AAR Honors 28 Hazmat Safety Leaders

Andy Ash, retired Director of Dangerous Goods at the Railway Association of Canada, is the 2023 Holden-Proefrock Award winner for career achievement in hazmat safety. (RAC Photograph)

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) on Oct. 18 reported that Andy Ash, retired Director of Dangerous Goods at the Railway Association of Canada (RAC), and 27 shippers have earned industry awards for their commitment to the safe transport of hazardous materials (hazmat).

AAR presented Ash with the 2023 Holden-Proefrock Award at its Tank Car Committee meeting in Addison, Tex. The annual award for career achievement in hazmat safety is named in honor of Roy Holden, a former AAR employee and an innovator in tank car design, damage assessment and safety, and Art Proefrock, a former Hulcher Emergency Services employee who pioneered hazmat transportation emergency response, according to the association.

Ash was committed for more than 45 years to “keeping goods moving and Canadians safe,” AAR said. He took the lessons learned from CN’s Mechanical department, where he focused on maintaining safe operations through Canada’s “Chemical Valley” in Sarnia, Ontario, to the RAC, where he began working in 1999. He developed the RAC Dangerous Goods Team, which supports RAC members in safely moving hazmat. He also traveled across Canada to train first responders to safely manage a rail emergency and was central to developing “one of the world’s leading rail emergency response training courses” held each year in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, AAR reported.

“If you have an accident … you’ve got to get it right the first time. You don’t get a second chance,” Ash told the AAR, reflecting on his long career and the railroads’ responsibility to act “quickly and effectively” during an emergency.

AAR also announced the 27 recipients of the 2022 Non-Accident Release (NAR) Grand Slam Awards. Presented annually to companies that are “exemplary” hazmat shippers, each winner must have been recognized by at least four Class I railroads and have had zero non-accident releases involving their shipments the previous calendar year, according to the association, which noted that a hazmat “non-accident release is an unintentional release of a hazardous material while in transportation but not involving an accident.”

And the winners are:

1. Archer Daniels Midland Company
2. BP Products North America
3. Cargill Inc.
4. Cenovus Energy Marketing Services LTD
5. CF Industries Sales LLC
6. Chemtrade Logistics Inc.
7. Cornerstone Chemical Company
8. Elbow River Marketing Ltd.
9. ERCO Worldwide
10. ExxonMobil
11. FACTOR GAS LIQUID INC.
12. Green Plains Inc.
13. Gunvor USA LLC
14. INEOS Oligomers USA LLC
15. Inter-Chem
16. Kemira
17. Keyera Corp.
18. Koch Fertilizer and Koch Methanol
19. Messer LLC
20. Methanex
21. NGL Supply Company LTD
22. Nouryon Chemicals LLC
23. PBF Holding Company LLC
24. Reagent Chemical & Research, Inc.
25. Targa Resources Corp.
26. Valero Energy
27. Westlake Corporation