Kinder Morgan petitions for review of an adjudication of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board (Board) granting benefits to William Flanagan . In doing so, the Board affirmed the decision of the Workers' Compensation Judge (WCJ) that Claimant's stroke was triggered by the physical exertion of cleaning up a chemical spill at work and, thus, work-related. Employer argues that the Board erred in awarding benefits because Claimant did not give it timely notice that the stroke was work-related.
Claimant filed a claim petition on October 4, 2008, alleging that he suffered a stroke caused by over-exertion while in the course of his job with Employer. Employer filed a timely answer denying the allegations and contending that Claimant did not advise Employer that his stroke was work-related within days of the work injury, as required by Section 311 of the Workers' Compensation Act , 77 P.S. 631.1 The matter was assigned to a WCJ.
Claimant testified before the WCJ that he worked as an Assistant Terminal Manager at Employer's facility, which handles transfers of chemicals transported by ship. On October 4, 2008, Claimant inspected a disabled crane at the facility, getting down on his hands and knees to take pictures of a damaged hydraulic hose and fitting. Then, after walking up a 750 foot catwalk, he noticed a spill of the chemical known as urea. Claimant began cleaning up the spill by shoveling the urea onto two belts, a process Claimant described as akin to breaking ice on a driveway. As Claimant was pushing and shoveling the urea he felt a strange sensation in his face and became dizzy. By the time he returned to his office, approximately 30 minutes later, he was sweating and still dizzy. Claimant's secretary called 911, and he was taken to the hospital. There it was determined that he had suffered a stroke, and he was hospitalized for several weeks.
Because of his stroke, Claimant had difficulty communicating verbally with doctors and other staff. He communicated mainly by nodding or shaking his head. Claimant's direct supervisor, James Shine, visited him in the hospital. Claimant testified that when Shine asked Claimant what happened, he told Shine that he was shoveling urea when "something happened" and he suddenly had a "weird feeling." Reproduced Record at 16a .
Claimant testified that he continues to suffer the effects of his stroke, including a dropped right foot, which renders him unable to perform his previous job. Claimant stated that he broke his right arm when he fell in his daughter's back yard after his right foot failed him.
2011年12月12日星期一
2011年10月18日星期二
Water witcher is in high demand
Spencer Powell and his drilling crew assembled behind the Living Word Harvester Church at a spot where, according to Powell’s ancient craft, they would find water.
Powell, 59, learned to dowse for water more than 40 years ago from an old “water witcher” known simply as Mr. Ray. Now Powell runs a dowsing and drilling business, Diversified Water Well Drilling, and he carries a notebook filled with the lengthening list of those seeking his services. Demand has skyrocketed in recent months here, about 180 miles west of Dallas, and statewide, fueled by the ongoing drought, heat wave and a boom in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a type of oil drilling that requires lots of water.
To find the best place to drill behind the church, Powell stopped by a few weeks earlier and grabbed two L-shaped divining rods he keeps stowed in the back of his 1950s drill rig. Slowly, he walked through the grass near a few mesquite trees until he felt the rods move. Then they crossed, signaling a potential water source.
Then he recited a short prayer.
Powell has encountered plenty of skeptics. Abilene, a city of about 120,000, is known for its conservative churches and Bible Belt politics. Powell assures doubters that water witching has nothing to do with witchcraft; it’s a skill that can be learned, though some people are born with the gift.
These days, people are less likely to ask questions, including the folks at Living Word, desperate as they are for water. Powell receives several calls a day, mostly from residents whose wells have run dry.
The drought has taken a toll on Abilene, withering everything from the lawn at the town’s chief tourist attraction, Frontier Texas!, to nearby Dyess Air Force base. On the day Powell prepared to drill by the church, city officials were scheduled to meet to discuss whether to restrict outdoor watering to once a week because the level at Lake Fort Phantom Hill had dropped 10 feet below the spillway. Residents had already been restricted to watering no more than twice a week.
Powell drills at least one well a day, mostly in rural yards, on farms and ranches. He charges $25 a foot for drilling a completed well, $10 a foot if the well turns out to be dry. He says he finds water about half of the time.
About 40 feet into the sticky red clay behind Living Word, he found it — although he was still not sure if it was of sufficient quality and quantity to make a decent well.
He sent his brother, Kyle Caswell, 52, to find a hose while he and another worker began digging two pits near the drill. They would shoot water into the drill hole, softening the dirt as they drilled deeper. The overflow would gush into the pits.
A man from the church pulled up. He climbed down from his truck in black cowboy boots, surveyed the drill and asked about their progress.
Powell explained that they were about to reach the red bedrock, or “red bed.” Caswell arrived with a hose from the church building and started to sprinkle the dirt under the drill.
“It takes water to get water, don’t it?” the man said before he drove off.
Powell was nervous. It’s one thing to hit water, another to make a working well. He had sunk a well recently on nearby Anson Road, but the flow wasn’t very strong. On this morning, the temperature was climbing into the 80s. He had sweated through the rim of his cap and the back of his shirt.
He hit the red bedrock about 11 a.m., shading the pools of water a darker brown. The drill continued to churn, humming as dragonflies hovered over the pits of muddy overflow. About an hour later, they removed the drill and inserted a PVC pipe into the hole. Muddy water gushed through.
Powell, 59, learned to dowse for water more than 40 years ago from an old “water witcher” known simply as Mr. Ray. Now Powell runs a dowsing and drilling business, Diversified Water Well Drilling, and he carries a notebook filled with the lengthening list of those seeking his services. Demand has skyrocketed in recent months here, about 180 miles west of Dallas, and statewide, fueled by the ongoing drought, heat wave and a boom in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a type of oil drilling that requires lots of water.
To find the best place to drill behind the church, Powell stopped by a few weeks earlier and grabbed two L-shaped divining rods he keeps stowed in the back of his 1950s drill rig. Slowly, he walked through the grass near a few mesquite trees until he felt the rods move. Then they crossed, signaling a potential water source.
Then he recited a short prayer.
Powell has encountered plenty of skeptics. Abilene, a city of about 120,000, is known for its conservative churches and Bible Belt politics. Powell assures doubters that water witching has nothing to do with witchcraft; it’s a skill that can be learned, though some people are born with the gift.
These days, people are less likely to ask questions, including the folks at Living Word, desperate as they are for water. Powell receives several calls a day, mostly from residents whose wells have run dry.
The drought has taken a toll on Abilene, withering everything from the lawn at the town’s chief tourist attraction, Frontier Texas!, to nearby Dyess Air Force base. On the day Powell prepared to drill by the church, city officials were scheduled to meet to discuss whether to restrict outdoor watering to once a week because the level at Lake Fort Phantom Hill had dropped 10 feet below the spillway. Residents had already been restricted to watering no more than twice a week.
Powell drills at least one well a day, mostly in rural yards, on farms and ranches. He charges $25 a foot for drilling a completed well, $10 a foot if the well turns out to be dry. He says he finds water about half of the time.
About 40 feet into the sticky red clay behind Living Word, he found it — although he was still not sure if it was of sufficient quality and quantity to make a decent well.
He sent his brother, Kyle Caswell, 52, to find a hose while he and another worker began digging two pits near the drill. They would shoot water into the drill hole, softening the dirt as they drilled deeper. The overflow would gush into the pits.
A man from the church pulled up. He climbed down from his truck in black cowboy boots, surveyed the drill and asked about their progress.
Powell explained that they were about to reach the red bedrock, or “red bed.” Caswell arrived with a hose from the church building and started to sprinkle the dirt under the drill.
“It takes water to get water, don’t it?” the man said before he drove off.
Powell was nervous. It’s one thing to hit water, another to make a working well. He had sunk a well recently on nearby Anson Road, but the flow wasn’t very strong. On this morning, the temperature was climbing into the 80s. He had sweated through the rim of his cap and the back of his shirt.
He hit the red bedrock about 11 a.m., shading the pools of water a darker brown. The drill continued to churn, humming as dragonflies hovered over the pits of muddy overflow. About an hour later, they removed the drill and inserted a PVC pipe into the hole. Muddy water gushed through.
2011年8月8日星期一
Executive Interview with David Hirschhorn, Director of Brand Management at CRP Automotive
David Hirschhorn has been director of brand management at CRP Automotive for the past two years. He is charged with ensuring that CRP's core brands are being maximized from both a marketing and sales perspective. He has been with CRP for more than eight years, and has served the company in many product development capacities, including roles as an assistant product manager, product manager and senior product manager.
He is directly responsible for and has played a major role in the development of the Rein Automotive program, CRP’s proprietary brand for OE quality import replacement parts, which is the focus of this interview. In this exclusive AMN Executive Interview, Hirschhorn shares details on the development of the Rein Automotive program and its role in CRP’s future growth.
CRP created the Rein Automotive program, CRP’s proprietary brand for OE quality import replacement parts, just in the past few years, so it may be an unfamiliar name to some. Can you tell us more about the brand?
CRP launched the Rein Automotive Brand in 2008. It’s CRP’s umbrella brand for a wide range of genuine, OE-quality automotive replacement parts for European vehicles, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Mini, Porsche, Saab, VW and Volvo. The line includes anti-vibration and suspension parts, air conditioning parts, axle boot kits and wheel bearings and bearing kits, as well as a new coolant hose program. We source these parts from a select group of OE-quality companies that are either OE suppliers or are able to meet our stringent criteria and very rigorous approval process. As a result, our Rein Automotive line has been very consistent in delivering the level of OE quality, vehicle fit and ease of use that today’s distributors and shops are demanding. The name "Rein” means “pure” in German. We chose it because we wanted to convey consistent and reliable quality, which is the hallmark of our brand.
Why is the import part market, and the Rein Automotive brand, important for CRP today?
CRP has more than 50 years of heritage and experience as an imports parts supplier. We focus heavily on European applications but are quickly growing our coverage for various Asian makes and models. While the market knows us well for the ContiTech and Pentosin product lines we provide, the Rein Automotive brand gives us the opportunity to expand beyond that and provide our customers with important products that are not available from these two global brands.
Many of the products that make up the Rein brand come from companies that are not as large or don’t have the market awareness of ContiTech and Pentosin. We are able to partner with these companies, grouping their products together to create an offering that is very attractive and beneficial to our customers. To CRP, this represents an excellent growth opportunity, and to our customers, it means proven OE quality solutions for many of their problems from a very reliable source they have learned to trust and respect.
We all know the import car parc is growing rapidly and changing at the same time. Because of this, there is a lot more interest in the products we offer for import vehicles. Some of our supplier partners manufacture very high-tech components, which for years had low demand but now have become very popular due to the changes in the market. An excellent example of this is our hydraulic mount and radiator hose programs. We’re very excited about these parts because their design and performance has changed quite a bit over the past 10 years and we anticipate a big increase in demand.
In a very short time, we will launch our line of import coolant hoses under the Rein Automotive brand name. The coolant hoses used on many late model vehicles are more than just “hoses.” They are systems composed of complex vehicle-specified assemblies featuring molded configurations with integrated thermocouples, O-ring seals and multiple connections to various engine components. Because of this, the typical “cut to fit” solution for molded hose that’s been around the market for years won’t work anymore. These applications require the exact form, fit and function of the OE part.
From a geographic standpoint, what are CRP/Rein’s most important markets today, and why?
The focus for the Rein brand is mostly on European vehicles, so the geographic regions we’ve been targeting are the East and West Coasts as well as areas like Chicago and portions of Texas. But as the number of import vehicles grow, so does demand in other geographic markets. Today, we have customers throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico for the Rein Automotive brand. Fortunately for us, our ContiTech belt program is an all makes, all models program with growing distribution in most regions, so we’re able to use our established customers to find out when the demand for European vehicle components grows enough in other markets to start targeting them.
He is directly responsible for and has played a major role in the development of the Rein Automotive program, CRP’s proprietary brand for OE quality import replacement parts, which is the focus of this interview. In this exclusive AMN Executive Interview, Hirschhorn shares details on the development of the Rein Automotive program and its role in CRP’s future growth.
CRP created the Rein Automotive program, CRP’s proprietary brand for OE quality import replacement parts, just in the past few years, so it may be an unfamiliar name to some. Can you tell us more about the brand?
CRP launched the Rein Automotive Brand in 2008. It’s CRP’s umbrella brand for a wide range of genuine, OE-quality automotive replacement parts for European vehicles, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Mini, Porsche, Saab, VW and Volvo. The line includes anti-vibration and suspension parts, air conditioning parts, axle boot kits and wheel bearings and bearing kits, as well as a new coolant hose program. We source these parts from a select group of OE-quality companies that are either OE suppliers or are able to meet our stringent criteria and very rigorous approval process. As a result, our Rein Automotive line has been very consistent in delivering the level of OE quality, vehicle fit and ease of use that today’s distributors and shops are demanding. The name "Rein” means “pure” in German. We chose it because we wanted to convey consistent and reliable quality, which is the hallmark of our brand.
Why is the import part market, and the Rein Automotive brand, important for CRP today?
CRP has more than 50 years of heritage and experience as an imports parts supplier. We focus heavily on European applications but are quickly growing our coverage for various Asian makes and models. While the market knows us well for the ContiTech and Pentosin product lines we provide, the Rein Automotive brand gives us the opportunity to expand beyond that and provide our customers with important products that are not available from these two global brands.
Many of the products that make up the Rein brand come from companies that are not as large or don’t have the market awareness of ContiTech and Pentosin. We are able to partner with these companies, grouping their products together to create an offering that is very attractive and beneficial to our customers. To CRP, this represents an excellent growth opportunity, and to our customers, it means proven OE quality solutions for many of their problems from a very reliable source they have learned to trust and respect.
We all know the import car parc is growing rapidly and changing at the same time. Because of this, there is a lot more interest in the products we offer for import vehicles. Some of our supplier partners manufacture very high-tech components, which for years had low demand but now have become very popular due to the changes in the market. An excellent example of this is our hydraulic mount and radiator hose programs. We’re very excited about these parts because their design and performance has changed quite a bit over the past 10 years and we anticipate a big increase in demand.
In a very short time, we will launch our line of import coolant hoses under the Rein Automotive brand name. The coolant hoses used on many late model vehicles are more than just “hoses.” They are systems composed of complex vehicle-specified assemblies featuring molded configurations with integrated thermocouples, O-ring seals and multiple connections to various engine components. Because of this, the typical “cut to fit” solution for molded hose that’s been around the market for years won’t work anymore. These applications require the exact form, fit and function of the OE part.
From a geographic standpoint, what are CRP/Rein’s most important markets today, and why?
The focus for the Rein brand is mostly on European vehicles, so the geographic regions we’ve been targeting are the East and West Coasts as well as areas like Chicago and portions of Texas. But as the number of import vehicles grow, so does demand in other geographic markets. Today, we have customers throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico for the Rein Automotive brand. Fortunately for us, our ContiTech belt program is an all makes, all models program with growing distribution in most regions, so we’re able to use our established customers to find out when the demand for European vehicle components grows enough in other markets to start targeting them.
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