Ken Hoffner
Retired Health & Safety Director
NJ Laborers
Ken Hoffner recently retired as the Assistant Director
of the NJ Laborers’ Union Health and Safety Fund. He
provided consultative construction job site visits at the
request of both contractors and Laborers union members,
assisting them in preventing on-the-job injuries and
illnesses. He also coordinated the Laborers’ health and
wellness services by organizing regular health fairs at
local union meetings.
Prior to working in New Jersey, he worked at the
international office of the Laborers’ Health and Safety in
Washington, DC and for state OSHA programs in North
Carolina and Maryland. Over his 37 year career in safety
and health, Ken focused on moving safety and health forward in a number of areas such as cotton
dust, blood borne pathogens, lead in construction, petrochemical plant process safety, multi-drug
resistant tuberculosis, road construction work zone safety, immigrant worker safety and health, and
silica.
Of all these projects, the road to a new silica in construction standard was the longest. Working for
the Laborers, Ken began collaborating with other building trades in 1996 to develop a proposed
silica in construction standard. We delivered the proposed standard to OSHA in 1997, and then
waited nearly 20 years before OSHA issued a final rule on silica, which went fully into effect on
September 23, 2017. During those years of waiting, Ken was part of efforts to curtail the dry cutting
of brick, block and concrete materials in New Jersey, and he was also part of an OSHA Silica
Outreach and Research initiative to explain the hazards of silica, and develop engineering controls
for common construction activities that create silica exposures such as jackhammering, concrete
grinding, and core drilling.
Ken has a BS degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and a Master of Science in Public
Health (MSPH) degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He lives in Mt. Laurel
with his wife Jeanne, and has two adult children, Ellen and Dan. He enjoys bicycling, gardening,
traveling, and he plays the trombone in the South Jersey Pops Orchestra.