[COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS, JULY 20, 2023] CareerSafe is pleased to announce Barry McCaul as the 2022 National Safety Educator of the Year. McCaul is the vocational department head and Auto Collision, Repair, and Refinishing teacher at Lynn Vocational Technical Institute in Lynn, Mass., where he has taught for over 25 years.
The National Safety Educator of the Year Award, presented jointly by CareerSafe and ACTE (Association for Career & Technical Education), recognizes exceptional educators who have dedicated their time to preparing students for the future and helping students recognize and mitigate workplace hazards in their chosen careers. The winning educator is awarded $5,000 for their classroom and an all-expense paid trip to the ACTE CareerTech Vision conference.
“This annual award is the highest honor CareerSafe bestows each year,” said Sherry Pruitt, Director of Sales and Marketing. “Barry McCaul exemplifies the purpose of this award through his long, storied tenure at Lynn Vocational Technical Institute and how deeply he cares about his students and their safety. His career is a testament to his dedication to their education and lifelong safety skills.”
McCaul himself graduated from the auto collision program at Lynn Vocational Technical Institute in 1981 and returned in 1988 to replace the teacher who had personally educated him.
“My philosophy about safety is high expectations about what safety needs to be. And I don’t mean by just the students. I hold the shop teachers accountable too. They need to be modeling safety,” said McCaul. “One of the first things when I walk into a shop, I’m looking for PPE: personal protective equipment, which is the required equipment for that program.”
"The CareerSafe OSHA 10 gives students a tremendous baseline on safety. It gives them examples on how things can go bad, it gives them examples of what to look for — machine guarding, simple things like ergonomics, blood borne pathogens — they are learning necessary skills before they get into shop specifics. It also shows them what their rights are as workers. These are skills any young person going into a job of any kind needs to know."
The OSHA 10-Hour course is designed to familiarize workers with OSHA standards as well as safety and health hazards common to the workplace. Broad career fields such as healthcare, factory operations, warehousing, manufacturing, and others are educated on identifying, avoiding, controlling, and preventing jobsite hazards.
“Mr. McCaul deserves this award,” said Noubertson Rateau, teacher of TV Production at Lynn Vocational Technical Institute. “He’s an atmosphere changer. He’s more than a teacher — he’s a person who cares: who cares about the kids, cares about his coworkers, and cares about the community.”
CareerSafe is an OSHA-Authorized Online Training Provider. The OSHA 10-Hour General Industry course provides foundational safety and health standard knowledge for general industry careers, allowing students to earn their OSHA 10-Hour General Industry Card.
To learn more about CareerSafe and the annual CareerSafe National Safety Educator of the Year Award, visit careersafeonline.com.