Exploring 25+ Years in Ergonomics: Insights from David Brodie

In today’s episode, I’m joined by David Brodie, a seasoned ergonomist with decades of experience in the public sector and private consulting. We dive into how the ergonomics field has evolved over the years—and what consultants can do to stay relevant and in demand.

David shares practical strategies for adapting your services, building long-term relationships with clients, and navigating the changing landscape of workplace health and safety. Whether you're just getting started or you're looking to future-proof your ergonomics business, this conversation is packed with insights.

• What’s changed (and stayed the same) in ergonomics
• How to position yourself as a go-to expert
• Why flexibility and creativity are essential for growth
• Advice for newer consultants building their network and brand

This is a must-listen for anyone working in (or curious about) the business side of ergonomics.

👤 Connect with David Brodie:
LinkedIn – David Brodie, Ergonomist

Are you a healthcare professional curious about how office ergonomics assessments could fit into your services? I’ve got you covered with some valuable (and free!) resources at www.ergonomicshelp.com/free-training.

Transcript

Darcie J's video recording: 0:00

Today on the show I'm interviewing David Brodie who shares his hard-earned insights from his 25+ year ergonomics career—covering mentorship, soft skills, and the future of the field with tech, data, and AI. You'll get all this and more in today's episode.

Speaker: 0:18

Welcome to the Business of Ergonomics podcast. I'm your host, Darcy Jeremy. I'm a board certified professional agonist with over 15 years of experience delivering ergonomics programs to employers of all different types. In this podcast, I share what other healthcare professionals are already doing and being with ergonomics assessments. And how to land those clients that you dream of. Without further ado, let's jump into this episode right now.

Darcie J's video recording: 0:50

David is currently the North American Ergonomists lead at Cargill, where he leads ergonomic strategy across a wide range of industrial settings, focusing on injury prevention, risk reduction, and innovation. Not only that, David's past includes roles with the government of Manitoba Atlas Ergonomics and the Ergonomics Center of North Carolina. David has been the program co-chair of the National Ergonomics Conference for nearly a decade, playing a key role in shaping the industry's biggest events. David's a graduate of the University of Waterloo up here in Canada. He brings a deep, practical perspective on where our professional has been on where it's going. So without further ado, let's dive into this interview with David, and you can hear how his experience has shaped his approach to ergonomics, what that means to the ergonomics industry, and what ergonomists need to thrive. You're gonna get so much value whether you are new to ergonomics or if you've been in this field for many years.

Audio Only - All Participants: 1:54

David, welcome to the Business of Ergonomics podacast. Let's start at the beginning. what are some defining moments about your career thus far? The starting point was the University of Waterloo, so I went there for a kinesiology degree and didn't even know what ergonomics was. But I was very lucky when I went to Waterloo that we had Bob Norman, Richard Wells, Stu McGill. Those were the three big professors biomechanics at the time, and they're all actively involved in ergonomics research. So it was like kin 1 0 1 with Dr. Norman to basically you start learning about ergonomics and you start hearing more and more about it. And I also was very lucky that while I was in my first year, they created the ergonomics option. Now, there was a lot of folks that went through kinesiology, went through Waterloo and. Had amazing careers in ergonomics. that was timing when they actually created that program. So all of a sudden our entire educational focus was on ergonomics. There was, I think, six or eight of us. And we're talking 1990. A few of 'em I still am in contact with whether they're in Canada or us working as well. that's how I got into it. I didn't know, and honestly, from a, career point, once they created that and set it as an opportunity, I looked at that said, that's a direction that gives me everything I'm interested in from a kinesiology perspective and allows me to take it directly to a workplace, which is what I wanted to do. Was it. Almost an immediately known fact that ergonomics was going to be the career path for you once I started thinking about it. Because going in, year one, you don't know. it really is a splitting point in the university career to say, do I want to go into a clinical approach? Am I using this as a pre-med degree? Am I gonna go into research or teaching type of thing? So there's a lot of opportunities. But honestly, between Dr. Norman and Stu McGill, you get a few people like that talking to you and teaching you about what ergonomics is and what the focus is of their research. It just created an interest. And you started hearing about some of the folks that are out there working. Like Allison Stevens, who's out there now. Who's been through it all with Ford and now is at Fanshaw College. These were the people you were hearing about back then about what careers are possible. So that just turned into, that sounds like an awesome career. What an opportunity to start with those greats, because if any of our listeners are aware of Richard Wells or McGill or Norman, these are folks that are being the thought leaders of the ergonomics field for the past 20 or 30 years. These are big names, exactly. And how that experience immediately would've just shaped the career of you. So that's amazing. Did you do co-op back then? Several of 'em were with Canada Post. So those were some great opportunities to work with them. They had a excellent ergonomics program. They were bringing people in every term. So they were using, university of Waterloo students on a regular basis. I got to work at a pulp and paper mill just outside of where I grew up in Niagara Falls. So that was a great experience and working with a doctor there. So that got me connected to OC Health and their needs. So that again, gave me a great insight, and someone who is very focused on ergonomics. From a doctor's perspective. So those were a couple of the main ones I worked at. I think I worked for the Department of Labor, actually for one work term as well. That's really great. And marrying that occupational side to ergonomics right from the get go would really steer the direction in your career. So speaking of career, you've worked in government corporate ergonomics. Where do you see the lessons from that have stuck to you? I think, especially when you're, going back to, the government where I worked for the province of Manitoba. Yeah. Purely we were consultative, So it was, we would go out and help workplaces. We were essentially a consulting group, that helped workplaces, figure out their ergonomics challenges and give them free advice, free analyses, everything to help them out. Through to my consulting time, which was, six years at the University of North Carolina also with Atlas, injury Prevention Services. I had about 11, 12 years of consulting time in there too. I think one of the things that you learn is that. you're always going into new workplaces and always trying to figure out how do I apply ergonomics into these areas? And I think the key thing I learned early on is that you stick with your expertise. you walk in each case to provide that expertise and your job is to learn that business each time. if you put the right time in. To learn the business, to learn how that company works, how their culture works, you can apply your knowledge anywhere. So it takes away a fear of walking into all these new places and saying, can I help? Are they too high tech? Are they too low tech? what's the challenges? If you follow the process of ergonomics, if you implement your knowledge in the right way. You can figure it out each time. There's been plenty of times where I walked in and, I knew nothing. obviously everybody in that plant knows more than I do about what they do. But they didn't bring me To run their plan. They me there to work with them to make something better. So you have to figure out to just be that expert in that way and provide that knowledge. what I'm hearing is that although the hard skills are important for ergonomics, they can only take you so far because you are. Working with these companies and you're not quite sure what you're gonna see until you get to the shop floor. So having those soft skills and communication and flexibility would you say that would be at equal merit or would you say there would be a discrepancy between the hard skills and the soft skills there? I'd say it's pretty close, to be honest. Most of the time what you're trying to do as well is explain your knowledge and explain how you're trying to evaluate their risk, what needs to be done to make the workplace better. And you can't walk in and say you're doing it wrong and you have to do this. So everything is about proper communication, proper interaction with that team, figuring out how to communicate that information. one of the things you also have to do is manage your ego don't walk in thinking you're gonna fix everything for them. you have to push them in the right direction. Know where you're trying to get them to, but not talk down to people about how things are being done now. And really, you're trying to help them get better. And I think when you approach Anybody in that sense, they're gonna be much more receptive to the information. And then we have to take the jargon out of it. You have to figure out how to do your science in the background, do your technical work, and then bring it to your audience at the level they need to be at. If you're working with engineers and PhDs, then yeah, they're gonna wanna see all the data. If you're working with the operational team and employee. joint health and safety committees, you have to present it in a different way and make everything accessible to them. So it's thinking through, and that's why, as you said, those soft skills of communicating are probably the key between who's gonna be good at it and who's gonna have, a challenge really communicating. And I wanna tie that into where you first started because you mentioned that you were working with an occupational health, team, whether that was a doctor or other clinic. Yep. And communicating with those and having the soft skills to be able to draw out the right information. Then to share that with the workplace and then to share it with the worker, and then bring the hard skills to identify where the ergonomics risks are and if you are doing a return to work, how to best work with that. So I think you're really highlighting something that is a good reminder for our listeners. Even myself that our communication skills can really bridge the gap between where workplaces are and where they need to be. 'cause ergonomics is still kinda like this mystical thing I find, unfortunately. I think that's part of our challenge as practitioners, to, get better and better at communicating it and taking. what we know and finding better ways to explain it and making sure it hits the right people in the right way. And to your point about being return to work, that communication with employees, with the person doing the job, and creating that understanding of they're the ones that are working eight, 12 hours a day or more in some cases, and not trying to walk in and tell them how to do their job better. Help understand what their concerns are, combine that with the knowledge of the risks that you're seeing and trying to work through to a solution that will be acceptable. work with person who's doing the job and help them understand it and get them to, accept a change, that's your first step. Now you want do that honestly, before you're saying I need to be able to communicate to the CEO or the plant manager. make sure you can explain it to the person who's gonna use it first. If you're good at that, then you'll be able to take that success and that ability to communicate and take it up the ladder. And because you gotta build on those successes and then show that general manager or that. Executive that this is what you're capable of doing for the organization. If I were to pull back from where you started to where you are now, and reflecting back to your career when you were first starting out, what's the one thing that you wish you knew then? I think the one thing I would say is that early on in your career, you feel like you have to present yourself as more of an expert than you actually are. And I think the key is, you gotta have patience and you gotta have a plan of how you want to grow as a professional, not just, going out too early with too much ego. because whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you probably don't know as much as you think you do. When you're first starting. There's a reason why become a certified agronomist. You have to have x number of years of experience you get better. You see it. Any one of us who's ever worked with a team or training someone to do ergonomics within a facility, you can watch the progression. Two, three years in, there's light bulbs that click on and they get really good at what they're doing. We're the same way. It's honestly, until you've been out there and been through enough evaluations and enough types of work, different industries, different businesses, you gotta see how ergonomics gets applied in so many places. And when you get to that point, the point where I felt like I. Truly had maybe the experience to say that you might qualify as an expert. It is probably almost 10 years in before I got to that point. And some of it gets into these times where whether you're presenting at a conference, talking to other colleagues, you're being grilled in a meeting. And you're able to answer those questions with ease and the information's automatically there. That realization, that self-realization that you've reached that point is when you start to think, maybe I do, and you gotta make sure you're not just throwing things off the cuff, but we are truly, talking about things at the right level. When you said that, I was immediately reminded of that 10,000 plus hours of. Investment you could say, to become that expert. Yes, absolutely. So not only that's so clear for us as agonist because I also have noticed that too, 10 years in the field, then I feel a lot better than two years in the field, no matter what type of assessments I've been experienced. when you can walk into a workplace, a new place, anything with, complete confidence in your knowledge of how to walk into that, what your process is gonna be, how are you gonna work through problems, without saying, oh, I better plan for two weeks and do all these things to get ready for it. It's the more it becomes ingrained into how you do what you do, the more you know that your knowledge base is at a good level. Let's talk about the professional development you mentioned as a professional. Definitely need to get to that 10,000 hours or 10 years, however you wanna look at that. And I wanna tie in this idea of ergonomics conferences because that could be a factor in an individuals professional development. How does something like conferences tie into that? can you give us a bit of background for the Ergo Expo in particular? There are a handful of ergonomics conferences that happen in North America. There's ACE in Canada that's been around for decades. The Human Factors and Ergonomic Society here in the US is another academic based one. The Applied Ergonomics conference, coming out of the. Applied Ergonomic Society. Those are kind of cores. Academic based ones or professional based ones. applied ergo and national ergo. were the cornerstones of the conferences that happened in North America on an annual basis. safety professionals, whether it's the National Safety Counselor or A SSP, have events with some ergo content that's designed to help the safety professionals build themselves. But it's not a core. These other conferences are entirely about human factors and ergonomics. What I was looked at with Ergo Expo was it had its niche. So again, HFES is primarily academic. ACE is a com. I've always loved Ace and that is probably one of the best combination of academic and applied conferences out there. It's always well run. I missed it for years, by moving down here to the us. I've been there a couple times. I was there early on when I was in at Waterloo, so I was involved in it and did some initial presentations way back in, late nineties type of thing. Before I moved here, national ergo always fit in for me as an event that had a different approach in a curriculum. They had longer sessions, and I always said that Ergo Expo was the teaching. Conference, it had an hour long sessions, it had workshops, it had things that was basically trying to teach people who were trying to get into ergonomics. so there was always content that was higher level so that people who were agonists or more advanced, in their, careers from a physical therapy, occupational therapy perspective, that they could always come and learn. Maybe, newer technologies, newer information. There was always content that tried to help people grow and bring people in. The other events are like applied. Ergo is an excellent event for practitioners because it gives case studies, short burst, lots of great information, lots of interaction of colleagues type of thing, that are purely in ergonomics. So I always said there was a balance that in the spring you always had applied ergonomics. In the fall, you always had national ergo, and they both gave this balance to the year of how do we get information out about ergonomics to everybody who's doing it out there type of thing. unfortunately as of, this January the National Ergo event was shut down last year was the last year of that event. In its current in-person fashion, there is a chance something may come back, but I have. No direct information about what that could look like. were you involved in any of the planning boards for any of those organizations? I was involved, with national ergo I was co-chair for close to 10 years. I was brought on, can't remember which year it was at this point. The idea at the time was to increase the industrial content, to increase the technical content, of what was presented on an annual basis. we had a heavy focus on office ergonomics, which was fine, but it wasn't balanced. And we needed to add more of the pure assessment approaches, get more case studies from industries, bring in more technology. Along with, Rachel, Michael, the two of us were brought in to basically increase that. I think anybody that went to the event over the last decade would've seen that the content shifted and we had, honestly, the last few years were probably the most well-balanced, developed. The type of content coming in, was excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed. I went to go see a bunch of people I'd never seen talk before, and I said that was probably one of the best events that I'd gone to. Way to go off on a high note in regards to that. Why do you think conferences like Nashville orgo Expo resonates so deeply with other ergonomics professionals? We need to get out of our own boxes. Yeah. regardless of what you do, if you're a consultant, you have your process and how you do it all the time. If you are in a company, you have that culture and you have a set group of people you work with all the time. If we live in our bubbles we only grow so far. So having those events to go meet face to face. Sit down with people. Learn from people is critical. the idea that conferences would go away, and, they die off and we just go to virtual things, it won't work. We won't grow the same. Anybody who goes to those events always comes back and says, yes. There was a lot of, I've took away a few great talks. But then 50% of my time and value was talking to people and learning from others and making connections. most of the people that I work with now are people that have spoken at events that I've met through conferences and met through different boards I've been on, and made that connection of we have common interests and things we wanna work on and let's stay connected about it. So It's a critical part of my career to have been involved in those, to have volunteered in all those things. volunteered for, the BCPE, I was part of that as a director and then president for a couple years, being involved with A SSP and the ergonomics practice specialty. Huge involvement there, and it's doing incredibly well. At this point. They've had some great management over the last few years Working with the MSD solutions lab and the team there at the National Safety Council. huge value of being involved with all these people and giving you insights beyond your own company. Absolutely. I am listening to this and first thing I'm thinking that I wanna encourage all my listeners to get into some sort of volunteer role or even at least go to a conference. That's something I personally need to make a priority because you're convincing me that this is a step towards just being a fully holistic To be aware of what your blind spots could be and incorporate it to just bring up your game and as an industry. We can definitely benefit from this because there's so much we can be doing for our cities and area is with any sort of ergonomics assistance and the companies that we work for as well, of course. And I really appreciate you sharing this stuff, David, like you are bringing so much perspective to the listeners of this podcast. And I wanted to ask you, in addition to the conferences that you mentioned. Where do you think that the field of ergonomics is headed in the next five to 10 years? I think there's so much advancement in technology right now, so I think people are still trying to figure out how much will technology give us the value we hope it does. In other words, anybody who's been doing ergonomics for a long time. There's only been so many different ways we can evaluate risk, and most of it has been, talking to people, video camera four, gauge the basic tools of the trade type of thing. And understanding more cumulative exposures, more detail of exposures. there hasn't been a ton of research yet and enough knowledge to say what do we do with it all, there's a lot of information that we may be able to collect that, we honestly don't have a complete understanding of what it's gonna tell us yet. So I think the future is what will technology help us to be more efficient, be more accurate in what we're doing to make it more accessible to people. How do we deal with that, manage that, make sure we don't adopt things that are just shiny versus truly valuable. But that's the skillset of an to understand the process and use those skills to evaluate the value of something. So we have to be critical of everything that comes in the door be open to it. And saying, okay, we gotta try these things out. I think there's a lot of potential value on what AI can do for us for processing data, understanding information, feeding solutions to teams more easily. pulling data in that we used to be, what's part of your consulting project? I gotta go on the internet. Find all these different solutions and cut and paste vendor information, do all this stuff, and now you know, the reality is you can ask a couple of questions and a lot of that information could be processed in a matter of minutes. So how we're able to do that and harness it I've seen some great things for companies that are doing incident investigations and using AI to. Monitor the quality of the work that's going into investigations to improve the data that's going into all these massive systems about the different incidences that are happening in companies so that we can get better at it. And then of course, can the AI help us process all of that information to look for trends. Look for things that will help us make good data-driven decisions. So there's a lot. My guess is probably over the next five to 10 years, we're gonna see new tools, new ways of looking at risk, new ways of gathering information, companies are gonna work out the best way to use this technology and AI to, evolve how we look at ergonomics and health and safety as a whole. See, and I love your perspective when you are highlighting that when we go into a shop floor, we're not going to be aware of what we see. So it's pretty much thinking on our feet, and you're marrying that with the adoption of AI that we're not sure where it's gonna take us. However, there may be some opportunities for us as a profession Coming into the profession right now, more knowledge about data analytics, more knowledge about ai and being able to use that and bring it into what you're doing, that's what people are gonna be looking for is a skillset. People are gonna expect you to have better data knowledge and better data analytics to present yourself at a higher level. Now, considering this, when you are mapping out where you perhaps consider the education and professional development of current ergonomists and. Whether it's through the BCPE or university or college level or courses that are out there that teaches a specific part of ergonomics, what do you think would be useful aspects or changes that would need to happen here to ensure that these folks are bringing their potential to the ergonomics field in 2025 and beyond? I think, now, when I was in university, I hated statistics. That was one of my least favorite courses. But when you looked at courses on, research design, the bigger picture view thought process. And I think that's where the whole aspect of being a data analyst, is a skillset that honestly, for the person who's not gonna be a researcher. Understanding the different levels of analytics, understanding how you're gonna be able to use data to a higher level is gonna be, a more useful skillset about how you're gonna work within a company. Because in many cases, if you're trying to evaluate risk, we're gonna be getting to the points where you're starting to pull in massive amounts of data from different sources Looking at cumulative information, and you're gonna need to understand how to analyze that data and build out, analytics to basically, understand it better, or at least be able to talk to the right people at the right level to build out those equations and the process type of thing. So the core will always be there. you still better know your biomechanics, physiology, psychology, sociology, everything, all that stuff will not go away. That's what gives you the expertise to understand what's going on. But then once you start measuring all those things, that skillset on this side is where, we need to grow. Interesting. And that ties back to. Using this data to analyze some perhaps new or interesting ways to look at the data. Yes. And getting as much information that we've ever had with the new technology coming out and tying with AI so that I am resonating with that and statistics and the new era, break something down or elaborate on some aspects relevant to us, still needs to have a thoughtful component from an agonist that really understands statistics. Honestly, sometimes when you look at, how some of the data is being collected out there and some of the technology vendors, there are some gaps in some of those companies where they don't have ergonomics or biomechanics or physiology expertise. So sometimes if you don't have the right people to ask the right questions then you're just processing data blindly to see what trends can I find. Versus trying to connect dots on relevant pieces of data to say this is how we can predict risk. So there's a balance that'll need to occur out there and I think the more we do that, the better. We'll see that technology be probably in the next couple years. This is a collective sense of relief. I am feeling for all the listeners on this podcast no, we are not getting rid of agonists. If anything, it could be, more important in a different data analysis, strategy perspective than ever before. We're looking at the application and, impact of the ergonomics. doing that. But technology is gonna take a little bit of that skill set away and it's a pro and a con in that you're gonna move direct to technology for some of the newer folks out there, they're gonna go straight to computer vision, say, this is how I'm gonna evaluate. Or they'll go to sensors and say, this is what I'm gonna use. So there might be a little bit of a gap in skillset of being able to validate that what this is telling you is good. But, the quality of the work. You're not gonna be spending your time out in the field doing all the grunt work all the time. Now you're shifting yourself to a data oriented, process and being able to use your knowledge of the human body to process that and give recommendations to improve. Let's talk about mentorship. And your thoughts on mentorship and ergonomics, how important has this been for you in the development of your career? I, to be honest, I've never had a direct mentor. But I've always been a sponge. I saw people that I respected how they were doing what they were doing and tried to learn from 'em. And, going back to Peter Budnick with Ergo Web way back. And his involvement with the BCPE. I remember I sent him a note one time and said how do I help, how do I get involved with BCP? In other words, how do I build myself to have a career like yours in some way? Or be someone who has your type of expertise. And, whether it's someone that was in ergonomics or someone that was a manager that had a certain way of how they interacted with people and how they explain things. A couple of my bosses that I've had over time about how analytical they were, how they used information, how they pushed me, and it was like it's about learning from all those people. And now, over the last couple years, I started interacting with someone like Chris Reed over at Boeing and I'd be like, I like the way he's doing what he's doing. How do I take Cargill in that direction? How do I build a program that could be like his, or, I see a friend of mine, Ryan over at General Motors and say, I like what they're doing with technology. How could I build, I can't do exactly what they're doing. How could I be like that type of thing. And it's like you learn from some people and things that make a lot of sense to you. And that's again, circling back to the conferences and the interactions. I met Chris Reed more directly by getting involved with STM. I met Ryan through getting involved with the, automotive exoskeleton group these are people that we were out there doing ergo together but I never would've directly run into these folks before and had personal interactions and learned from them. A lot of times with all that volunteer it's like shoving yourself into situations where you get to interact with those people and you find out that, We're all here, we're all trying to do the same thing, and all those people will talk to you. will always take time to talk to someone if they, comes up and I'd like to learn or understand a little bit more about what you're doing, Full circle moment of the value of going to conferences and tying that in with the continuous improvement of your career and where the potential is. Yeah. So if one thing that someone takes away from our conversation today, I think it's gonna be the value of getting involved in the ergonomics community so you can uplevel your game. Is that fair? Very fair. I'll give one other piece of that too is that, there's a lot of times when you're in the middle of what your job is and having things that give you something else to do and draw your knowledge in a different way and challenge you in a different way. It's gonna balance out your year. It may feel like a little extra work, but the reality is from a mental perspective. Going and doing something different, contributing to something out, you're gonna gain value from that experience. And it gives you a break from being only focused on one thing. And that expansion of knowledge, you'll constantly bring that into what you do. So it just makes, a very well balanced career by doing more The reality too is that there's a lot of things about how we can get better ergonomics and health and safety. That if we don't go out and share that information, it's gonna take a much longer for a lot of us to get better. So the more you share it, whether it's in podcasts like this, whether it's in, online resources. The broader ways to get it out there, or again, sharing it at conferences where you can say, this is what we did and it works. This is what we did and it didn't work. Sometimes you can talk about things that didn't work very well, so people can learn from our mistakes too. I am reminded of a really famous statement that really resonates with me, and it's that a rising tide lifts all ships That's where I really feel like your perspective of the ergonomics industry, if that could be coined in a term, something like that, which is just so refreshing. So kudos to you. Thank you. I got some colleagues who say I talk too much sometimes, I'm like sometimes someone needs to say something I have some sort of perspective that is better than anything else. But this is what I know and this is what we've been through. ever since I've been with Cargill, I have the luxury of working for a company with a lot of resources and support in the area of what we're doing. So we're doing a lot of things that. If we can help other people out by sharing, I'll do it. Brilliant. I have a few more questions to ask and these are gonna be more of like a lightning round if I do say so myself. Okay. And I know that people are gonna love to hear your responses to this. So if you were to say, favorite ergonomics, resource or book that you still go to, is there one resource or book? Kodak. Kodak? Yeah. Kodak, you can almost still use the specs that come out of there in every other resource. So like a core book, with tons of information, would be Kodak, occupational ergonomics, was the other one that, was a key resource early on. Humor. Just find ways to be relaxed. Yes. humble humor and humility are probably the two things, that will open yourself up to a lot of people. Best piece of advice that you've ever received? It was just, talking in one of our meetings last week and, probably the one bit of advice that I got early on. From, Dr. Norman in Kin 1 0 1 was when I answered a question that he posed to the students and he listened to the answer and he just looked at me dead in the eyes and said, you can do better than that. And when Dr. Norman stares you in the eyes like that and gives you those words, it hits the student. You're a year one student, and that became a motto. For the next five years how do you do better? What's your go-to way to stay current in the field? Sign up for lots of, online, webinars, information, going into LinkedIn, and making sure I'm following Resources that provide a lot of information. There's some good folks out there that share research that I may not automatically look for, But just keeping your, knowing what you need to keep your aware of and making sure you are getting resources fed to you, regularly, especially things that are easily digestible so that you're not trying to spend hours of reading type of thing. What would you say the most exciting innovation in the ergonomics field right now is? I'm interested, we're using computer vision. I think it has a lot of potential. I think it's gonna probably grow a ton over the next couple years to be better and better at what it is. I think that is gonna make visualization, very strong for a lot of people. And the reason I think it's exciting is that it brings ergonomics to everybody that instead of doing a calculation and showing a graph and everything, you now have something that is visual that you can show to an operations person, to an employee directly after they've done their task to say, this is what I'm trying to fix. But now you can show them in a very, I'm trying to change this. How do we do that? So it's a communication tool. So to me there's a lot of potential there. 'cause it's so simple to use and it can provide a really good communication. It can demystify ergo for a lot of people. So for me, that's the current, I think AI is gonna be the next one, I'll be honest, I know AI as well as I know statistics right now, so I got a lot of learning to do or I have to work with someone who is gonna be good at it and we'll work together. I can see a tag team coming out here, David and there's the latest, greatest information coming from you with AI or something like that in the future. we just received a research grant from the National Safety Council. Not we as in Cargill, but University of Waterloo, along with partnering with Cargill to do some, research on cumulative exposure and injury predictive, models Probably in the next 18 to 24 months, we'll start to see a lot of work that we've been doing with sensor technology to see, how much more we can do with the data we have. So bringing in some, like I said, very smart people. I provide the big picture view and the data and the questions and we work together to build something really good. There are some great resources that are gonna be coming up. Year and a half, two years from now So all this stuff with the future of ergonomics. David, thank you so much for your time today to sharing your insights. And I totally agree that everything that you talked about resonated with me with the conferences and mentorship and by upleveling and continuous success of our careers. No. The last thing that was coming to mind is as everything comes full circle is like maybe open to make my way up to Quebec City and this fall to go to the ACE conference. And you're not that far away in PEI, it's my list. It really is. Yeah, it is. I'm hoping, be able to make it out there. Yeah. And continue to be involved in Ace. my fall has opened up, so I'm hoping to add Ace as a new, excellent, replacement for the Ergo Expo. Brilliant. So that's the Association of Canadian Agonists Hopping, like the first week of October. Of 2025 in Quebec City. A beautiful place to go. One place in Canada, I haven't been yet. It would be a wonderful combination of, location and people.

Speaker: 36:45

So I got so much out of this interview you guys. If you wanna connect with David, I invite you to connect with him on LinkedIn. You can check him out in the show notes, leave him a message If you are an ergonomics consultant. And you want a place to connect with fellow ergonomics peers, get time saving resources, and stay up to date with the latest ergonomics literature. Then I wanna invite you to sign up to the wait list for Accelerate the Business of Ergonomics. There you're gonna find some amazing resources