Dr. Derek Kliethermes
Dr. Kliethermes is a Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) with the American Board of Industrial Hygiene (ABIH), as well as a FEMA E/L 954 All-Hazards Safety Officer. Dr. Kliethermes has nearly 20 years of extensive experience in emergency response and industrial incidents involving large scale chemical releases, train derailments, on-shore/ off-shore well control, industrial fires, and chemical reaction/ thermal runaway events with lithium battery fires and large-scale pool chemical warehouse fires. As a consultant, Dr. Kliethermes has coordinated resources scaling from individual investigation to multi-state responses with thousands of responding workers in support of health & safety work plans derived by himself and fellow exposure scientists. Dr. Kliethermes & colleagues patented The Sentinel Protocol; a remote-located, real-time gas chromatography (GC) speciation system for complex chemical mixture spills, involving volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This protocol, co-located with photo-ionization detectors (PIDs), has been used to communicate remote worker exposure in-situ.
Dr. Kliethermes completed his PhD in Fire Science with research emphasis on benzene exposure during crude oil tank firefighting. The research consists of firefighter exposure prevention and post-fire liquid mitigation efforts following the thermal chemistry involved in the firewater / foam application to hydrocarbon storage tank fires, with emphasis on steam cracking and benzene regeneration during extinguishment efforts.
Exposure Science/IH
Passionate about solving worker exposure to hazardous agents in dynamic working environments.
Fire Science
Focused on using sound fire science principles to mitigate workplace exposure to flash and explosion risks.
Innovative Tools
Development of unique solutions adapted for field application from software to adaptive data collection, for threat monitoring.
Dr. Scott Skelton
Dr. Scott Skelton is a Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) from the American Board of Industrial Hygiene (ABIH) with over 20 years of experience in emergency response, industrial hygiene, and health and safety industries. Scott received a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from Arkansas State University, and a Master of Science in Industrial Hygiene from Montana Tech University. Scott also completed his PhD in Fire Science from Oklahoma State University with research emphasis on benzene exposure during crude oil tank firefighting. This research explores exposure prevention for firefighters engaged in post-fire liquids mitigation with emphasis on aromatic hydrocarbons and liquid-phase diffusion in variable liquid temperature zones.
Experienced in short-term strategy development amidst dynamic conditions, Scott excels in the investigation, assessment, and development of innovative & practical exposure controls. Scott also has experience resolving emerging threats such as lithium battery fires, and new processes with complex hazardous agents.
Dr. Skelton brings strong academic training and an extensive background in emergency response, toxicology, industrial hygiene, fire safety, and health and safety.
Exposure Science/IH
Passionate about solving worker exposure to hazardous agents in unique working environments.
Fire Science
Focused on using sound fire science principles to mitigate workplace exposure to flash and explosion risks.
Engineered Controls
Experienced in the development of engineering controls designed for effective outcomes and practical implementation.
Cole Tinsley, CIH
Cole Tinsley is a Senior Exposure Scientist at ONYX Exposure Science, LLC with nearly a decade of emergency response and consulting experience. As a Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) with the American Board of Industrial Hygiene (ABIH), he has provided extensive industrial hygiene and emergency response support for hazardous materials incidents involving commodities from crude oil to toxic- and poison-inhalation hazards, onshore and offshore, domestically and internationally.
Cole’s experience is comprised of hazard assessment and surveillance of toxic and/or flammable environments, operational safety planning, exposure monitoring and sampling, data analysis and interpretation, and practical control strategies for dynamic field operations. He holds a B.S. in Biosystems Engineering from Clemson University, previously earned his Engineer-in-Training (EIT) designation through the Texas Board of Professional Engineers, and is currently pursuing an M.S. focused on Fire Safety and Explosion Protection at Oklahoma State University.
Exposure Assessment
Experienced in assessment and interpretation of chemical and physical exposure threats to worker health and safety.
Fire Science
Specialized in bridging the gap between literature and practical engineering controls.
Process Safety
Passionate about the evaluation of hazards and their consequences surrounding temporary mitigation and remediation strategies.
Chad Harting, MS
Chad Harting is the Senior Operations Specialist at ONYX Exposure Science, LLC, where he leads operations, DevOps, systems development, and strategic planning. Chad has more than two decades of experience building and running complex, multi-stakeholder operations across catastrophic (CAT) emergency response, international real estate development, and residential construction. Previously, at a national emergency response and environmental consulting firm, he supported data management and logistics for the Texas General Land Office (TGLO) Hurricane Harvey recovery effort, then rebuilt the firm's post-hurricane field data collection and damage assessment methodology. He engineered custom field software that captures industrial hygiene (IH) data and damage assessments of the built environment quickly and accurately at scale, and designed and delivered training curriculum to hundreds of responders. When his system was deployed for Hurricane Ian in Florida, it helped response partners gain time and accuracy and drove more than 25x growth in the firm's hurricane response program, reaching $12.8MM in billable revenue in its first year.
Earlier in his career, Chad directed sales and site development for a roughly 20,000-acre mixed-use development in coastal Belize, keeping teams safe and productive across remote, logistically demanding terrain from the mountains to the barrier reef and helping secure nine-figure foreign investment over five years. Before that, as a fifth-generation custom home builder, he coordinated large-scale projects among crews, subcontractors, suppliers, and clients.
Chad received a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Physiology and a Master of Science in Human Performance, with emphasis in sports psychology, biomechanics, and kinesiology, from Arkansas State University. A member of the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team in the pole vault and a 1997 World University Games silver medalist, Chad brings the discipline of elite performance to every operation he runs.
Exposure Assessment
Experienced in assessment and interpretation of chemical and physical exposure threats to worker health and safety.
Process Safety
Passionate about the evaluation of hazards and their consequences surrounding temporary mitigation and remediation strategies.
Michael Kubicki, MS
Michael Kubicki is a Project Fire Safety Engineer at ONYX Exposure Science, LLC with more than six years of experience across fire protection, fire science research, and emergency response consulting. He has applied his background in fire dynamics and engineering to support complex chemical release responses and transfers, and his published research spans structural fire performance, life safety and egress, and contaminated fabrics.
Michael's experience is comprised of fire and explosion hazard analysis, code and best-practice review, fire and chemical release modeling, and mitigation strategy development, grounded in field experience. He holds a B.S. in Fire Protection & Safety Engineering Technology and an M.S. in Fire Safety and Explosion Protection from Oklahoma State University, where his thesis developed a quantitative model for assessing wildland-urban interface (WUI) fire resilience, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Fire Science at Oklahoma State University. He is a Graduate Safety Practitioner (GSP) and is working towards his Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) and Professional Engineer (PE) credentials. He has presented his research at the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Conference and the International WUI Conference.
Fire Dynamics
Experienced in applying fire and explosion dynamics to hazard analysis and consequence modeling.
Risk Assessment
Focused on identifying fire and chemical hazards and developing practical mitigation strategies grounded in codes and best practices.
Fire Science Research
Driven to connect research on fire behavior and resilience with the practical needs of industry and emergency response.