Everyone knows extreme heat can put an athlete in danger. But when a warehouse worker spends a full shift battling that same kind of heat, the risk can be easier to overlook.
That gap is what MISSION founder Josh Shaw came on EHS on Tap to talk about with host Jay Kumar.
Listen to the episode
How a company built for athletes ended up on job sites
MISSION started with athletes. Shaw launched it in 2008, and the early work was trial, error, and long conversations with partners including Dwyane Wade, Drew Brees, and Serena Williams.
One answer kept surfacing. Heat was the single biggest opponent athletes faced, in training and in competition, ahead of everything else the company had expected to solve.
About two years in, MISSION narrowed its focus to heat alone. What Shaw did not expect was where that focus would lead.
The parallel that changed the business
The physiology does not distinguish between a turf field and a loading dock. Shaw puts the connection plainly:
"What's good for the athletes on the field, on the turf, two-a-days, 110 degrees, has a very close parallel for the workers."
The difference is control. An athlete in distress can stop, and someone is usually watching. A worker weighs the same decision against a shift they need to finish.
Heat also degrades judgment, not only endurance. That reads differently when the person affected is operating a crane rather than running a route.
Why this is not only an outdoor problem
The most common misread is that heat risk starts at the property line. It does not.
"It doesn't have to be in the sun. Any kind of heat."
A kitchen line, a delivery cab, a factory floor with fans and no air conditioning. Each one produces the conditions that matter, which is why heat exposure belongs in a safety program whether or not the work happens outdoors.
The research behind it
MISSION's work with the Korey Stringer Institute is rooted in a tragedy that changed the conversation around heat safety.
Korey Stringer was a Pro Bowl offensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings. He died of exertional heat stroke during training camp in August 2001, at 27 years old.
His widow, Kelci Stringer, spent the years afterward turning that loss into prevention. Working with Korey's agent Jimmy Gould and Dr. Douglas Casa, an exertional heat stroke expert at the University of Connecticut, she helped open the Korey Stringer Institute (KSI) in 2010.
"One day, I was standing in my closet, and I said 'Well, someone has to do something.' Before I could finish the sentence, I realized that somebody was me."
- Kelci Stringer
Here's the part that matters for anyone responsible for a job site. The mission of KSI is to help anyone who may be vulnerable to heat on the job, including athletes, warfighters and laborers. Workers were written into the mandate from the start, not added once the research proved useful.
MISSION's relationship with KSI also led to the MISSION Heat Lab at UConn, which opened in 2017. Dr. Casa, who leads the lab, is one of the world's leading voices on heat stroke and heat safety.
What this asks of a workforce
Heat safety is a program, not a product. Three things carry most of the weight:
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Plan for the shift you actually run. Standard cooling fabric works for up to two hours before it needs re-wetting, which matters when water access is limited.
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Fit the gear to the PPE already in use. A hard hat needs a liner, not a towel draped over it.
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Treat cognitive load as part of the risk. Slowed judgment shows up before collapse does.
Start with the shift, not the product
Look at your longest shift and your worst water access, then work backward. That single question sorts most of what a crew actually needs.
Listen to the full episode above, then see the cooling gear built for work to match the kit to your conditions.