Academic Credentials
  • B.S., Fisheries Management, Utah State University, 1970
Professional Honors
  • U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairman's Commendation Circle Award - Awarded at CPSC Headquarters, Dec. 2011. Chosen as an inaugural recipient of this award, which recognizes people and groups who have demonstrated consistent and significant contributions to improving the safety of children's and other consumer products and to the prevention of deaths and injuries associated with using such products.
  • 2008 Teamwork Award, McDonald's Regulatory Response Team - Presented by McDonald's Supply Chain Management in recognition of Intertek's contribution to supporting McDonald's response to regulatory incidents.
  • 2007 McToy Safety Gold Standard Award - Awarded to Intertek for its outstanding contribution to protecting McDonald's customers and its brand.
  • Outstanding Contribution to Child Safety Award - Awarded at McDonald's Annual Go-Away, Sept. 2003. This prize is awarded every year to labs and agencies that McDonald's Safety Committee determines as outstanding / excel in providing safety services to businesses worldwide.
  • Seymour Cohen Award - Awarded at the annual meeting of the American Bronco-Esophagological Association February 1999. This prize is awarded by the American Broncho-Esophagological Association for the best original research conducted by a resident, fellow or attending physician. "Prevention of Accidental Childhood Strangulation: Where is the Site of the Obstruction?" International Journal of Pediatric Otolaryngology Vol. 49 Supplement 1 October 1999. R. Stevens, MD, J. Lane, MD, Milkovich S, PhD, Stool D, Rider G, Stool S.

Mr. Rider has 30 years of experience focused on the design, development, manufacturing, and qualification of consumer goods. He has devoted his life to provide risk assessments, design safety assessment, foreseeable use assessments, essential safety standards, and safety training programs in support of his client's safety processes. 

Mr. Rider's work was recently honored as an inaugural recipient of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Chairman's Commendation Circle Award, which recognizes people and groups who have demonstrated consistent and significant contributions to improving the safety of children's and other consumer products and to the prevention of deaths and injuries associated with using such products.

Working closely with the medical and scientific community to develop innovative technologies to assess risks posed by consumer products, he has achieved influential status as a leading force in injury prevention, with special focus on adolescent exposure. The technologies developed under his management have been shared with the U.S. CPSC and, even more importantly, have been applied to help consumer product companies effectively integrate safety into their product designs and business processes.

Mr. Rider was instrumental in the development, deployment and technical support of one of the most robust safety processes for children's articles. The safety process supported the design, manufacture, and distribution of over one thousand unique designs and one billion items annually. The products managed by the safety process resulted in exceptionally low injury rates as compared with the global toy industry. In 1989, to support company needs for fast turn-around testing, Mr. Rider directed the start-up of the first commercial testing laboratory in China which he managed as part of the global safety team for twenty five years.

His 2009 ground breaking publication "Framework Model of Product Risk Assessment" in The International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion established a widely accepted framework for risk assessment used by global regulatory agencies and industry. Mr. Rider teaches risk assessment and product safety at the Saint Louis University Executive Advanced Safety Training Program.

Mr. Rider is an expert in the field of physical hazards, an area he and his colleagues researched for more than 25 years. He recently developed a number of training programs designed for his clients to alert their supply chain to product safety issues and to enlist the suppliers quality and business management to eliminate product design and manufacturing hazards from their product line. The web based safety training programs are designed for all categories of consumer goods including process foods and food packaging. In one case, the training program has been developed as a sitcom designed to gain the attention of product innovators, product designers, and merchants.

Mr. Rider provides safety process audits for retailers, importers, manufacturers, and distributors of consumer goods. The audit process includes a review of the client's safety and business processes for compliance with the requirements of the US Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, as well as, the Canadian Consumer Product Safety Act and the European General Product Safety Directive if products are distributed in those markets. Critical areas of investigation include: available process for assuring suppliers do not exert undue influence over test results and certifications; availability of product specifications, documented safety assessments; available production test plans that provide a high degree of assurance of compliance; available test and conformity assessment reports; documented remedial action and material change processes; issuance of general certificates or declarations of compliance; available customer feedback safety assessment process and available technical files.

Mr. Rider recently chaired the IEEE P-1789 subcommittee on the health effects of photo-flicker from LED lights. The subcommittee included academic, industry, and government researchers from North America and Europe. The four year effort resulted in the 2015 publication of IEEE P 1789 "IEEE Recommended Practices for Modulating Current in High-Brightness LEDs for Mitigating Health Risks to Viewers." Mr. Rider works with clients to assess the hazards of LED lighting and supports the research and implementation of technology to mitigate the health effects of existing and future LED lighting applications.

Mr. Rider and his colleagues supported the National Button Battery Task Force, affiliated with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Broncho-Esophagological Association, and the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, which was "A collaborative effort of representatives from relevant organizations in industry, medicine, public health and government to develop, coordinate and implement strategies to reduce the incidence of button battery injuries in children." The efforts of the National Button Battery Task Force resulted in the "UL Standard for Safety for Products Incorporating Button or Coin Cell Batteries of Lithium Technologies", UL 4200A -2016.

Mr. Rider was selected by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to serve as a US representative on an ad hoc group of industry experts to revise ISO/IEC Guide 50, Safety aspects — Guidelines for child safety, published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC). The guidelines are used globally by architects and building designers to reduce the risk of injuries in their facilities.

Over the past 30 years, Mr. Rider has reviewed the product quality and safety management systems at hundreds of consumer goods factories in North America, Europe and Asia. As a result, Mr. Rider has first-hand knowledge of typical consumer goods manufacturing methods, equipment, work flow, quality/safety systems and product traceability. Robust testing of the products produced by these same factories provided Mr. Rider with detailed knowledge of manufacturing process variability and activities critical to producing compliant products. Mr. Rider is a frequent speaker at safety and medical conferences.