Contact me: (971) 283-6742
Your Guide to Food Safety Excellence
Contact me: (971) 283-6742
About Food Safety Matters
Hello, my name is Ron and I'd like to introduce you to the Food Safety-matters website. I chose the name purposely because the word, matters, is double entendre i.e. a figure of speech that has two meanings. As a noun, matters is "a subject that requires attention" and as verb, it means "to be of importance".
So, food safety "matters" (noun) refers to the processes we utilize to ensure that foods are safe to consume. Food safety "matters" (verb) relates to why that is important and that can be summarized in the statistics below.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on their website of April 29, 2024 posted the following:
"Each year, roughly one out of six Americans or 48 million people get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of food borne illnesses."
No one should get sick or die simply because of food they consumed.
And, as if the human cost is not enough, the CDC added on the same website the economic costs associated with Food Borne Illness (FBI's) in this question.
How much do FBI's cost us in the US each year? $15.5 billion in 2013 dollars. The USDA Economic Research Service release revised cost estimates for these illnesses showing inflation alone increased the cost of these FBI's by almost $2 billion to $17.6 billion in 2018 dollars!
I believe we can all agree that Food Safety Matters do matter. This site is committed to assisting everyone and recognizing ways to ensure that only "safe food" is served and consumed!
Thank you for your visit - I hope I may be of service.
Professional Qualifications and Experience
There are many websites that currently deal with food safety. What makes my website unique? I believe it is a combination of my academic training coupled with 7 years of field work experience that provides me with expertise to assist others in resolving issues they encounter.
To begin, I am a Registered Sanitarian in the states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington. I was employed in three Public Health Departments in each state where I served as Supervisor of the Food Safety and Inspection Program for total of 7 years. As such, I conducted hundreds of on-site inspections of restaurants, taverns, grocery stores, school kitchens, catering operations and itinerant food booths at fairs and festivals. Therefore, I have encountered (and assisted to resolve) many of the food safety issues that commonly occur in these establishments. I am confident that I can assist you with issues pertaining to refrigeration, ware-washing, food prep, temperature control, code compliance, hygiene... and more.
Additionally, as part of my health department appointments I functioned as Staff Epidemiologist. In this capacity I was responsible for investigation of disease outbreaks in the community. Accordingly, I have investigated many cases of food borne illness outbreaks (i.e. food poisoning). This was assigned to me because of my academic training. I have advanced degrees in microbiology and have instructed classes on food sampling and laboratory analysis at the University of Washington. In September of 1984, I was employed in Oregon when the only large scale use of germs by terrorists on American soil was perpetrated by the Rajneeshee cult in the Dalles, Oregon. This involved members seeding salad bars with salmonella at ten different restaurants which resulted in 751 people becoming ill with many hospitalized. I assisted in interviewing those who became ill and delivered samples to the lab.
I have conducted co-joint inspections of food processing plants with federal agents of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
I have been a member of the National Environmental Health Association for 18 years and served as President of the Treasure Valley Chapter of the Idaho Environmental Health Association. I have been a featured speaker at various regional and national seminars where I spoke on "Environmental Growth Factors of Contaminants in Outbreaks of Food Borne Illness".
I have designed curriculum for the Hospitality Division of Mt. Hood Community College for the class titled "Food Safety and Sanitation" and taught the class for five years.
I am a certified Instructor/Proctor for the ServSafe Manager Training Program of the National Restaurant Association. I have been an Instructor/Proctor continuously since 2008. In the interim, I have instructed many classes with students numbering well into the hundreds.
I am also a certified Instructor/Proctor of the Prometric Certified Professional Food Manager Program. This designates that I have demonstrated the necessary skills and competency to train candidates for food safety manager certification.
Services
EMPLOYEE TRAINING/CERTIFICATIONS
To achieve the goal of any food safety program requires that individuals involved in preparation and service of such foods be well trained in recognizing how and why foods may be unsafe.
We provide training classes leading to Food Manager Certification. Classes are taught predominantly in the ServSafe format but a NHEA Professional Food Manager Certification is another option. All classes satisfy ANSI standards.
My academic training in microbiology and adult education has resulted in a presentation style that is unique. I have removed the "mundane and boring" from such classes and replaced them with "exciting, relative, and enjoyable."
An additional feature of my service is that I am willing to partner with any other agency or individual to collaborate in instructing their class presentations or assist in proctoring any exams online.
CONSULTING SERVICES
Through seven years of conducting on-site inspections of a diverse array of food service establishments, I have become very familiar with issues confronting food service managers and/or employees.
I have the expertise to address and resolve problems to ensure compliance with local inspection agencies, NSF standards, and much more. I am here to help!
RETAINER SERVICES
If you require assistance with issues that may span long time frames, I offer you the option to retain my services without incurring an hourly consultation fee. In choosing this service I remain "on call" to your firm and am as close as your cell phone, laptop or tablet.
Public Speaking
If you are looking for someone to speak on any aspect of food safety at a conference, seminar, workshop, or trade show, please contact us with your proposal. Our service has the ability to customize the presentation and content to meet the dynamics of your specific audience. AS an experienced adult educator, I recognize that it is delivery, not merely content that produces presentations of merit. My style of presentation is conversational and is always centered upon applicability of the topic to captivate the audience and facilitate comprehension.
I tailor all presentations to the audience so accordingly I can employ highly technical terminology (as when speaking to food scientists) or simplified language for delivery to less technical audiences.
Course Development
If you are not actively seeking a speaker, but would like assistance in the design of a presentation or short course, we can help you with that as well. I have written curriculum for seven college courses at various levels of instruction. I can provide suggestions for topics, develop course themes, perform research (if required), create visuals or handouts, etc. My goal is to assist you in developing content built around time constraints.
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