Monday, February 7, 2000
Total Immersion
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Campus Closeup
Bob Wentworth
Assistant Director
Environmental Safety Division

TIME IN CURRENT POSITION: Started in July 1999.

OTHER UGA EXPERIENCE: “I received my bachelor’s degree in biology from the College of Agriculture in 1984, followed by a Ph.D. in environmental toxicology through the Interdisciplinary Toxicology Program in 1998.”

JOB DESCRIPTION: “I’m primarily involved in resource allocation; I evaluate what we need to do, how we do it, and ask how we can do it more effectively. A big piece of that is staff
development.
“The Environmental Safety Division has fewer than two dozen staff to address the safety issues for 30,000 students, 10,000 employees, and almost 2,000 labs on campus, in addition to university personnel and facilities across the state. We have a huge mission and a lean staff, so my first task is to fit one to the other.”

MOST CHALLENGING ASPECT OF MY JOB: “Prioritizing. Our entire staff carries a tremendous load, and sometimes in order to get the ball rolling in one area, we have to put something else on hold. It’s a tough call sometimes. We’re currently trying to develop some formal risk-management processes so that we can focus our efforts on the most critical areas.”

MOST REWARDING ASPECT OF MY JOB: “Working with staff and safety committees on campus, talking to students and faculty, trying to see what they see. Hearing student and employee ideas for a safer university community is really important.
“We’ll never hear about the student who doesn’t get injured because of a specific safety implementation--there are no statistics on who doesn’t get hurt. Feedback from students and staff is the most rewarding part of my day.”

OFF-THE-JOB INTERESTS: “Playing with my three elementary-age children. They’ve all started music lessons this year, so we’ve got a little family ensemble coming along with trumpet, trombone and piano.
“Sometimes we camp and fish at their grandparent’s farm. When it’s too cold for that, I like to play chess and read.”

A BOOK I’D RECOMMEND TO OTHERS: “Clinton McLemore’s Good Guys Finish First. It’s a nice counterpoint to the widespread myth that being tough and self-centered is the key to success. McLemore points out that success has more to do with finding common ground with people and really attending to the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ ”

THE PERSON I MOST ADMIRE: “Louis Satterwhite. He’s retired now, having been a business executive in the Athens area and then business operations manager for a local church.
“He taught me to ask two key questions about business decisions, “What will we get?” and “What will we have to give up to get it?” He knew how to get straight to the point and not get bogged down in endless analysis and detail. The thing that has always most impressed me, though, is his tremendous sense of ethics. When I need to sort through the right-and-wrong of a question, I try to get his input, either in person or simply by reminding myself of some of the things I’ve picked up from him along the way.”

THE ISSUE THAT MOST CONCERNS ME ABOUT TODAY’S WORLD: “I tend to agree with Dwight Eisenhower’s response to a similar question as he was leaving office. President Eisenhower was asked what he thought would be the greatest threat to America over the coming decades. A lot of people were surprised that the former military leader didn’t cite Communism or the Soviet Union, but instead focused on two issues: teenage pregnancy and parents who either couldn’t or wouldn’t take the time to give guidance and direction to their children.
“ I think that our biggest challenge today is for us as adults to break out of the trap of chasing money, building a career and piling up a big retirement account, and instead focus on what’s happening to our children.
“We need to find a way to protect them and communicate our values to them. It’s too easy to overlook the relationships with people, especially with our families, and that’s really all that’s going to be there in the long run. We need to turn down the burner under the rat race and free people up to have the time for those relationships. ”
--Ryan Crowe
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