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PPAI’s Product Responsibility Summit
Draws Impressive Speakers, Subjects
More than 160 professionals
responsible for ensuring the
safety and compliance of the
promotional products they sell
gathered in National Harbor,
Maryland, near Washington
D.C., in September for the
PPAI Product Responsibility
Summit. As the critical need
for understanding how to
manufacture, source, ship
and sell safe products has
increased in significance,
the conference, now in its
sixth year, has continued to
broaden its scope and this year it pulled out
all the stops to fill the need.
Summit attendees took advantage of
18 comprehensive sessions focused on key
topics such as Prop 65, product recalls,
lithium-ion batteries, voluntary standards,
intellectual property and mitigating risk,
among many others presented by experts
from inside and outside the industry. Leading
the impressive list of presenters were two
commissioners from the Consumer Product
Safety Commission (CPSC).
“The world of product safety and
responsibility is constantly changing, and the
Summit is the only place where promotional
products practitioners can come together to
learn from experts and share best practices,”
says Gene Geiger, MAS+,
CEO of Geiger, chair
of the PPAI Product
Responsibility Action
Group and co-chair
of the Summit. “Each
attendee leaves with a
manual of information
and best practices that
is easily worth more than
the cost of attending
the Summit itself.”
CPSC Commissioner
Robert Adler delivered a
luncheon presentation
that surprised the audience by presenting
an enlightening, engaging and interactive
discussion on ethics. Asked afterward how
he chose the topic, Adler said, “By all counts
PPAI is an extremely ethical organization and
your folks care a lot about this. My plea to
everyone is to have a rule of thumb by which
they can make ethical decisions. Ethics is
not something separate and apart from our
daily lives. Ethics is something that fills all the
decisions we make on a daily basis. Develop a
mastery of ethical decision making. You’ll be a
better person because of it.”
The session resonated strongly with a
number of attendees, including Pete Gleason
of CPS/Keystone. “What I loved most about
it was that it gave me a glimpse into the
chairman of the CPSC and made me feel
they weren’t a foe but a friend. It was a great
presentation,” he said.
CPSC Commissioner Joseph Mohorovic
addressed the conference with a focus on
the CPSC’s role and its responsibility to
consumers. “Unsafe products hurt not only
consumers but brands and businesses as
well,” he said, emphasizing that the best way
to avoid problems is to understand the CPSC’s
role and businesses’ role for product safety.
He also spoke about the myriad resources the
CPSC can provide and urged listeners to look
to the agency for information. “Only about a
third of calls to the CPSC result in a recall,” he
said, adding that fear of recalls keeps a lot of
people from engaging with CPSC staff.
The commissioner also applauded PPAI’s
efforts to educate the industry in all aspects
of product responsibility. “PPAI has a vital role
to play in this exchange of knowledge … and
has become a model for safety education.
Those efforts don’t go unnoticed at the CPSC.
If the size and eagerness of this crowd is at all
indicative of your commitment to compliance
and safety, I’m confident this industry and its
members will continue to thrive and deliver
safe, enjoyable products for years to come.”
In a separate interview afterward, Mohorovic
further addressed the misconceptions
about the agency. “We are reemphasizing
the priority of the agency to be externally
CPSC Commissioner Joseph Mohorovic
explains the CPSC’s role.
Members of the PPAI Product Responsibility Advisory Group celebrate the opening of Summit.
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NOVEMBER 2016
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