About the Roderick Retail Safety Institute

Larry Roderick, Ph.D., P.E. directs the activities of the Roderick Retail Safety Institute (RRSI). The mission of the institute is to assist retail organizations with the prevention of both customer and employee accidents and injuries. This is to be accomplished through:

• Research
• Collaboration with other safety experts
• Collaboration with retail organizations
• Publications
• Consultancy
• Training and Certification Programs
• Members
• Blog

Dr. Roderick has discovered that (conservatively) there are about 750,000 personal injuries to retail customers annually in the U.S. Past personal injury cases shows that at least 90 percent of these accidents are preventable through the application of known safety engineering principles and practices. Dr. Roderick states, "It is my desire that there will be a continual effort to reduce the number of painful, costly, and sometimes fatal accidents to our fellow humans. Human safety should always be included in any and every decision concerning design, redesign, construction, manufacturing, and layout of retail facilities. After saying this, however, I know that in numerous lawsuits, many retailers "talk the talk" and do not "walk the walk" when it comes to both employee and customer safety. I discovered that a serious and active safety and ergonomics program pays in savings from employee lost time, workers’ compensation, and other indirect and direct costs of accidents and productivity gains of 20 to 25 percent."

Dr. Roderick is both an advocate for retailer profitability and an advocate for employee and customer safety. These are not mutually exclusive, but complementary goals.