Our people

A few minutes with Hiram Patterson
January 3rd, 2019
Hiram Patterson at one of the college's eyewash stations, which he inspects each week.

Hiram Patterson at one of the college’s eyewash stations, which he inspects each week.

Title: environmental health & safety coordinator III

Average workday: The first thing I do is review my TAMU and TAMHSC emails to see what tasking or requests for information I have and prioritize them with other tasks on my calendar. Otherwise it depends on what is on my schedule for any given week. On Thursdays I handle the pickup of our biohazardous waste from labs and clinics by our MedSharps vendor, and on Fridays I inspect lab eyewashes and our fire protection system valves. Otherwise I may pick up hazardous chemical waste from a lab and enter waste tag information on my iPad program. If I have a lab cleanout, it may take several days to complete. Every year we have our annual university fire life safety and lab inspections that take three days, and I accompany the inspectors. Once I get the reports back, I may spend a week sending out department or person-specific sections by email, walking throughout our building to verify findings and sending out recommendations for correcting cited items. After 45 days I do follow-up inspections to verify corrections and repeat the initial cycle for items still outstanding. Basically, I get things done each day that need to be done.

When you started working at the College of Dentistry: Sept. 6, 1994

Favorite part of your job: working with such a great group of people for the last 24 years and remembering those who are no longer here

Something we may not know about you: I’m a retired Navy captain with 32 years of active and reserve service and was deployed four times after 9/11, including two tours in Iraq and one in Germany.

Anything else you’d like to add: My hobbies are Egyptology, mineral collecting, family genealogy and studying WWII history of the Pacific theater. And my wife, Susan, is a mystery novelist.

— LaDawn Brock