Stan Rodgers Tribute

Yesterday I had the gut wrenching task of paying tribute to my mentor Stan Rodgers who passed away on June 1st this year, in the first plenary session at the third meeting of TC283 Occupational Health and Safety Management.

A little about Stan Rodgers. Stan was an active participant in the development of the ISO 14000 series environmental management systems as an Australian representative to ISO Technical Committee 207 since its formation in 1993 and participated in the development of ISO 45001 on Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems (as it was named then). He sat on four Australian National Standards Committees and has represented Australia in the development of some of the ISO GHG standards as well as at more recent meetings on sustainable communities. He was recognised by Standards Australia by presenting him the Award in 1995 for his work in contributing to the development of standards.

He worked extensively with the Green Globe Asia Pacific on the development and implementation of the UN World Tourism Organisation recognised Green Globe 21 Community and Company Standards for sustainable travel and tourism and carried out training and assessments on their behalf in the USA, Iceland, China and New Zealand. He spoke extensively at conferences on Travel and Tourism, Ecotourism, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Reporting and the Sustainable Certification of Tourism and been a judge on the ACCA MESRA awards in Malaysia. He was a member of the Global Reporting Initiative Due Process Oversight Committee and conducted GRI training courses in conjunction with NCSR Indonesia.

I was privileged to be mentored by Stan over the last five years. We travelled the world together, working on the development of ISO45001. Stan had a way with words, and being chastised or receiving a light public berating was all par for the course, in Stan's beautiful mind. What didn't make you cry made you stronger, yep he was old school and wasn't about to change for anyone.

While I have witnessed some sound international's Standards debate in my time, I can confidently say, no one out of 170 international delegates across the world over 72 countries, could convincingly beat Stan in debate. On June 1 2019, we lost our grandfather of International Standards. A massive loss and a real life changing privilege to have spent so much time with such a wealth of information.

Stan's technical knowledge was rivalled by no one! There you go I said it, because to date it is true. His ability and prowess to recognise the relationships between Standard clauses, through his deep understanding of the ISO process and way of doing things, placed him incredibly well to knock off any attempt to cast another view, other than his, off their perch.

I'm not normally rattled by much these days, as those who know me, know I have lived a full life, some might say. But the number of tributes, letters of respect and messages filled with kind words, somewhat rattled me, overwhelmingly to say the least. From all over the globe, they kept cascading in.

I would personally like to thank Standards Australia for formally recognising Stan's devoted contribution, our NSB Project Manager of SF-001Aldine Ward for being instrumental and consoling, Karen Batt (SA International) for making their tribute real and heartfelt and Martin Cottam, Sally Swingewood, David Smith, Kristian Glaesel, Charles Corrie and Jose Alcorta for their messages of condolences in particular.

THE WORLD IS A LESSER PLACE WITHOUT HIM!

#isotc283Rwanda