I started working with asbestos while modifying vans for handicapped people to drive back in the early 70s. We used it as a heat shield when we lowered the floo

I started working with asbestos while modifying vans for handicapped people to drive back in the early 70s. We used it as a heat shield when we lowered the floors in vans for people in wheelchairs to drive. I would watch guys I worked with stand in a cloud of dust cutting up 4'x8' sheets of asbestos. I'd offer them my respirator and they'd refuse. They considered that to be unmanly and made a point to give me shit over that. A few years into that work I convinced the engineers who'd designed those asbestos heat shields to use galvanized sheet metal, which is what the OEM used and we removed. It was less expensive, easier to fabricate and install, and it worked a lot better. I owe Paul Brodeur a lot, and so do many others.