Dean has had over 35 years of experience with his primary focus in safety and environmental management systems. His success is due to his overriding philosophy that he must:

1. understand the manufacturing process,
2. understand how the organization functions, and
3. then make safety management fit into that organization.

Dean's early professional experience includes safety management and loss control, IH assessments and environmental compliance through various positions, including:

• loss control representative for a regional insurance company;
• in cooperation with IA DOL, developed training OSHA training modules for the industry standards;
• Associate Director of Iowa State University EH&S Department responsible for safety, building fire code and life safety code compliance, and hazardous waste handling, processing and disposal.

As Safety Manager of an international pumps and fluid handling manufacturer, he established and managed the safety and environmental department for the corporation including European and Asian facilities and managed all workers' compensation claim management.

For the last 14 years, Dean served as Director of Safety for a corporate holding company with nine different manufacturing companies in a variety of industries ranging from concrete pipe, box and manhole production, to concrete bridge beam and precast industrial and parking structures, to heavy machine shops, to plastic injection molding and finally medical device manufacturing. Dean worked with the Presidents, Plant Managers, Supervisors and staff of each of these companies and plants to improve safety performance, manage environmental compliance and control workers' compensation costs which resulted in reducing injuries by 75% resulting in directly increasing net corporate profit by one million dollars.

In each company, he has established and managed the workers' compensation management systems with his personal focus on high exposure claim management, litigation, claim settlement and effective return-to-work procedures.