James Craner, MD, MPH specializes in Occupational and Environmental Medicine based in Reno, Nevada.

Dr. Craner practiced privately for 26 years as clinician, consultant and expert in Nevada, California and other jurisdictions.  Dr. Craner served as the first Corporate Physician for Tesla, Inc.  He currently consults on occupational medicine, biological monitoring, chemical toxicity testing, and chemical risk management to the lithium ion battery, electric vehicle (EV) and renewable energy industries at all levels of the value chain: from mining and refining, to manufacturing, R&D, recycling and emergency management through Verdi Technology, Inc.

Dr. Craner is also the founder and president of Verdi Technology, Inc. and principal developer of webOSCAR™, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that automates and streamlines the process of managing employee- and company-specific health and safety data and requirements in a single, real-time system.  Verdi Technology, Inc. has patent-pending advanced analytical methods and tools for prediction and aggregate trends for noise-induced hearing loss, biomarkers of occupational toxicant exposure, and lung function screening.

In addition, Dr. Craner is a certified personal trainer (NASM-CPT) and certified nutrition coach (NASM-CNC) who works with individuals 1-on-1 to restore and improve their health and fitness through plant-based diet, exercise, and other lifestyle interventions.

Updates

February 2024.  Dr. Craner presented Health & Safety Challenges Across the Battery Chemical Value Chain at the NAATBatt 15th Annual Meeting in Carlsbad, CA as part of a panel on health and safety challenges that included fire response and battery chemistry.  Using risk scenarios extrapolated from his professional experiences and observations and illustrating them with the Red Pill/Blue Pill metaphor from the movie, ‘The Matrix, ‘ Dr. Craner explained how the lithium battery industry is at an early enough stage that it has a choice on how it will manage chemical health risk.

• The Blue Pill (living in the Matrix) is the status quo: the traditional, compliance-driven, checklist approach, reactive and predictably unpredictable.
• The Red Pill (living in reality) is using industry-developed, pro-active Best Practices to transform chemical risk management from compliance‐driven, individual results or tasks with minimal preventive capability into a cost-effective, essential business process directly linked to aggregate prevention and corrective actions.

August-September 2023.  In August, 2023 Dr. Craner gave an invited presentation, Managing Toxicity & Health Risk for Black Mass, as part of a panel discussion at NAATBatt International’s Lithium Battery Recycling Workshop in Indianapolis, Indiana. The presentation addressed five key health risk determinants of operational risk to human health around battery chemicals—for workers and the organization—and provided practical take-away points for decision-makers to consider, not only for black mass (cathode and anode) but also for all levels of the value and supply chain. Notably, Dr. Craner posed the provocative question, ‘Is Lithium the New Lead?,’ and summarized the many toxicological similarities–and highlighted important differences–between these key battery metals. He also explained the critical differences between Health vs. Safety approaches to chemical risk management, the importance of not conflating regulatory compliance with effective risk management, and the pivotal role that non-animal toxicity testing will take in addressing the relevant human toxicology of new chemicals that drive lithium-based battery chemistry.

In September, 2023 Dr. Craner was one of thirty industry experts invited by the US Department of Energy and Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries (FCAB) Li-Bridge program to its Detroit, Michigan meeting for industry and government representatives to exchange views on topics related to lithium-based battery recycling. Dr. Craner was the only participant representing specific expertise in occupational and environmental health in addition to his extensive experience in the EV industry.

March 2022.  Dr. Craner’s critical review/commentary article, Audiometric data analysis for prevention of noise‐induced hearing loss: A new approach, was published online on March 15, 2022 and is available in the May, 2022 issue of American Journal of Industrial Medicine.  A downloadable copy of the print article is available here.

December 2021.  A PCT (International Patent Application) was filed on December 6, 2021 for “Methods and systems for audiometric early detection, prediction and aggregate trend analysis of noise-induced and other progressive hearing loss.”

December 2020.  Dr. Craner and Neil Willits, PhD filed a US Patent Office provisional patent application on December 7, 2020 for their invention, “Methods and systems for audiometric early detection, prediction and aggregate trend analysis of noise-induced and other progressive hearing loss.” This novel statistical methodology and related information automation technology transforms occupational audiometry from a compliance-driven, individual screening test with limited preventive capability into a medical surveillance process that can be directly linked to aggregate corrective and prevention actions. This patent emanates from the technology first publicly presented by Dr. Craner in 2016 as a Finalist in the OSHA-NIOSH Noise Challenge.