Built from Brain Science: How Mips Protects the Construction Workforce

Podcast Transcript 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Hello there, and welcome to The Construction Revolution Podcast. My name is Steven Rossi – Zalmons, and here on the show we explore the latest trends, technologies, people, and organizations that are revolutionizing or disrupting the construction industry, and are changing what the industry will look like tomorrow. 

Today on the show I’m speaking with Joe Brandel, the Business Development Manager for North America at Mips. 

Joe has spent more than 20 years in construction and industrial safety, training crews on head and fall protection. He now leads the North American industrial safety business at Mips, a Swedish helmet company whose technology was developed from brain injury research, and now sits inside hard hats and safety helmets. 

Join us as we discuss what actually happens to the brain during a head injury, why today’s hard hat standards still don’t account for angled impacts, and how better head protection can make its way onto every job site. 

Hi Joe. Welcome to the Construction Revolution Podcast. How’s it going today? 

Joe Brandel: 

Good, Steven. Thanks for the invite. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Yeah, absolutely. I’m excited to have you and to learn more about you and about Mips. It’s a bit of a different topic than we usually cover, not talking about software for a change, which is nice. So I’m excited to get into it. So can you tell me about the story that led you into construction and safety, and to Mips? 

Joe Brandel: 

Yeah, so I’ve been in the business almost thirty years, and really what led me into it, and I haven’t told this story to very many people, but when my dad got out of school, he decided to follow his father’s footsteps into the railroad industry. He was pretty young, he was twenty-two, and he was working on a railroad project, a bridge project, and he had a serious accident which left him with a disability that obviously affected him the rest of his life, and he’s still around today. And that not only affected his life, but it affected his family’s life as well. 

So I’m hoping to make a big difference with keeping people safer so that doesn’t happen. Part of that is selling quality personal protective equipment, training folks on that equipment, how to use it, what to use and where, and making sure that they’re doing the right thing, and holding companies accountable to make sure that they provide the proper PPE for their employees as well. I was a manufacturer’s rep for twenty-three and a half years before joining Mips, and I’ve been with Mips now going on four and a half years here in the US as a business development manager. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

That’s great. So for people who aren’t familiar with Mips, can you tell us what the company does, your main products, and especially on the construction side, who you’re focused on working with? 

Joe Brandel: 

Yeah, so we specialize in helmet-based safety, and we’re a global leader in this area and have been for three decades. We’re an ingredient brand. We put a low friction layer inside of helmets, safety helmets, hard hats, any kind of head protection products that workers would wear, and we provide added protection beyond just your standard hard hat or helmet for the job site. 

Not only construction, but a lot of other industries as well, like mining and railroad. Again, anybody working at heights, anybody with the potential of a dropped object hitting their head, or taking a fall, slips, trips and falls, and hitting their head on the ground or some other surface. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Right. So for people who are in the office a lot, or even people on site who aren’t thinking about head injuries all the time, can you explain to us what actually happens to the brain during a head injury? 

Joe Brandel: 

When the brain is impacted, either by an object or by your head hitting an object or a surface at a lower level, what can happen is rotational motion can be induced, and that’s a leading cause of traumatic brain injuries. And that’s very little known here in the US as a cause of traumatic brain injuries. That’s why it’s important to educate the users, and people that don’t even use hard hats or head protection products, because it can happen on construction sites or industrial sites, but it can happen anywhere. You could fall down your steps at home. 

So, back to TBIs, the forces associated with those angled impacts to the head: when somebody trips over an object and their head makes contact with something, it’s generally at an angle, and that’s when the rotational motion to your brain will occur. The brain’s quite sensitive to that rotational motion.

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Nice, that’s a great explanation. So can you explain the journey of how Mips started, how your helmets are different from traditional ones, and how they protect against those angled impacts? 

Joe Brandel: 

Yeah, so we started over thirty years ago through research and development together with the Royal Institute of Technology and the Karolinska Institute, both located in Stockholm, Sweden. Our founders were a neurosurgeon and a researcher at those schools who was working on his PhD. 

Our founder that was a neurosurgeon was trying to find out why people were still having serious traumatic brain injuries even while wearing a helmet. So he got together with this research student, and they came up with the Mips system. The solution is basically a low friction layer that goes inside of a helmet, based on the brain’s own protection system against rotational motion. There’s cerebrospinal fluid that exists between the brain and the skull, and that’s our natural protection system that allows our brain to move relative to the skull. What this system does is allow the helmet to move instead of your head. It allows it to slide ten to fifteen millimeters in five to ten milliseconds. So it mimics what the cerebrospinal fluid does.

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

And then how does that compare to a traditional hard hat? 

Joe Brandel: 

So, based on ANSI, and I know there are different standards around the world, there’s CSA and there’s EN, but as far as ANSI is concerned, they just updated their standards, and we’re part of ANSI, the American National Standards Institute. Basically, a Type I hard hat or head protection product is something that you would use to protect from objects directly dropping on top of your head. And then there’s a Type I Plus now, which offers that protection, but also offers protection for front, side and back impacts. Then you move to better protection than that, which is the standard ANSI Type II, that provides impact protection not only to the top, but the front, sides and back as well. And then the Type II Plus offers that same protection in addition to a retention system, which requires a chin strap. 

I didn’t mention it, but the Type I Plus includes a chin strap as well. And that retention system is important, obviously, to keep that head protection product on your head. What doesn’t exist in those standards is any kind of standardization or protocol for protection against rotational motion, and that’s what Mips does. We add protection for those angular impacts that would induce rotational motion to the brain. 

So basically, when you put our system in, whether it’s an ANSI Type I, ANSI Type I Plus, ANSI Type II, or ANSI Type II Plus, it will provide the protection needed against that rotational motion that causes a lot of traumatic brain injuries. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Right. And then do you just put that shell that you showed into whatever hard hat, or do you provide the entire hard hat? 

Joe Brandel: 

No, we’re an ingredient brand, so it’s just this little shell, and we’ve got various models of it. This one goes in a helmet with EPS foam, typically. But that’s all we do. The helmet manufacturers come to us, and we’re not only in the construction and industrial market, but we’ve been in sporting goods, whether it’s equestrian, bicycle, ski, motorcycle, off-road, those types of things. 

We’ve got over a hundred and fifty brands, I believe, and hundreds of helmets that we put our system in. But no, we just provide that, and we’ve got a lot of expertise on it. We’ve tested over a hundred thousand helmets. We know what we’re doing, and there’s a lot of research and science behind it. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Right. So if I was a contractor looking to equip my workforce with Mips, how does that work? Am I just looking at my options for hard hats? Do I need to find a partner that is eligible for your system, or do I come directly to you? 

Joe Brandel: 

All of the above. The first thing that a safety director or safety manager on a job site will have to do, as they’re required by OSHA and really just common business practice, is a hazard assessment. What are the risks to my workers when it comes to a head injury? Is it a dropped object? Is it a fall off of a ladder? Is it a slip, trip and fall over debris or a wet surface that sometimes can’t be avoided? So they have to do that risk assessment and then base their purchases and use on that. If these are the risks that are on my site, this is the type of personal protective equipment relative to head protection that I need to provide. And the best thing to do is definitely find a good partner, as far as a distributor and a manufacturer that they trust and have worked with before, maybe on other types of PPE, and get some expertise to help them pick that out. 

And then it comes down to their workers, believe it or not, liking how the product looks, the comfort, the fit, and that sort of thing. They’re going to adopt it a lot easier if it’s a better fitting product. But ultimately, at the end of the day, you need to provide them with the best protection based on the hazards and the risks that are on their job site. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Yeah, that makes sense. So when you’re on site talking to general contractors and their partners, where do you see the biggest opportunities to improve how protection is chosen and what protection is used on site? 

Joe Brandel: 

I think the biggest opportunity is just educating them about the risk. I mentioned earlier that a lot of folks don’t realize what rotational motion does and how it’s connected to traumatic brain injuries. From a Mips standpoint, and even the head protection market standpoint, it’s really all about education. What each type of product, relative to ANSI or CSA or EN, does to protect you, and making sure they understand that. That’s the key. 

And even back to the chin strap, which Mips really doesn’t have anything to do with, but just understanding you have to have that chin strap on and snapped, some sort of retention system, while you’re using the head protection product. Otherwise it’s likely not going to stay on your head. There have been fatalities here in the US, in my market, where that’s what happened: the head protection product they were using fell off during the fall, caused a traumatic brain injury, and that’s what caused the fatality. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Right. Yeah, if the helmet’s not staying on, it doesn’t do you much good. That makes a lot of sense. So from either Mips’s research or even just other research and stats that you’re aware of, what are the rates of head injuries on sites? 

Joe Brandel: 

It’s pretty high. Of all fatalities, and again, this is all just construction, the majority of them are caused by traumatic brain injury. And that is due to an issue with their head protection, either not using it correctly, not having the right one, or not keeping it on their head. So over half of the fatalities in construction are caused by some sort of traumatic brain injury. It’s a significant part. 

And those traumatic brain injuries, even if it’s not a fatality, can be very expensive. OSHA here in the US has a cost calculator on their website where you can type in different types of accidents and events and see how much they cost. The direct cost of just one concussion, and I’m not even talking about a life-altering traumatic brain injury, although concussion is a broad term for a brain injury, is around fifty-five thousand dollars. So if you look at that cost for just one, it pays to provide the right protection. And again, you asked me about the stats: whether it’s a fall, or a dropped object, or being struck by an object, most of those fatalities are due to the traumatic brain injury. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Right. Yeah, that’s great, thanks. So you’ve written in various magazines for all sorts of industries, including construction ones, about head protection. I’m curious, you mentioned rail, mining, roofing, heavy construction. Do all of those industries and trades face the same risks, or how do they differ by trade? 

Joe Brandel: 

It’s a good question. They’re not the same risks, but they’re very, very similar. It’s a blow to the head by an object, or your head striking an object during a fall, or a slip, trip and fall on a surface. So they’re all very similar, and the end results can be traumatic. That’s the term, traumatic brain injury. And that’s why you see other industries, not just construction, adopting better head protection, because they’re starting to understand. 

That’s why we write those articles and do a podcast like this, to really educate the market on those risks. I wasn’t familiar with rotational motion ten years ago, until some of the better head protection products started hitting the market. Then I realized, yeah, this makes sense. The brain can rotate if your head’s hit at an angle, or your head hits something at an angle. It makes sense. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Yeah. So when we’re looking at construction as a whole, there’s a culture that can sometimes develop where people brush off injuries, or they hit their head and it’s just another day on the job. Where do you think that kind of culture comes from, and how do we get away from it? 

Joe Brandel: 

Yeah, I think back in the old days, and I think of my dad even, going through that accident, there was a coolness culture of, “Hey, I don’t need this stuff, I’m tough,” whether it’s a pair of gloves, or a better hard hat or helmet, or a harness. “I can survive it, or I can deal with it better on my own.” And it’s not true, because you just can’t react quickly enough to protect yourself. You can’t put your arms or your hands up to protect yourself from something falling on your head. You can’t grab the ladder. You can’t grab the lift when you’re falling out of it or slipping backwards. 

And I think most people recognize that now, because maybe they’ve had somebody with a traumatic brain injury and they’ve seen the results of it. So they’re starting to accept that, hey, we need to wear this stuff. We need to use it. Because one of us could be the next one to have to deal with a traumatic brain injury and the long-term effects of it. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Yeah. So then when we’re looking five to ten years ahead, and getting into that change, where do you see head protection on job sites in the future, and how do you see it evolving? 

Joe Brandel: 

I think with the recent ANSI standard update, again, they’ve moved towards those Type I Plus and Type II Plus designations, and I think that people will adopt better head protection because of that, and maybe even go above and beyond that by adding a system like Mips into their protection. 

And I think that technology will help as well. At least I hope that AI and some of the other technology that’s involved in construction can help with risk assessments, helping the safety director and those folks understand those risks a little bit better and provide the better product. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Right. And then one last question before we wrap up. As someone who’s well versed in head protection, PPE and safety all the time, I’m curious, besides Mips and besides head protection, are there any other innovations in PPE or in the safety world, specifically related to construction, that excite you? 

Joe Brandel: 

Again, I’m pretty much focused on Mips. There are some out there that do involve some technologies, but really I’m pretty much focused on Mips and the head protection science and research related to that. But I think it’s going to continue to evolve, and part of that is our system. Our goal is to get it in every helmet that’s used on an industrial site, because we believe that it works and that it can protect the workers. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

Sure. So then to wrap this up, if someone’s interested in learning more about Mips and about head protection, where should they go to find out more? 

Joe Brandel: 

You can go to our website, mipsprotection.com, and you can reach out to us. We’ve got a team of four here in the US just on the industrial market that can help end users and customers educate themselves about our system, rotational motion, and all of that sort of stuff. That’s what we do. 

As for my contacts, I’m on LinkedIn and other places as well, so people can reach out to me or one of my counterparts. 

Steven Rossi – Zalmons: 

All right, sounds good. Well, thank you for taking the time today and for teaching us more about head protection and about Mips. It’s a very important subject. 

Joe Brandel: 

Yes. Steven, thanks again for the invite. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.