Asbestos

Asbestos Abatement Program

The University of Florida, Training, Research and Education for Environmental Occupations Center (UF TREEO) is an approved asbestos training provider with the State of Florida (FL BPR: Asbestos Licensing Unit), Training Provider No. FL 49-0000995.

Participating in an asbestos course from UF TREEO provides you the information and skills you need to be a leader in your profession. You will learn from hands-on training in a fully equipped laboratory complete with simulated ACM. The courses also provide the latest regulatory updates and are taught by instructors with industry experience.

These courses are EPA and State of Florida (FL BPR: Asbestos Licensing Unit) approved for initial accreditation or annual refresher reaccreditation. They are also FL BPR: Asbestos Licensing Unit pre-licensure courses for Florida Licensed Asbestos Contractors or Florida Licensed Asbestos Consultants. Some refresher courses are approved by Alabama Safe State.

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Meet The Instructors

Mr. Toi Akien’s early career included combined studies of Chemical Engineering and Architecture. He served for half a decade as a Project Engineer for Balfour Beatty in Commercial Construction facilitating building projects for school districts, universities, and private corporate clients. He is currently an Environmental Scientist with an Engineering and Geotechnical Consulting Firm in Delray Beach, Florida. His many roles include managing and conducting asbestos inspections for the firms south Florida district, conducting Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessments, soil and groundwater sampling, site contamination research assessment, and consulting. Toi is a Certified Safety Professional (CSP), an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Certified Inspector and Risk Assessor, an ACAC Certified Indoor Environmental Consultant (CIEC), and a Licensed Asbestos Consultant (LAC). Mr. Akien has extensive training experience garnered as an educator with the Palm Beach County School District and teacher in private local classes. He is the founder of an Environmental Inspections and Consulting Company with areas of expertise in Chinese drywall, lead-based paint, asbestos, mold, and radon having local government, municipalities, counties, corporate, and private clients.

Brian serves as the statewide Manager for Facilities Consulting Services for Terracon, based in their Winter Park, FL office. He has over 25 years of engineering and indoor environmental consultant experience with U.S. and international consulting firms.

Brian has provided instruction for asbestos and other courses offered by UF TREEO since 1989. He has co-developed the curriculum materials for UF TREEO’s AHERA Asbestos Inspector/Management Planner Refresher course and developed the curriculum for the Laws and Rules for FL Professional Engineers courses offered by UF TREEO. He also served as course director, and developed the curriculum for the accredited asbestos training courses provided by a large consulting firm.

Mr. Fricke has worked in the environmental consulting field for nearly 20 years. He has extensive experience serving both public and private sector clients and the insurance industry. He has performed numerous property assessments for mold and bacterial contamination, mold cause and origin investigations, building envelope failures, water intrusion, lead-based paint inspections / risk assessments, asbestos surveys, and abatement design, as well as industrial/occupational hygiene sampling and exposure assessment.

He also has extensive ecological consulting and regulatory agency permitting experience for large-scale residential, commercial, and industrial developments, wetland delineation, threatened and endangered species surveys, and property acquisition due-diligence investigations.

Mr. Grobe is a Senior Safety Engineer that has been a UF TREEO instructor since 1989. He holds a MS in Occupational Safety and Health from Marshall University, is a Certified Safety Professional (CSP), a Certified Instructional Trainer (CIT), and a Licensed Asbestos Consultant (LAC).

Partner ESI, Inc.

Florida Power and Light

Mr. Stauffer is currently a Senior Industrial Hygienist at Terracon Consultants, Inc., in Tampa, Florida. He has over 40 years of experience as a civil, structural and environmental engineer/industrial hygiene consulting. His recent environmental engineer/industrial hygiene technical responsibilities have included services ranging from asbestos, lead-based paint, water intrusion, indoor air quality and radon services where he has served as the Consultant/Engineer-of-Record for public and private entities. In addition, at various times he has performed as Department Manager, Program and Project Manager. His project experience has ranged from schools, universities, utilities, hospitals, federal state and municipal clients, ranging from pre-renovation, property transfer assessments to demolitions of major industrial facilities in Florida and the country. In each of these roles, he had responsibilities for the technical and managerial compliance by melding the various regulatory and industry guidelines with corporate policies and financial goals. In the majority of these positions he has not only been responsible for technical adherence, but also the achievement of the scheduling/staffing, production and profit goals and staff development and mentoring. He has also provided extensive professional instructional and training presentations. He is a Florida Licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.), a Licensed Asbestos Consultant (LAC), and a Licensed Mold Assessor (MRSA).

Florida Power and Light

As an Associate Safety Professional (ASP) Ms. Vilar is responsible for Cross Environmental Services, Inc.’s safety program development, site inspections, training, audits and incident investigations. She has the authority to issue stop work orders to prevent mishaps for the protection of life and property. She provides internal and external consultation for safety, health and the environment, and manages projects involving special or unusual hazardous materials, biological or physical hazards.

Ms. Vilar has over 15 years’ experience in industrial hygiene, project management as well as site assessments. Her project experience has been for private, commercial, and public clients which include professional service firms, manufacturing facilities, various county educational facilities, and municipal government agencies. Her safety and health inspections are mostly unannounced, with results passed on to other senior managers as a review of current procedures, and also to make corrective actions, Debbie produces site-specific, general and special area safety and health plans which are foundations to good and proper safety actions and responses. With her site experience it gives her a solid foundation of core knowledge for a company of more than 200 employees.

David Wiggins is the CEO and President of Hazardous Operations, Inc. and Hazardous Operations Training. He has been in the Environmental Health & Safety field since the 1980’s and his career background experience includes an international environmental engineering company and a large toxicology firm. During his career, he has been a Co-Project Manager at an EPA superfund site and Project Manager of an underground nuclear test Site. In 1994, he joined the State of Florida as the Supervisor of Environmental Health & Safety for state buildings, overseeing all aspects of training, asbestos, lead, indoor air quality, underground fuel storage tanks, hazardous waste operations, PCB’s and water quality projects. He has been a guest speaker at the American Industrial Hygiene Association’s Signature Forum and has testified as an expert before the Governor’s Special Investigative Sub-Committee on Safety for the State of Florida. He additionally was elected the Chairman of the Governor’s Interagency Advisory Council for Safety & Loss Work Time Prevention in two different decades.

Attorney at Law

Mr. Zak has been involved in the environmental consulting field since 1999. He has a working knowledge of regulations and projects involving industrial hygiene, safety, asbestos, lead, PCB’s, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), mold, and OSHA compliance. Mr. Zak has extensive experience with a wide variety of public, private and industrial clients, including an extensive list of architectural, construction and engineering firms throughout the country.


Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently asked questions regarding licensing, certifications and asbestos courses. Select a category on the left to view the corresponding FAQs.


Connect With The Coordinator

Instructor Headshot

Melissa Hamilton

Coordinator Asbestos Programs

melissajhamilton@treeo.ufl.edu
Mon – Fri 8 AM – 4:30 PM EST

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