During the 1980s and 1990s, public concern over industrial toxins and their effects on health and the environment increased. This outcry led the federal government to mandate a series of strict compliance regulations for both public and private organizations. Due to the complexity of the new laws, maintaining compliance became a daunting task. At the same time, employee safety started to become a hot issue. OSHA became a force to be reckoned with and passed strict, complicated laws that made compliance efforts extremely difficult.

Organizations, large and small, learned the hard way that costly mistakes could cripple them. Employee environmental health and safety programs, including hazardous materials management, became critical components and old methods of training for this specialized field became obsolete.