The Safety Equipment Distributors Assn. will conduct two of its Qualified Safety Sales Professional courses this year, both scheduled for Louisville, Ky. (April 14-18 and Nov. 10-14).

The QSSP courses are week-long sessions that require passing an extensive final exam before a certificate of completion is issued. Companies that send candidates to the course can post the QSSP logo on their Web site, designating they have passed the course. To enroll, safety professionals must have a minimum two years of industry experience.

“[The QSSP] is designed to distinguish the salespeople in safety from other industrial sales representatives,” says Jackie King, SEDA's executive director. “We want to emphasize that our distributors are the safety specialists and have been getting that knowledge through [our] training programs.”

The SEDA courses place considerable emphasis on regulations issued by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, King says. In addition, laboratories are available for attendees to test and evaluate the latest safety equipment and product lines.

By the end of this year, SEDA will have conducted 25 QSSPs since the educational sessions were inaugurated in 1995. During that time, King says, more than 700 people have attended.

“We have a standing [reservation] list from some distributors as well as manufacturers,” she says. “This is something that is part of their training program.”

Hagemeyer, ORS Nasco and Kimberly Clark are among the companies that send employees to each session, she says.

The general safety industry has been a source of increased revenues for some distributors and manufacturers in recent years. But SEDA officials and King are concerned about distributors who think they can expand into the safety industry just by adding a line of harnesses or ladders to their inventory.

“It is something that potential buyers of safety equipment need to be conscious of,” she explains.

“Different kinds of distributors have decided they can do safety sales, even though that hasn't been their main line of business,” King says. “But [safety] is not a commodity. If you don't have someone who has that knowledge, your worker could end up getting hurt because you weren't sold the best product for the workplace environment you're dealing with.”

For information on the QSSP education sessions, log on to www.seda.org.