Ergonomics in Education

About the Award Honoree
Keith has devoted his professional career to practicing competent human factors research, application, and system engineering. However, in the course of his work, he has also found ways to help the Society to reach beyond its borders and expand its scope of applications to new, socially relevant areas of interest.
Keith stimulated the development of the HFES Los Angeles and Orange County Chapters in several official capacities, including as president and director. He worked on three annual meeting committees and introduced several innovations to their formats.

In 1979–1980, in conjunction with the Federal Election Commission and the California Secretary of State’s office, he initiated a human factors program in election technology. He served on the HFES Public Relations Committee from
1989 to 1996 and was chair of that committee from 1990 to 1995. In that capacity, Keith established an HFES speakers corps, a roster of volunteer members. He conceived, scripted, and directed a promotional videotape, “Human Factors and Ergonomics: The Profession and the Society,” which is available as a resource to members (see the HFES Web site). He upgraded, operated, and – with on-site support of his wife, Venita – hosted the HFES exhibit operations at more than 50 professional society conventions, conferences, and expos with attendances of more than 200,000 engineers,
scientists, and practitioners. For several HFES annual meetings, Keith was a force behind the scenes, a person who successfully arranged for interviews with the press for the Society’s leaders and for public radio programming. He also generated the idea of video interviews of the Society’s pioneering.