About Todd Hudson
Todd Hudson helps organizations achieve safety excellence by giving safety professionals the know-how to be great safety trainers.
With twenty-five years as a knowledge transfer expert and extensive experience in manufacturing and safety, Todd Hudson is on a mission to close a critical safety gap: How do you quickly and efficiently move knowledge from safety pros to employees in ways that will stick and change behaviors?
His Maverick Train-the-Safety-Trainer professional development program goes far beyond simple presentation skills. It combines brain science with proven knowledge transfer methods to give safety pros the comprehensive ability to develop and deliver the right safety training to the right people at the right times to measurably improve safety outcomes.
A Maverick Thinker
As a former high-tech factory manager, Todd quickly discovered that training a 24/7, multi-national, multi-lingual, and multi-generational workforce to work safely while surrounded by hazardous chemicals and machinery was a huge challenge. His training professionals had extraordinary SAFETY expertise, but they had difficulty transferring that expertise into safe behaviors on the factory floor.
Seeking a better way, Todd began experimenting with applying the Lean methodology to training and knowledge transfer. The results were so powerful, he founded the Maverick Institute (now Maverick Safety Training) in 2006 to bring his new methods to a wide range of organizations.
Since then, as a knowledge transfer consultant, Todd has helped organizations measurably improve their training with his Lean-based methods. He has helped improve safety training at copper mines in Arizona, hospitals and laboratories in Tennessee, private schools in Oregon, and warehouses in Washington, to name just a few.
Speaker, Facilitator, Author, and more…
Todd is a frequent speaker and workshop leader at conferences, podcast guest, and writer with articles in publications such as Chief Learning Magazine, the New York Times, and The Portland Business Journal.
He is a member of the ASSP National Training and Communications Practice Specialty and is Mentorship Program Chair for ASSP’s Columbia-Willamette Chapter.
He also volunteers as training coordinator for Oregon’s CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) program and is a State of Oregon-certified CERT Trainer. He is also an HSI-certified Level 1 First Aid/CPR/AED Instructor (#9650487).
Todd holds an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a B.A. in Chinese from Connecticut College, a certificate from Stanford University’s Executive Program in Strategy and Organization, and a Black Belt from the Motorola Lean Program. He’s also an avid home cook, kayaker, cyclist, prog-rock enthusiast, and superfan of The Big Lebowski.
A Trainer Who Isn’t Afraid to Get His Hands Dirty (and His Feet Wet)
A good example of Todd’s Maverick philosophy of learning goes back to his early career when he was a manufacturing manager for Wacker Siltronic in Portland, Oregon.
When he learned that many of his employees in the factory were still scared of the safety showers, even after being trained in how to use them, he started asking why and heard: “I’m afraid the water will be cold.” “I hear the water is really dirty.” “I’ll be embarrassed to get wet in front of my coworkers.” Instead of making the usual verbal assurances, he showed up the next day in a bathing suit, gathered the entire shift and demonstrated the shower on himself. (And, yes, the water was clean. And warm.)
In Todd’s Maverick Train-the-Safety-Trainer Program, this concept is called generating “Emotional Connection.” Applied correctly (and safely), powerful training moments like this one not only convince, they stick, and they change behavior. Emotional Connection is just one of many methods that participants learn in Todd’s program.