Last week I attended training on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. When we got to Habit 6: Synergize, it made me think about the recent EPA Region VI Radon Stakeholders Meeting, held March 16-17, 2009 in Oklahoma City, OK. The principle of synergy is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As a result of synergy, you will achieve innovation and invention; new and better solutions; transformed relationships and an appreciation of diverse perspectives. This is exactly how I would describe the meeting we held in Region VI.
Our first day was a meeting of the state and tribal radon programs in Region VI. Radon Leaders from the Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana were in attendance representing the state programs. Representatives from the Eastern Shawnee Nation of Oklahoma, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, the Jicarilla Apache Nation, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the Kaw Nation attended, representing tribes in the region. During that first day each state and tribe reported on their most significant accomplishments during the previous year. I learned that the Eastern Shawnee Nation of Oklahoma had great success with the National Safety Council Radon Poster Contest. I networked with Bob Haskins of the Eastern Shawnee Nation of Oklahoma later in the day, and we decided to build a partnership working on the Radon Poster Contest. We are committed to building on the tribe’s past success, and are going to increase participation even further. Bob and I both share the goal of having a tribal student from Oklahoma place in the Contest, and with the trip to Washington, DC for winning students.
During meeting breaks, the representatives from the state of Oklahoma and all of the tribes in Oklahoma had a chance to talk about the lack of a central bank and map for radon results in Oklahoma. At the meeting we decided that to pool our data so that we would have more information and a better map for the state and all the tribes in the state. I will be leading the effort to pool the data and begin developing a revised state map.
Later in the afternoon on day one, we broke up into small groups to discuss our visions and goals for our programs for the next year. The Oklahoma program has set the goal to build a partnership with the real-estate industry in the state during the next year. We plan to offer real-estate training on radon, with continuing education credit. Mike Taylor, with the New Mexico Radon Program had a wealth of information on this subject, and has offered to help us build our program for realtors.
Other radon stakeholders were invited to attend on day two of the meeting. I made important contacts with representatives from the American Lung Association and the Healthy Homes Initiative in Oklahoma. By working with these groups in the future, we will be able to increase testing and mitigation in the state of Oklahoma.
Although all of the attendees at the meeting came from different programs, with different focuses, we all share one vision to work to save lives in Region VI from radon-induced lung cancer.
All of the presentations and meeting materials are available to RadonLeaders.org community members. View them here.
If you have any comments or questions about the meeting, or the work I discussed in this post, please leave them below in the comments field.
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