Board Members

Don Mays - President

Don Mays is Founder of Product Safety Insights LLC, a consulting enterprise that advises companies on product safety assurance. He helps his clients mitigate risks through product safety program development, and provides training on best practices. He also provides litigation support as an expert witness.

Don has a rich background of experiences that includes serving as Chief Safety and Quality Officer at Samsung North America, and Managing Director, Product Safety and Quality for Deloitte, Vice President of Retail and Consumer Product Services at Intertek, and as the Technical Director for the Good Housekeeping Institute. Don spent nearly 20 years of his career at Consumer Reports, most recently as its Senior Director, Product Safety and Technical Policy.

Aside from serving as SPSP’s President, Don is also Chairman of ASTM F15 Committee on Consumer Products, a board member for Kids In Danger, and a Corporate Member of Underwriters Laboratories.

Laurel Rooney - Vice President

Laurel Roney has worked in the consumer goods industry for more than 20 years and was a member of the SPSP Job Analysis Committee which was responsible for defining the knowledge requirements and specific skills necessary to demonstrate competence and understanding required to design and manage a company’s product safety system.

Laurel’s experience lies primarily within global toys and children’s products companies where she implemented and managed product compliance programs and led teams of product safety professionals. She has successfully developed and implemented product safety programs and built a culture of compliance in entrepreneurial organizations where change is difficult, resources are limited, and the business moves fast. She has held positions at both small and large toy companies including Manhattan Toy, Swimways, and Spin Master. She currently holds the position of Vice President, Toy Safety, Compliance and Quality at Spin Master, Inc.

Throughout her career, Laurel has been involved in product design and development, international sourcing, developing quality and testing programs for globally distributed products, and the development of factory audit programs. She is passionate about cross-functional collaboration and helping educate adjacent teams about compliance and quality in order to improve consumer experience and streamline the product development process.

Kristin Cordz - Treasurer

Kristin Cordz is currently the Vice President of Business Development for Market Actives, the exclusive US distributor of Bitrex® Safety Technology, providing technical, sales, marketing and regulatory support to all US customers.  She is responsible for the development of core Bitrex brand assets and management of high-value client relationships. Kristin is considered a leading authority of this product in the United States. She has over 12 years of experience with Market Actives, and has developed expertise in product safety stewardship, ingredient brand marketing, and regulatory compliance. She assists clients with product development, certification, marketing, and regulatory affairs. 

Kristin is earned the designation Certified Product Safety Professional (CPSP) in 2019 as a member of the Inaugural class of this new professional designation.

She is an active participant in various industry organizations and work groups, including ASTM F-1571 Subcommittee on Liquid Laundry Packets, International Consumer Product Health and Safety Organization (ICPHSO) Board, Society of Product Safety Professionals (SPSP) Board, National Poison Prevention Week Council Chair and The American Cleaning Institute (ACI) on ACI’s Consumer Laundry Safety Campaign Work Group, Reputation Management Work Group and is the Chair of the Future Leaders Board. 

Prior to joining Market Actives, she worked as a Certified Veterinary Technician (CVT) in emergency veterinary medicine and has over 17 years of animal science and veterinary medicine experience.  She holds a Bachelor of Science in Equine Science with a Pre-Vet focus from Colorado State University and an MBA and Graduate Certificate of Entrepreneurship from Keller Graduate School of Management

Ken d’Entremont - Secretary

Ken d’Entremont is now faculty in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Family & Preventive Medicine at the University of Utah. He teaches engineering courses in product safety and engineering ethics, system safety, industrial safety, and occupational and environmental health and safety (OEHS). This position is supported by the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (RMCOEH) which is a NIOSH ERC (Education and Research Center) that is co-located at Weber State University. He also supervises Capstone-Design (Senior Design) project-student-engineer teams who investigate such safety-related topics as worker fall protection and riding lawn-mower safety.

He recently participated in a panel discussion for IKEA Sweden’s titled IKEA Talks series titled A Safer Life at Home is a Better Life at Home for internal global broadcast. Here he spoke to the importance of real-world consumer-product testing and values versus priorities in business leadership.

Ken just published a textbook titled Engineering Ethics and Design for Product Safety (McGraw Hill, 2021.) He uses this for his product-safety course and addresses both safety concepts and their methods of application. He emphasizes ethical decision making in designing safe products and encourages organizations to endorse and reward ethical behavior by their employees and management teams.

Prior to academia, he spent almost eleven years as Manager of Corporate Product Safety for Polaris—a designer/manufacturer/distributor of hazardous consumer products worldwide. He was involved in product design, analysis, testing, international-standards development, regulatory affairs, industry relations, and product-safety recalls. Ultimately, he voluntarily left this position for ethical reasons (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/business/polaris-rzr-fires.html). Prior to that, he was a consulting engineer with Exponent (Failure Analysis Associates) and Triodyne. He maintains professional-engineer (P.E.) registration in two states.

Lisa Trofe - Assistant Secretary

Lisa Trofe is the Executive Director for the Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association (JPMA). In this role, she oversees the trade association’s government affairs, membership and product safety programming, including the certification program, which certifies 2,500+ juvenile products in 30 product categories annually. Lisa actively engages with CPSC, ASTM, ANSI and ISO to support the juvenile product industry and is responsible for the association’s regulatory and legislative agenda. Serving as an industry spokesperson, she has spoken at national conferences including The JPMA Show, ICPHSO and ICE, as well as testifying before Congressional committees and appearing on national and local media outlets. Lisa serves on the ICPHSO Program Planning Committee, is a Certified Association Executive and holds graduate certificates in Product Safety Management and Advanced Product Safety Management from the St. Louis University. JPMA is the voice of quality and safety for the juvenile products industry, the North American trade association representing 95% of baby product manufacturers selling into the United States. JPMA provides regulatory support, advocacy efforts and education to the industry as a whole and is the founder and sponsor of Baby Safety Month, an annual effort each September which educates caregivers about the safe selection and use of baby products for their children’s ever-changing ages and stages.]

Ken Ross - Member at Large

Kenneth Ross is a lawyer and safety consultant practicing in the areas of product safety, product liability prevention, and regulatory compliance. Prior to entering private practice, Ken was an in-house lawyer at Westinghouse Electric and Emerson Electric where he counseled on safety and prevention issues and managed litigation.

In his safety and prevention practice, he advises U.S. and foreign manufacturers, product sellers, and the insurance industry about how to make safe products and also about ways to identify, evaluate and minimize the risk of liability, especially product and contractual liability. This advice is provided during product development as well as after sale and deals with product safety management systems, design, warnings and instructions, post-sale responsibilities including reporting to the government and undertaking recalls, document management, contracts, marketing, and litigation management.

Ken has presented seminars on product safety, regulatory compliance, and product liability all over the world since 1976. In addition, Ken has written extensively on these subjects (see www.productliabilityprevention.com).

Brenda Torres - Member at Large

Brenda A Torres is a veteran product safety professional whose career has touched many different segments of the field. She is a Certified Product Safety Professional™ and graduated with the inaugural program in 2019. Brenda is currently Manager of Safety and Compliance at woom Bikes USA. Her responsibilities include the safety and compliance of woom products, children’s bikes, helmets, and accessories, sold in the US. She is involved with evolving the safety and compliance systems for global woom. She was previously at SC Johnson as Lead Development Engineer. Prior to that she was a Senior Safety Engineers for Intertek RAM. Brenda is active with the Society of Product Safety Professionals, ICPHSO (International Consumer Products Health and Safety Organization), and the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society. She says, “I am proud to have achieved the designation of Certified Product Safety Professional™, especially in the inaugural year for the certification. I hope to be a contributor to the SPSP board as I am very devoted to its mission of helping to raise the level of expertise and recognition for achievements made by product safety professionals.”

Mark Hickok - Member at Large

Mark Hickok has been involved with SPSP and ADK for the past 3 years. He is a Certified Product Safety Professional™ who was a member of the Class of 2021. Mark is Vice President, Product Safety and Regulatory Compliance for Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation, where he has been employed since 1997. He has been responsible for ensuring compliance with applicable standards and regulation for Milwaukee products, including UL, CSA, and international safety compliance as well as OSHA, FCC, and DOT regulations.  He manages a team that perform hazard analysis reviews and technical literature activities for Milwaukee products.  Mark serves as Milwaukee’s representative to trade associations and standards making committees and as a member of numerous product design teams. Prior to joining Milwaukee, he was Project Engineer for Underwriters Laboratories, Northbrook, IL. He holds numerous membership and affiliations including being a Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator. Mark is a natural fit as a member of the SPSP Board. He states: “I am constantly looking for ways to improve my ability to influence the safety of designs, the drafting of proper safety standards, and the sharing of safety information with product users. SPSP is all about helping product safety professionals do their best and I look forward to helping in any way I can.”

Melissa Cairns - Member at Large

Melissa Cairns is a Legal Specialist in Consumer Law in 3M’s Office of General Counsel.  In that role she manages CPSC regulatory reporting, reverse logistics and participates in the risk assessment process for new and existing products. Melissa became a Certified Consumer Product Safety Professional in 2019 after completing the St. Louis University/ADK certification program. 

Joe Mohorovic - Member at Large

Joe Mohorovic served as a Commissioner on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) from 2014 - 2017.  He is currently a Senior Managing Consultant at Engineering Services, Inc. (ESi) where he specializes in adverse event analysis, regulatory compliance counseling, and litigation support (expert testimony).
Prior to his presidential appointment as a Commissioner, Joe served as chief of staff and director of international programs at the CPSC before joining Intertek where he spent seven years leading global teams in providing compliance and risk management services.  Joe also served two terms in the New Mexico Legislature from 1999 - 2002.

Heather Capell Bramble - Member at Large

Heather Capell Bramble is Vice President of Global Product Safety and Regulatory Compliance for Mattel, Inc. She is a senior executive and seasoned attorney with more than 25 years of compliance, management, and legal experience in corporations, government, private law firms, and politics. Prior to working at Mattel, Heather was Senior Corporate Counsel for Global Product and Food Safety & Compliance at Amazon.com. Previously, Heather was Chief Counsel to Commissioner Robinson at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, as well as a trial attorney in the Division of Enforcement at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She has also spent significant time as regulatory and compliance attorney and as a litigator as partner at private law firms.

Marie-Claude Simard - Member at Large

Marie-Claude Simard is currently Director, Global Product Safety at BRP and works at a global level as a strategic and communicative leader in a manufacturing environment.  She has worked in the powersports and marine industries for over twenty years. She brings experience in process optimization, detailed risk analysis and strategic plan development. Marie-Claude solves problems by applying a realistic and responsible approach. She is known as a rigorous professional who is able to deliver results and inspire, train, and develop multidisciplinary teams.

Don Kornblet - Advisor to the Board