Safety Cost Improvement, LLC.

Previously, Mr. Walsh was the UPS Corporate Health and Safety Director Worldwide. In this position, he devised and implemented a process improvement strategy that reduced injury frequencies by more than 50 percent.

In his 31-year career with UPS, Mr. Walsh also served as a Human Resources Manager and as an Operations Division Manager in locations throughout the United States. From 1990 to 1995, Mr. Walsh was the Director of Human Resources for UPS Europe. In addition, he was also a key member of various UPS corporate committees including the Intranet Strategy Committee, Information Technology Strategy Committee, and the Human Resources Strategy Committee.

Mr. Walsh was Chairman of the NETS (Network of Employers for Traffic Safety) Board of Directors from 1998 to 2001. Currently, he is the Chairman of the Board Advisory Committee

Mr. Walsh earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and a Masters degree in Psychology from Boston College.