Safe Exhibiting Guide

ESSENTIALS

EXCLUSIVE DIGITAL CONTENT

Safe Space: How the GBAC is Helping the Industry Reopen Patricia Olinger, executive director of the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC), explains how the GBAC STAR Facility Accreditation program is helping venues safely reopen. By Ben Barclay

T raditionally, trade show venues have focused on the appearance of cleanliness: Is the exhibit hall presentable? Do the bathrooms smell pine fresh? But the COVID-19 pandemic has forced venues to take a microscopic look at their practices to see if their protocols are effective at mitigating the risk of people contracting the coronavirus. That’s in part because until the pandemic is firmly in our collective rear-view mirror, show organizers, exhibitors, and attendees are going to require assurances from convention centers, hotels, and restaurants that surfaces are sanitized instead of simply spotless, and they’re going to ask about HVAC filtration systems to gauge the risk of exposure to airborne pathogens. And in today’s climate of caution, it’s unlikely stakeholders are going to take a venue at its word. That’s where the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC) enters the picture. To help

businesses assuage the public’s fears, the organization developed GBAC STAR Facility Accreditation. Since the program was created, more than 70 U.S. convention centers have earned the GBAC STAR Facility seal, and additional venues are working through the accreditation process. But what exactly does GBAC STAR mean for visitors? We sat down with GBAC’s executive director, Patricia Olinger, to learn what to expect from accredited facilities. EXHIBITOR Magazine: A lot of people in the exhibition industry aren’t familiar with GBAC. Can you provide some background on the organization? Patricia Olinger: GBAC is a division of ISSA, the world’s leading trade association for the cleaning industry. GBAC itself really came together right after the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Several of us were involved with that outbreak very intimately. I was part of Team Ebola at Emory University

Patricia Olinger

Patricia Olinger is the executive director of the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC), a division of the cleaning-industry association ISSA. She has been involved with the development of international standards for biorisk management for more than 20 years and is the current team leader of the group that developed the International Organization for Stan dardization (ISO) standards for Biorisk Management. Prior to joining GBAC, Olinger was an assistant vice president in the Office of Research Administration and the executive director of the Environ mental, Health, and Safety Office at Emory University, where she helped care for Ebola patients in 2014.

20 EXHIBITOR ESSENTIALS © EXHIBITOR MEDIA GROUP