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#81: A Rising Star in Safety: Carter Divine
76 Plays3 years ago
The National Safety Council announced its 12th class of Rising Stars in Safety, and we're not shocked that Carter's name was on the list! Through a high school project his Junior year, Carter learns he might excel in the safety world
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Transcript
Introduction and Early Career Insights
00:00:06
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded October 18th, 2020. My name is Jill James, HSI's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Carter Devine, a safety professional working for the Department of the Navy located in California. Now, the reason I asked Carter to be our guest today is because I was reading about him.
00:00:30
Speaker
in a press release from the National Safety Council. Carter has been, I guess you could say they have decided that Carter is a rising star. And so I'm curious to find out from Carter what that means. There are 38 rising stars according to the National Safety Council for 2021, and Carter is one of
Influence of Family on Career Choice
00:00:53
Speaker
them. So Carter, welcome to the show. Can't wait to hear about your stardom.
00:00:59
Speaker
Yeah, thank you very much. I'm incredibly humbled and both excited to be here. Awesome. Well, Carter, you are working for the Department of Navy. Sounds super interesting. Also want to hear about the rising star, but as we say on this podcast, let's hear what your winding path to safety was, or was it a direct path?
00:01:26
Speaker
Yeah, so based off of some of the previous podcasts I've heard from you, it sounds like most individuals kind of just, as you said, fell into the safety profession. But I guess I'm one of the anomalies on that as I actually had my path chosen around junior year of high school. It's kind of an indirect, direct choice there.
00:01:58
Speaker
of what my career was going to be. And at that point, I'd only ever thought I was going to be a professional baseball player. But that was a bit unrealistic. And they said that choosing the military was too easy for the project at the time. So at that point, I was like, what was something physical but is considered a career? And that led to firefighting.
00:02:18
Speaker
I was asked to do a project by my junior year high school teacher
00:02:24
Speaker
And so we actually did the research and that led to fire science and fire science led to safety management. And so from that point, I actually took that project and ran with it and then went home and talked to my dad about it. And, you know, it was one of those self-realizations that he'd really always talked about work, but never explicitly said like what his title was.
00:02:53
Speaker
And that's when I found out that he was an explosive safety specialist, but did a fair share of both the occupational safety and health side as well. And so from there, it was definitely kind of like,
00:03:09
Speaker
a commitment to be like dad again without ever realizing it. Was your dad totally beaming at this point? Wait, this kid organically came across this? It was interesting because I was one of four children and I was quite a bit of the wild child. It was a contradiction to think I might be one to go into the safety of the world anyways. It gave us a greater connection point, so it was awesome.
Educational Journey and Career Goals
00:03:38
Speaker
Well, you did start out with interest in, in fire science. And so you have to be a little bit of an adrenaline junkie to be interested in that. So maybe that was part of your wild child, right? One of many. Yeah. So, so what happened? You had this high school project, you kind of made your decision. That's amazing in high school. So what happened next?
00:04:02
Speaker
Yeah, so I was born and raised in a small country area of Bloomfield, Indiana. And so I kind of did research on the local opportunities of that type of education.
00:04:18
Speaker
And there was Eastern Kentucky University, Indiana State University, and Indiana University, but I wanted to stick with more of the small town feel, so I went with Terre Haute Indiana for Indiana State University. I ended up going there and did the undergraduate degree in three years.
00:04:38
Speaker
And it was around my sophomore year. I chose, I kind of like manifested that I wanted to work at NSWC or Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane.
00:04:51
Speaker
which happened to be about 35 minutes outside of where my hometown was. And so kind of like just kept working towards it, did all the internships that I could while at Indiana State. And then lo and behold, my junior slash senior year, there was a Pathaways program that opened up, which is a different term for its internship.
00:05:17
Speaker
But to be eligible for that internship, you had to show that you were still going to be in academic coursework for another three to six months. And so at that point, I went ahead and decided to go for my master's degree as well to be eligible.
00:05:36
Speaker
And so I did my master's degree online with Indiana State University as well. I could have chose Columbia Southern or any of those other potential online courses, but I was familiar with the professors at Indiana State and knew what type of education I would continue to get. And with it being in close proximity, I would be able to still meet with my chairman when I had to do my field studies. So did that in a year and a half.
00:06:06
Speaker
Thankfully, they were willing to bring me on full time. So while you were an undergrad, you kind of looked out on the horizon and said, hmm, I think I want to work for the Department of Navy at this specific location.
Professional Experience and Role at NSWC
00:06:21
Speaker
And it happened.
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah. So the specific location was one of those that just kind of sat there out in the open my entire childhood. It was one of the economic drawings to the area I was in. So it wasn't entirely like a hidden idea, but without being an engineer or a scientist of something of that nature, that's not always the easiest to get into. Right. Well, and the Pathways program sounds pretty
00:06:50
Speaker
Pretty interesting. Is that something that's unique to the military? No.
00:06:56
Speaker
So the definition of Pathways Program was specific to NSWC Crane, but there are all sorts of careers along or ways to develop that career. So there's STEM internships, there's NARPA internships, but basically they're each aligned for whatever type of degree you're going for. And so
00:07:23
Speaker
around October since we've operated on that fiscal year and you can typically expect to see them open and then usually selections are made by December timeframe but definitely definitely something worth looking into because it's got a great structure for any younger individual to come up through.
00:07:42
Speaker
Well, that's a good tip for our listeners. Thank you. Now you've mentioned the NSCW. Did I get it right? N-S-W-C, right. Okay. What does that stand for in context with the Navy?
00:07:58
Speaker
Right, so we are, well the reason I love the NSWC or Naval Surface Warfare Center is because it has probably one of the highest missions you could support. We directly support the war fighters. So we are one of 10 what we refer to as sister warfare centers that are located across the United States.
00:08:23
Speaker
Uh, they, their function ranges anywhere from in-service engineering agency, which is what my current naval surface warfare center is here in Port Wainimi. That basically means that we are the subject matter experts in engineering analysis and for the systems that are on ships. So if one of them needs troubleshooting or, um, even put in from the whole beginning.
00:08:51
Speaker
or taken off or updated, we are the ones that go onto the ship, or I should say our engineers and technicians are the ones that go onto the ship. And then there's all kinds of RDT or research and development that goes on through all of the warfare centers. There's others that focus specifically on underwater warfare.
00:09:14
Speaker
So the mission is very broad, but very specialized to supporting the warfighter. And Carter, you are there as a civilian, correct? Right. So it's a pretty unique relationship.
00:09:36
Speaker
95% civilians. So within that civilian category are both contractors. So people like SAIC, Northrop Kremen, and then their subcontractors, so on and so forth. They work alongside us, but I would not have direct oversight on them.
00:10:00
Speaker
But I would, I mean, a body is a person is a person and property is property. So I can provide recommendations, but I have to work through the contracting officer representatives. And if I think there needs to be any changes associated with those contracts.
00:10:18
Speaker
And then the military side, we work again right alongside of them, but there's usually no more than 70 or so active military actually associated to Port Wainimi. But there are other, what are called tenets to the Naval Base Ventura County in which some of them are completely military. So it just really depends on what section you're associated with.
00:10:48
Speaker
Sure. So as people are listening to us, Carter, that's interesting to know that people can work as civilians on a military basis. I did that early in my career as a civilian, but there were definitely, I was a minority as a civilian. You have the opposite experience where you are. So this is interesting for people who are listening, thinking about careers and career
Managing Safety Programs and Professional Development
00:11:16
Speaker
changes.
00:11:16
Speaker
So do you want to describe maybe what does the safety world look like? Where you are like, you know, do you work with a team and then maybe an example or two of like current projects that you're working on?
00:11:32
Speaker
Yeah, so within the Navy, there is a higher instruction or regulation. And when I say higher, it refers to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations, or the CFR. But it also takes into consideration the horizontal and vertical standards. So the ANCs, ASMVs, and those things along the world
00:11:59
Speaker
where we say we're going to incorporate the most stringent instruction regulation or policy possible because we want to ensure we're not overexposing or exposing any personnel to any unnecessary hazard. But so within that, I currently have, including myself, a team of four here at Port Wainimi with additional personnel in the explosive safety world
00:12:25
Speaker
And then there's others that are spread across the United States at our detachment sites. So altogether, there's seven of us. Within that, I'm considered the team leader, the safety manager.
00:12:42
Speaker
So my day consists of a lot actually. It can vary from day to day. There are roughly 38 programs and I say roughly because each warfare center may or may not have actual functions in specific programs.
00:13:03
Speaker
and those can range anywhere from what everyone recognizes as the confined spaces, ergonomics,
00:13:13
Speaker
personal protective equipment so on and so forth but then on the other side there are specific programs associated with operational risk management which should be pigeonholed into just operational as in what the military goes out and does but it's truly what we do from a day-to-day basis having situational awareness taking the time to stop and review what you're about to do to traffic safety where we have
00:13:42
Speaker
We adopt a little bit of the Department of Transportation minimum hours or maximum hours permitted for our drivers that might be driving something from east coast to west coast to put it on a ship. Again, it's very diverse. A couple of the projects that we've had recently.
00:14:04
Speaker
have been more on the personnel and personal developments. So that kind of like jumping back to my, the managerial role, I have to step outside of the program sometimes and think of how am I going to strategize to develop these programs? And so last week we had our Naval Surface Warfare Center's Community of Practice, which brings together the warfare center managers
00:14:32
Speaker
from all 10 of the War First senators in which we go over some of the commonalities that we have issues we might be having. So we went over some lessons learned with some of the previous
00:14:49
Speaker
investigations that we've had uh we talked about the recent uh it's called the opmav instruction 5123 which is that higher overarching instruction they just came out with a new change with it so we kind of we discussed what effects those changes might have had and how each warfare center has gone about implementing those changes so it's really just an over a great
00:15:14
Speaker
knowledge sharing capability. So that helps me grow as a safety manager and also just seeing the different perspectives of safety managers that are ranging from being in the job for two years all the way up to 25 years.
00:15:30
Speaker
And then on the personnel development side, there's a lot of the mentoring aspect of it. Again, I might seem young from the managerial side of things, but I have very compounded my experiences at this point. And so the side of taking certain programs that have a newer program manager
00:15:58
Speaker
getting them into courses that will help improve their knowledge and then helping them idealize how to take that knowledge and actually expand upon it and apply it to the workplace. Well and it sounds like with you have a lot of collaborators with whom to run things past and like you said to learn from to be that mentor and possibly mentee
00:16:24
Speaker
You were talking about being young in your profession or the responsibility that you have. I know that you've got some opinions on answering the question, when are you really a safety professional and something about job qualifications? What have you learned about that and what are your thoughts on that? Right. So I really don't think just going to
00:16:51
Speaker
an associate's degree or a bachelor's degree ever is enough to consider yourself a professional. That really just means that you were able to go and absorb the information and potentially put it back down on a piece of paper.
Mentoring and Leadership Skills
00:17:05
Speaker
And so whether or not you have actually mastered the application of that or the emotional intelligence to actually have those critical conversations with an employee that might not explicitly agree with you. So the true safety professional side of it is to be able to be flexible in your approach to each situation. And so one of the items that I was involved with at NSDBC Crane was
00:17:33
Speaker
developing a job qualification requirement that basically gave the first year, second year, and maybe even third year employees kind of like a line of what to look forward in accomplishing.
00:17:47
Speaker
So it could be 10 inspections in which five of them were with three different senior safety specialists. So you're getting different perspectives on how to actually do the investigation or the building inspection and then do an additional five on your own and show what tangible deficiencies you were able to find.
00:18:11
Speaker
And so that way, like the senior safety specialists or the safety manager can be like, well, I see you only found electrical. So maybe we need to expand upon what information you know for fire and life safety program and so on and so forth. But really, it's just a matter of making sure that we're not pigeonholing ourselves into
00:18:37
Speaker
I am the single source of information. As a safety professional, you should have the emotional intelligence to be able to admit that you don't know everything and that we can continually learn from each other.
00:18:53
Speaker
From my personal perspective, that is where I have been focusing a lot of my attentions this last year or two, as far as actually using the outside sources I have, so the LinkedIn, the safety conferences, so on and so forth, to develop the networking and see what other areas of knowledge that we can continue to grow in.
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah, so as part of that you had said to me when we've talked previously about an ability to be self-critical, is that what you're talking about? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, seeing where there are some opportunities to learn more. And gosh, this is a career where we are constantly, constantly learning.
00:19:41
Speaker
And it kind of goes two ways as well. Earlier you mentioned the mentor, mentee, but going out of your way to identify who those people should be in your life. And that doesn't even mean that it's only one. So I've recently
00:20:03
Speaker
found what I would consider a career coach that I've utilized heavily versus a career mentor. Yeah, talk about that. Yeah, talk about that. Yeah. It's really all in the approach. The career mentor has been that
00:20:25
Speaker
Like, hey, I've got these job opportunities coming up. Like, can you help me look through them as far as where you would have, what would you have done? What do you think I am capable of doing? It's a very interpersonal relationship.
00:20:45
Speaker
And then the coaching side of things is not to say that there's not interpersonal relationships there because you still have to have that trust developed between each other to be able to take whatever self-critical information they might share with you and take it as constructive criticism to move on. But it's more like.
00:21:06
Speaker
they understand where you're trying to go and they kind of push you into a direction with their self opinion or self professional opinion as to say on this project I would have recommended having this communication style and or so on and so forth it's it is very it's more directional is how I would refer to it as
00:21:33
Speaker
And so it's basically saying that they have the professional capabilities that you desire to have and you're going to learn more explicitly from them versus the mentorship where there is the constant back and forth communication with each other. So there's not communication in coaching, but that is how I am highly utilizing it.
00:21:56
Speaker
Yeah and so is your coach someone that you sought out yourself and is it someone who's within the system where you work or did you go outside? Yeah so both it was definitely like I had to earn my capability to ask that question so he
00:22:14
Speaker
The individual is in my organization now out at Port Wa Nimi. He's a phenomenal individual. I am not the first nor will I be the last that he has coached. And even, even he and himself has kind of developed and mastered his trade to where he understands that mentorship is a longer lasting commitment where coaching, it could be for a shorter duration because once they determine
00:22:43
Speaker
that you've developed the necessary skills in that area, you guys can move on. You're still gonna be friends and communicate, but I explicitly went to him for internal leadership capabilities, and he is most certainly a subject matter expert in that area.
00:23:04
Speaker
once I get to a point where I feel like I've got that aspect under wraps, I know for a fact I'll continue to communicate with him. But it was very organic. In some cases, you might be able to just go up and ask somebody, hey, will you be my mentor? Hey, will you be my coach? But it still needs to be strategized on how you ask that question. It's like, this is the area I'm working on. I've seen that you have
00:23:35
Speaker
exhibit A, B, and C experiences with it. Can you please set aside an hour a month to talk with me and help me? But yeah, the mentorship and the coaching was definitely organically grown where I kind of earned the capability to have that time with them, and then it's grown into more from there. Awesome. So are you mentoring anyone yourself? I am actually.
00:24:04
Speaker
I mean, I have the impromptu mentorships nearly on a daily basis with everyone on the team. But as far as true, like someone requesting mentorship, I am still involved with the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity out of Indiana State University as a health and safety advisor. So I've been
00:24:32
Speaker
I've been mentoring the health and safety chairman there for the last year or so. And it's really beyond the helping them program health and safety into the fraternity, but also just helping mentor them as far as like, how do I, how did they determine what career they want to do? How do they get into that career field? What should they do steps from here to there and then just
00:25:03
Speaker
always leaving the underlying concept of enjoy your life. Don't get so uphold on whatever is directly in front of you. Just know that there is always a brighter side to it and enjoy the process as you go through it. And what a great way to give back to your campus. That's a great idea. Yeah, very nice. Carter, you had said to me previously,
00:25:33
Speaker
you know, about how do you finding ways, particularly as a young professional to find your voice in this career. And do you want to expand on that? And I'm guessing maybe it's a piece of this mentoring and mentorship and coaching you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. So finding your voice has definitely been a difficult thing
00:25:56
Speaker
It kind of comes from two perspectives, throwing out age. It's really just an experience as far as knowing you don't know what you don't know. So when I first came into the profession, I had, again, a lot of the by the books knowledge.
00:26:17
Speaker
But knowing how to communicate those effectively is where the lacking capabilities were. So again, I was and continue to be self-critical and constantly looking for constructive criticism.
00:26:39
Speaker
some people choose a single idea or a single concept of safety to become a specialized individual and that's how they get their voice. So like for instance an ergonomist is going to choose ergonomics, an industrial hygienist is going to choose industrial hygiene.
Six Sigma and Safety Integration
00:27:00
Speaker
Someone might say, someone might enjoy fall protection so they're going to become the fall protection program manager.
00:27:08
Speaker
I felt like I was able to comprehend and develop all of the programs effectively. And I didn't want to keep myself into one of those and instead of prospering and becoming kind of a level above each of them to where I would consider myself. Yeah. A generalist where I would consider myself a safety professional. And so.
00:27:34
Speaker
I was able to quickly pick up based off of just work reaction or interactions I had with the senior safety specialists and
00:27:45
Speaker
It became more of a, what can I do more beyond safety, but while using safety. So at this point in time, I think I've personally found my voice in the concept of workplace optimization. So while I was at Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane,
00:28:07
Speaker
blessed the fact that they had such a strong infrastructure in the safety office, I was able to kind of develop my capabilities in other areas as well. So I ended up doing my Six Sigma Greenbelt, which as you continue to go down those roads, you realize that safety truly is connected to all sorts of the business operations of any business.
00:28:37
Speaker
So that's where I actually got some of my big, bigger breakthrough projects in the safety world. Because after I did my green belt certification, you know, we had a few of the safety accidents in which I was able to combine my skills with safety investigation and also the integrated product teams and brought together the project that was actually associated with my National Safety Council award.
00:29:05
Speaker
where I brought together four or five different Orver centers and put together a product that we were able to use as a kind of best practice across each of them on a life cycle management plan for floating assets. All that to come back to the workplace optimization and professionalism flexibility.
00:29:33
Speaker
Right. So Carter, you mentioned Six Sigma. So for people who are not familiar with what that means, do you mind explaining it? So I will give this the best of my shot here. So there I know. I know it's complex. So yes. Take a crack. 30,000 feet. So they're just for.
00:29:56
Speaker
The initial confusion that some people may get is Lean and Six Sigma. So Lean is, it's associated with Six Sigma, but Six Sigma is more of the idea of where you kind of go through and you look for how you can optimize a process based off of bringing together all of the different
00:30:22
Speaker
personnel that you might need. So they call it the one-third, one-third, one-third process. So you have one-third subject matter experts, one-third just people that do the work, and then the other third is someone that has no one associated with it. And you come together and you brainstorm and you develop a process with metrics or key measurements that can identify how you can continue to improve the process.
00:30:51
Speaker
And then Lean is more of the statistical analysis of how you can actually take all of that information and continue to make it work better. Interesting. Thank you. So was that pursuit of your green belt in Six Sigma, is that something you decided to do on your own or is that something that was supported by the Warfare Center?
00:31:17
Speaker
So it's actually both ways. I chose to pursue that on my own as I, again, I saw the greater breadth that the safety profession had. And so if I could understand that communication style and incorporate safety into it, I could continue to make safety a more business related discussion versus just a, we have to do it because of compliance measure.
Recognition and Awards
00:31:44
Speaker
But within the warfare centers, or specifically in SWC Crane,
00:31:50
Speaker
the Six Sigma personnel and training was a very strong suit there. So it just so happened to be the right place at the right time where I had three master black belts that were very, very approachable. One of them was actually my neighbor back in Indiana. And I guess another slide in there is my mom actually completed her
00:32:20
Speaker
black belt prior to retiring as well. So I knew a little bit more on that one side as well. So you knew what you're getting yourself into at least a little bit. At least a little bit, right? Yeah. So you started to talk about NSC's rising star. So do you mind sharing that information with us? Like, first of all, what is it as you understand it?
00:32:49
Speaker
How does one become a rising star? What is it that you did? And you started talking about that. Yeah. So from what I understand it, the rising star award is an accumulation of somebody else in an organization that you work with.
00:33:07
Speaker
taking the responsibility upon their own hands to document all of the great work that you might be doing. So, um, I, I had submitted an application for a coworker and an SBC crane who ended up winning the 2020 rising star, uh, incredibly deserving individual as well. And then he was kind of one of those individuals that I had a.
00:33:36
Speaker
a very healthy competition with so it wasn't necessarily who who is a better safety professional but it was who who's gonna do the next thing that you know brought better measurements that brought a greater safety culture uh... fill-in-a-blank like we just had a healthy competition and so as as i had documented some of his recent initiatives he was able to document mine that were going on the exact same time
00:34:04
Speaker
So he submitted one for me on the 2021. And so that was, as I was alluding to, it was a longer process with the integrated product teams. And so once the final product came out, it just so happened to be within 2021.
00:34:22
Speaker
But yeah, it's basically it's that the award in and of itself is decided upon by the National Safety Council selectees. So it's only one person per organization.
00:34:38
Speaker
I don't believe there's actually a cap on the amount of personnel, but there's 84,000 employees in the NAVC, which is the overarching organization that I'm a part of, in which of that there's a certain percentage of safety professionals. I believe it's around 500 to 600 at this point.
00:35:01
Speaker
So not to say all of them were submitted, but only one could be submitted out of the amount that is in that organization.
00:35:11
Speaker
And we, being the Navy, have had a relationship with the National Safety Council for at least the last eight years, I believe, in which we are all supposed to have, or not supposed to, we all have the capability to have an account with National Safety Council where we can use their benchmarking processes and their online training and we get a little bit of the discounted fees for all of the National Safety Council events.
00:35:41
Speaker
Sure, training and whatnot. So what does, when you find out that you've won this award, what is that like? Do they give you a phone call and say, congratulations, you're a star? Do you get a letter? What does it look like from your side? Since I have the perspective of both the nominee and the nominator,
00:36:09
Speaker
It depends on how the nominator decided to distribute the information. So if they chose to not tell the nominee until the award was won, it could actually be a complete surprise that you didn't even know somebody has submitted a package. But normally there's quite a bit of information that
00:36:34
Speaker
you as a nominator will need to get from the nominee. So it'd be pretty hard to do it. Yeah. So like you're having, getting just randomly asking for your resume and what your perception on safety is and all that good stuff. Like you could technically slide those into just random conversations with a person, but it's just far easier to keep them involved in the very get go and making sure that they're, they're true voices seen in the nomination. But, uh,
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah, so you go through the process, you get it submitted, you can work with the awards committee at National Safety Council to make sure that whatever submission package that you are going to submit is of high quality and then
00:37:21
Speaker
Once it goes through the process, you get an email that says either your nominator or nominee was selected, which is an awesome thing. They go through. They really want you to be there in person to receive it. So they'll start to communicate when the National Safety and Congress Expo is
00:37:48
Speaker
the day that the award you're supposed to be, what all that your package would include if you were able to go, so on and so forth. But then also if you weren't selected, you would receive an email that says you weren't selected. Right, right. And so the Congress and Expo happens to have been last week at the time of this recording.
Work Experience and Challenges
00:38:12
Speaker
So how did that work for you? Did you go or were you not able to?
00:38:16
Speaker
I chose to not go this year. I had some personal obligations the week before, and just knowing how busy we can be in the office, chose not to take more than two weeks off in a row. Yeah. Yeah. I can certainly understand that. I can certainly understand that. I wasn't there this year either. Well, congratulations. That is fabulous. Yeah, fabulous.
00:38:46
Speaker
So, Carter, I'm curious, you've been in the work of health and safety for how many years now? So I have been in the government services working on my sixth year now, and then I did an accumulation of about a year and a half of internships through college or through undergraduate. So we'll go ahead and just say a solid six years altogether now.
00:39:13
Speaker
Yeah, right. So what's your favorite part of this work so far? The daily changing of dynamics for sure. It keeps you on your toes.
00:39:27
Speaker
There are, there's numerous times where I will be reviewing a construction design and then have one of my other safety professional or safety specialists ask me for assistance on reviewing a fall hazard plan to getting a call from the East Coast saying that they need help developing a lockout tag out procedure. So it,
00:39:52
Speaker
It changes on a daily basis, sometimes minute by minute basis. My favorite part of that changing dynamics are the friendships, relationships, and networking that I can develop as we go through it, for sure.
00:40:09
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds awesome. What's your least favorite part? Maybe it's something with managing people, not specifically the people, but like rigmarole of a government paperwork or something.
00:40:24
Speaker
I would say the least favorite part of it is having to justify funding or justify the time that we do towards certain objects of safety. It makes complete business sense. You can't just throw out, this is safety, it's important, we have to do it. It's one of those
00:40:48
Speaker
We're not the only division associated with our corporate operations department, so we can't just have 12 people in the safety office, which would be awesome. I would easily be able to distribute two programs per person, and everything would have so much time for continuous improvement.
00:41:05
Speaker
But it just doesn't work that way.
Advice for Career Seekers and Networking
00:41:09
Speaker
So being able to strategize, set out a plan, and actually community effectively goes a long way in the profession. Yeah, absolutely. Well, as we're closing in on our time today, wondering if you have
00:41:28
Speaker
Have anything you'd like to share with others who maybe are getting their start or just getting started like you or are maybe interested in civilian work in the military or anything like that? Just to jump right into it, take advantage of the social media networking capabilities we have.
00:41:51
Speaker
If you don't have a LinkedIn account, create one. Just search ASSP or NSC and just start following all the big names you see in there. They'll lead you down directions and information that you never thought possible. I know I've found quite a few amazing people on there that I learn from on a daily basis.
00:42:17
Speaker
take for granted articles that you read. Don't just read it and think, oh, this is the next big thing, but actually read it and then apply to what workplace knowledge you already have and think, can I change this to actually fit my workplace? Can it fit my workplace as is? Or is this just not something that's going to be feasible for the workplace? Just because you read something doesn't mean it's the next big thing.
00:42:45
Speaker
And then for the civilian world or working in government services, working for the Navy is not the only thing. So go to usajobs.gov, create your account, and start playing with those filters.
00:43:03
Speaker
Yes, it is easier as an engineer or scientist to get into the government as a direct hire, but that does not mean that as a safety specialist, a business analyst, a contracting officer representative, all those other business related positions, you're able to get in and it is a very rewarding
00:43:29
Speaker
position to have There are all kinds of people that you could ask To get more information from that's also where I would just say use use your social media capabilities there and then be be courteous when you send messages or
00:43:51
Speaker
look for networking capabilities. Everybody is incredibly busy these days, so be clear and concise with your communications, saying,
00:44:04
Speaker
And then expect them to reply is not a good way to go. And in your first message. Yeah, I get those messages. Yeah. Yeah. So introduce yourself, but get, get to the point. Like if, if you want to bring somebody on your, to your podcast, introduce yourself, say what you want. And that for those people that truly care about expanding upon the profession will be plenty. Yeah.
00:44:33
Speaker
Hey Carter, to bring things full circle, you mentioned your dad at the beginning and how you kind of didn't realize he was a health and safety professional until you started talking with him about your career planning. What are your conversations like today? So our conversations today are very entertaining nonetheless.
00:44:57
Speaker
It'll literally just gonna be a story to story to story. Sometimes the stories connect, sometimes they don't. He'll tell me about, I mean, yeah, I've heard the same story a few a few hundred times at this point, but it never gets old of where he goes out and was
00:45:16
Speaker
conducting a burn permit and was inspecting the pile and found things that should not be getting burned. I'll give a scenario that I'm in right now and he'll discuss about how much harder it was back in his day. It's not per se a competition, but it's just always funny of his life or his experiences
00:45:45
Speaker
He was able to do some of the same things without an education. That's what he likes to throw into my face. Then there is the occasional thing that I throw out there when I start talking about some of the more sophisticated things. I shouldn't say sophisticated, but other things that he wasn't involved. Yeah, technical, there we go. The more technical terms, he's like, okay, yeah, you can have that one.
00:46:11
Speaker
Interesting. So is he still working as an explosive expert? No, he's a do things on the farm expert now. Nice.
00:46:27
Speaker
where he doesn't walk around and inspect electrical safety and all that stuff anymore. He's the kind that takes 45 minutes to strap down a load of furniture that you might be taking to your sister's apartment complex or something along those lines. He still finds ways to incorporate his safety past into the present.
00:46:47
Speaker
Well, it never leaves us. I don't know anyone who's a retired safety professional, whoever just leaves it aside and starts leading a risky life. There's often times we'll be walking down the street and he will both look up, see the construction guy up on a ladder on top of a scaffolding.
00:47:11
Speaker
We cringe and we're like, do we do our civic duties and go say something or do we keep on moving? Yeah, such is the plight of a safety professional. I know that one well.
Closing Remarks and Call to Action
00:47:22
Speaker
Yeah. Well, Carter, thank you so much for sharing your story today. And again, congratulations on being a 2021 Rising Star with NSC.
00:47:34
Speaker
Thank you very much. Greatly humbled and glad to have made it onto your podcast.
00:47:42
Speaker
Me too, thank you. And thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good, making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past or future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player you'd like. We'd really love it if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes. It helps us connect to the show with more and more safety professionals like Carter and I.
00:48:11
Speaker
Special thanks to Naive Jourisi, our podcast producer. And until next time, thanks for listening.