It’s rare to find someone who is both a safety professional and an entertaining speaker. Richard Hawk has been in the safety and health field for over 40 years. He spent 15 of them as a safety professional in the nuclear industry and a safety consultant on construction projects. Richard’s background also includes theater, where he toured with acting companies and wrote a musical that Emerson College in Boston produced. His depth of knowledge and extensive experience make for content-rich, behavior-changing learning events that are genuinely “fun.”

Safety Expert

Richard holds numerous safety and technical certifications from various organizations, including the National Safety Council (NSC), the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), and The National Registry of Radiation Protection Technologists (NRRPT). He stays on the leading edge of the safety industry through his interactions with safety leaders in hundreds of organizations in various industries. These include energy, manufacturing, chemical, construction, healthcare, technology, retail, food services, transportation, government, and education.

Safety Industry Author

He is the author of four popular books: Spice It Up! 52 Easy Ways Turn Your Safety Meetings From Bland to Grand, The Safety Leader’s Guide Book, Just Imagine!, and 250 Super Bright Safety Meeting and Promotional Ideas. His articles are regularly published in safety magazines, and for ten years he has been a monthly columnist for the U.S. national safety magazine -- Safety & Health.

Safety Speaker, Trainer, and Coach

Richard has a talent for connecting with people from diverse backgrounds and industries. His experiences as a union and nonunion employee, manager, safety leader, and now successful business owner give him the insight to relate to people at all levels, from new employees to CEOs, truck drivers to scholars.

He has been a featured speaker at international conventions for Fortune 500 companies. He’s presented to engineers and plant managers in India and Dubai, Canadian CEOs, and Japanese technicians. Richard has been a popular keynote speaker three times at the NSC’s Annual Congress & Expo, the largest annual safety convention in North America.

Richard is an avid pool player and an accomplished musician and songwriter. He lives in Southern New Jersey with his wife, Jackie.

Richard Hawk
Featured Videos

Current: Richard Hawk: Focus

Time 11:45

Richard Hawk
Featured Keynote Programs

Find Your Focus

How to Reduce Accidents and Mistakes by Paying Better Attention In today’s fast-paced world, lack of focus and mental distractions are a major root cause of accidents. Every year, un-focused acts cost billions of dollars in damage and injury. “Find Your Focus” combats this problem by giving participants the tools to concentrate better, heighten their attention to detail and effectively manage distractions. The end result? A safer workplace. 5 Ways “Find Your Focus” Will Improve Your Bottom Line: 1. A decrease in accidents and an increase in positive behaviors 2. Improved quality of work with fewer mistakes 3. Less sick time due to stress-caused symptoms, such as headaches, and digestion problems 4. An increase in hazard recognition which will reduce accidents 5. A marked increase in innovation and cost-saving ideas Just a sample of what participants will discover:

How to heighten awareness and sharpen their ability to improve productivity and eliminate waste
Down-to-earth methods to stay focused on the task at hand
Techniques to slow down in order to get more work done in less time
Easy ways to stop distracting thoughts
How to make better decisions with more confidence
A proven system for handling emotions during “surprise attacks” from others
Ways to help other people focus, including co-workers, family and friends

Audience: “Find Your Focus” is valuable for employees, supervisors, managers and contractors at every level of your organization. It is perfect for outages, turnarounds and other special projects where it’s crucial that employees stay focused on the task at hand.

Bring It on Home

Powerful Inspiration for Living a Safe and Healthy Life

According to the National Safety Council, “U.S. workers are safer on the job than in their homes or communities. More than nine out of ten deaths and 80% of medical injuries occur off the job. For every two workplace injuries, there are five off-the-job injuries”. During this engaging and convincing presentation, Richard Hawk moves audiences to change their day-to-day habits while they are away from the job. He offers practical, easy-to-remember tips and techniques to replace dangerous and unhealthy habits with behaviors for a safer and healthier life. Safer habits at home lead to safer habits at work.

4 Ways “Bring It on Home” Will Improve Your Company’s Safety and Health
Performance

“Bring It on Home” provides valuable information for everyone in your organization. It is perfect for safety days or safety fairs where family members are included. Richard has experience in children’s theatre and would be happy to create a health and safety talk that will delight children too.

Take Aways
Through poignant stories, personal examples and audience interaction, Richard inspires people to develop safe and healthy habits. He helps participants:

• Understand the real risks of their daily habits and learn how to stop taking shortcuts
• Realize they can change long-entrenched habits (just not all at once!)
• See the big picture of their physical health and how much it affects their lifestyle
• Learn new ways to get their children (yes, even teenagers) to play and drive safely
• Develop life-long habits that will decrease their risks and improve their health
• Grasp the impact of their behavior on family, friends and co-workers

Bring It on Home

Powerful Inspiration for Living a Safe and Healthy Life According to the National Safety Council, “U.S. workers are safer on the job than in their homes or communities. Nearly all of workers’ unintentional fatalities and more than 70 percent of disabling injuries occur off the job. For every two workplace injuries, there are five off-the-job injuries”.During this engaging and convincing presentation, Richard Hawk moves audiences to change their dayto-day habits while they are away from the job. He offers practical, easy-to-remember tips and techniques to replace dangerous and unhealthy habits with behaviors for a safer and healthier life. Safer habits at home lead to safer habits at work.4 Ways “Bring It on Home” Will Improve Your Company’s Safety and Health Performance1. Reduced costs as a result of fewer injuries and fatalities off the job2. Healthier employees, which means better performance and reduced healthcare costs3. A stronger feeling among employees that the company truly cares about them4. A more vibrant and all-encompassing safety cultureThrough poignant stories, personal examples and audience interaction, Richard inspires people todevelop safe and healthy habits. He helps participants:

Understand the real risks of their daily habits and learn how to stop taking shortcuts
Realize they can change long-entrenched habits (just not all at once!)
See the big picture of their physical health and how much it affects their lifestyle
Learn new ways to get their children (yes, even teenagers) to play and drive safely
Develop life-long habits that will decrease their risks and improve their health
Grasp the impact of their behavior on family, friends and co-workers

Great Leaders Make Safety Fun!

Using Your Influence to Create a Vibrant Safety Culture Leaders at Southwest Airlines, Google, Raytheon and other world-class companies know that when employees are in a good mood and enjoy their work – in other words, having FUN – they perform better. That means they make fewer mistakes and have fewer accidents. In this engaging program, leaders will learn how to leverage their influence to instill a spirit of fun in your company’s safety culture. Richard Hawk, world-renowned expert on making safety fun, uses stories, props, songs and innovative interactions to share what he’s learned from working with hundreds of leaders in all kinds of industries. Audiences can’t help but have fun while they discover new ideas they can put into action right away. 6 Ways “Great Leaders Make Safety Fun!” will Improve Your Company’s Safety Culture 1. Leaders will understand how to help people enjoy their work more 2. Employees will have more energy and enthusiasm 3. Leaders and employees will be more productive, more aware and safer 4. There will be more participation in safety programs and new ideas from the workforce 5. A stronger team spirit will develop among departments 6. Employees will be empowered to speak up about safety issues A sample of what leaders will learn:

The real meaning of “fun” (it is not the same as play!)
Why making safety fun is a powerful performance changer
What causes apathy and six ways to kick it to the curb
How to create inspiring messages that encourage safe behavior
The three abilities common among great leaders
How to create fun and exciting safety campaigns employees will love

View More Featured Keynote Programs

The Future of Safety

A Hawk‐Eye View of New Trends on the Safety Horizon During this insightful presentation, Richard Hawk shares what is on the horizon for the safety and health field and how you and your company can take advantage of emerging trends. Richard’s work with dozens of companies in a wide array of industries every year allows him to see firsthand what is new, what is developing and what isn’t working with respect to safety. Don’t get left behind! Find out everything you and your team need to know to keep your safety program on the leading edge.Specific information in this presentation changes regularly to reflect shifting trends. However, leaders in every program will learn:

How cutting-edge companies save valuable resources by getting past the “incident rate syndrome”
Why savvy leaders spend more time and money on non-typical safety issues once they have low incident rates
Several processes they can easily implement to improve the overall mental and physical health of employees
Why emotions rule human behavior and how to use this scientific fact to inspire employees to live safer and healthier lives
How to give employees the confidence to greet changes with open arms and minds
How to “get more bang for your safety budget bucks” while improving performance
The HAWK (Health, Awareness, Working together, Knowledge) method for creating a vibrant safety culture

YOU POWER!

Using your personal energy to stimulate world-class safety Performance

Discover habits and skills that will make you a more powerful safety leader. You’ll learn how to spread your personal energy throughout your company and community to make good things happen. You’ll leave with the YOU POWER! know-how to improve your companies’ safety performance.

Attack Stress At Work

Proven Methods for Handling Stress and Reducing its Impact on Performance It’s a fact that in today’s fast-paced world, we are expected to get more done with fewer resources. This kind of stress can affect people’s safety performance. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association, stress is a major factor in many accidents. During this in-depth training, participants will learn how to attack stress – the modern epidemic. Whether it’s stress due to a frantic work schedule or unexpected life changes, they will discover proven ways to handle day-to-day stressors. And, the workshop itself is a great stress reliever because it’s so much fun! Everyone attending will:

Recognize how potent stress is and how it develops
Discover how to handle pressure situations with minimal stress
Learn how to appropriately have fun at work
Understand that they have the power to change their outlook toward negative situations
Begin an active program of self-improvement with respect to handling stress
Utilize a five-step plan to minimize needless worry in the future
Leave with a cache of easy-to-use weapons against daily stresses

Audience: “Attack Stress at Work” will help anyone in your organization learn how to handle stress better.

Create a Vibrant Safety Culture

Lead the Way to an Accident‐Free Workplace Leaders face a special set of challenges when it comes to safety performance. Not only do they have to understand a wide array of safety requirements, but they also need to possess the social skills to influence people to perform better. This engaging training session helps leaders develop those skills and create a vibrant safety culture that everyone will buy in to. Participants will learn how to increase their influence as a safety leader and better inspire employees to take to heart their company’s safety and health values. Give your safety program a tune-up and make your workplace safer, starting immediately. Your leaders will learn how to:

Maximize their personal impact and influence as a safety leader
Listen with purpose to find out what’s really going on in the field
Overcome the fatigue and apathy that blur employees’ focus and block their attention
Market and sell the benefits of your safety program to employees
Inspire and motivate employees to be proud of their safe behavior
Reduce employee stress, a common root cause of accidents and health problems
Develop a valuable in-house safety marketing plan that they will be able to use right away

Audience: Create a Vibrant Safety Culture is a must for any leader in your organization who has “safety” as one of their responsibilities.

Just Imagine!

Innovative Ideas to Keep Your Safety Program Fresh and Alive This mental workout will give you the power and the skills to create safety and health campaigns guaranteed to pump-up your employees. Let Richard take you on a surprising and wonderful ride that will strengthen your amazing imagination and hone your creativity. A stronger imagination will not only make you a better problem solver, but also give you the passion, know-how and ideas to revitalize all aspects of your safety program. Giving safety leaders fun and powerful techniques to liven-up their safety program is the main goal of this workshop. Through stories, exercises, demonstrations and songs, attendees will learn:

What it means to imagine
Why imagination is a powerful problem-solving tool
How some of the great “imaginers” from the past and present (such as Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs) developed their skills
Practical ways to hone their imagination and overcome obstacles that hinder imagination
Ways to use their imagination to improve their safety program and add spice to their meetings and communications
How imagination is a key factor in successful accident investigations

Audience: “Just Imagine!” is designed for anyone in your organization who needs to come up with fresh ideas and new ways to get your employees excited about your safety program.

Spice It Up!

Practical Ways to Turn Your Safety Presentations from Bland to GRAND! Let’s face it...safety meetings have a reputation for being boring. But they don’t have to be! Using the time-tested techniques in Spice It Up, your safety leaders can deliver captivating, compelling and memorable safety meetings that will promote safe behavior and reduce accidents. Participants will master various presentation skills and learn dozens of ways to take even the most mundane topic (even hazmat and confined space training) and turn it into an exciting learning experience. No more napping in your safety meetings! Participants will learn all the juicy details for delivering sensational safety presentations, including how to:

Assess the audience to make presentations more alluring
Create a great first impression and quickly develop rapport with the audience while stimulating their desire to hear more
Develop a set of tools to keep the audience engaged
Manage distractions and “difficult” audience members
Avoid “death by PowerPoint” and creatively use visual and physical aides to arouse curiosity
Cultivate and control their voice so it sounds more pleasing to listeners
Persuade an audience to action and use closings that create a lasting, positive impression
Structure powerful presentations, including defining goals, organizing thoughts and materials, creating a central theme and using a logical progression of ideas

Audience: “Spice It Up!” is a must for anyone in your organization who conducts safety meetings or safety training.