Chaplain Straus has been working with Sherry Cardinal and CISM, International since 1999. Chaplain Straus is a "Board Certified Crisis Chaplain" - American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, as well as holding Basic, Advanced and Pastoral Crisis Intervention certificates from the International Critical Iincident Stress Foundation. He has worked for and/or consulted with firms in the mining, industrial, transportation, drilling and oil/gas industries. Skip specializes in Critical Incident Response, Disaster Planning, Medical Team Training, Infirmary Audits and Emergency Readiness. He has also conducted "Best Practices" training for QHSE Engineers and on-rig Physicians and has worked in corporate offices and on rigs in Texas, Louisiana, the Gulf of Mexico and Columbia. He also authored Protocols and Audit forms for QSHE personnel and company physicians in the US, Latin America, North Africa and Saudi Arabia. Chaplain Straus is a Nationally Registered EMT-Paramedic, and has over 30 years in CISM, EMS and Safety.

Chaplain Straus founded a 501.c.3 organization (Emergency Ministries - http://www.emergencychaplain.org/) and is President and Executive Director of that organization. He was honored by the State of Texas, House of Representatives, on the floor of the House, with House Resolution HR1509 - for his five weeks of service as a Chaplain at "Ground Zero," New York City, following the September 11, 2001 attacks. He is also the recipient of the President's "Call To Service" Award.

Dr. Mary Lou LeRoy anchors CISM International services for Eastern Canada in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Dr. LeRoy has worked in the mental health field for over 25 years. As a disaster services volunteer she was a member of a behavioural analysis and mental health team working with survivors of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.  She teaches life skills to people who have chronic mental illness, and provides crisis and suicide intervention. She is trained Critical Incident Stress Management, the psychological impact and implications of terrorism, group crisis intervention, working with military personnel whose traumatic experiences from deployment are triggered when they return home and in pastoral care. She has a PhD in Therapeutic Counselling and is an ordained inter-faith minister. She is a member of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation.   Dr. LeRoy spent 2 weeks in Louisiana and Texas providing CISM services  to the families and  employees of the Deepwater Horizon incident.

Sherry Cardinal, LCSW and Chaplain Skip Straus during an offshore oil rig incident response in the Gulf of Mexico.

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