Walkway Safety Auditor for Forensic Analysis

Specialties & Experience of this Expert Witness

Additional Information

Mr. Collette has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and is a qualified Walkway Auditor. He has over 20 years of experience in developing, commercializing, analyzing, and troubleshooting walkway solutions including chemistry, tools, mats (walk-off, bath), cleaning processes, coatings, treatments, and flooring material selection. He worked in global innovation, product management/development, and customer solution development for DiverseyLever (institutional chemical business of Unilever), JohnsonDiversey (now Diversey), and Cintas. Mr. Collette is a Walkway Audit Certificate Holder (#31) and has a Certificate in Assessing Walkway Safety from the University of Northern Texas. He provides walkway management services to commercial and institutional facilities across North America. Mr. Collette provies walkway management consulting and services to customers designing, planning, building, maintaining, and insuring facilities. Consulting services include flooring material testing and specifying for facilities, maintenance processes, new product development, walkway audits, online and in-person training on slip meters, walkway auditing, material selection, and incident investigation. He conducts research to advance the science of walkway safety including the development and evaluation of methods to measure the slip resistance of floormats, bath mats, and chair glides. He was on the Board of the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI) from 2012-2014 and a past voting member of the ANSI/NFSI B101 main committee (2014-2016). He is a Member of ICC (2018), NFPA (2021), ASTM (2014), ASSP (2021), Intern of APEGM (2020), Associate of IES (2021), Fellow of the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance (2016), and Adviser to the Storefront Safety Council (2020). He is a voting member of the following technical committees: ANSI/NFSI B101.4 , ASTM D21, ASTM F06, ASTM F08, ASTM F12.1, ASTM F13, ASTM F15.03, ASTM D13, ANSI A108, and ANSI D01. He has investigated incidents for both defense and plaintiff. He has been qualified in court as an expert in slips, trips, and falls. Cases have included walkway/bathing surfaces, stairways, ramps, curb ramps, sidewalks, parking lots, handrails, guards, lighting, chair glides, bath and walk-off mats, walkway/bathing surface coefficient of friction, surface roughness, cleaning procedures, wheel stops, and bollards. Walkway surfaces have included interior and exterior concrete, tile, vinyl, epoxy, and floor finish with wet, dry, oily, icy, coated, treated, painted, vertically/horizontally misaligned and uneven surfaces. Bathing surfaces have included bathtubs, showers, and barefoot surfaces including pool decks. Stairways have included interior and exterior stairs with concrete, metal, wood, and carpeted walkway surfaces, one and two riser stairs, and wood and metal handrails and guards. Coefficient of friction measurements have included wet and dry walkway and bathing surfaces, chair glides, and bath and walk-off mats using static and dynamic coefficients of friction He has investigated indoor and outdoor slip, trip, and fall incidents in locations including retail (food and nonfood), commercial, residential, hotel, office, education, healthcare, parking lot (paved, gravel), parking garage, aquarium, amusement, and theater. References used to conduct investigation include applicable local ordinances and building code, life safety code, ASTM, ANSI, NFSI, OSHA, ADA, and IESNA.