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#16: These guys really lived safety. It wasn't just a flavor of the month.
116 Plays7 years ago
From starting his career as a chemist at a nuclear facility to becoming an operations manager at a hydro plant and on through his recent retirement, our guest Harold talks with series host Jill James about his path towards becoming a safety pro. We get to hear how Harold went from a co-worker to supervisor overnight and how that changed his view on safety, from only having to worry about his own safety to now being responsible for the safety of his employees, widening his circle of responsibility. Jill and Harold also talk about how safety changed over time, both in regulations and internal procedures and behaviors within their roles.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro, brought to you by Vivid Learning Systems and the Health and Safety Institute. Episode number 16. My name is Jill James, Vivid's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Harold, who is a retired safety and training professional joining us from his home in Pennsylvania. Harold, welcome so much to the show. Thank you, Jill. It's quite an honor to be here today and I'm looking forward to it.
00:00:35
Speaker
Well, Harold, you are the first person that we're interviewing on the podcast who is retired in the safety profession. How long have you been officially retired? Well, it's been about a year and a half at this point in time. I
00:00:53
Speaker
I worked for, my career was 35 and a half years. So I've been out now, like I say, almost two years. And so have your safety eyes lessened their acuity or are you still noticing everything around you like the rest of us?
Adjusting to Retirement and Safety Awareness
00:01:09
Speaker
I think if anything maybe they're even a little a little more intense because I find myself you know as you would imagine I have quite a extensive list of things I want to get done around my house and my property and some other places like that and of course now I'm starting to get back into some physical labor and with that of course you've got the safety aspect so yeah you know I look at
00:01:34
Speaker
I look at ladders differently now and all those different things. Isn't that the case? I was at my gym this morning and lifting weights and I was looking at some racking that holds the weights up and I had noticed that one bolt wasn't in a place where there would be a space for a bolt.
00:01:58
Speaker
I was doing this partner workout and I said to this woman I was lifting weights with who's also a paramedic, I said, oh, there's a missing bolt in that thing. And I said, I just can't turn it off. Like I can't turn my eyes off from noticing these things. And she said, gosh, it's gotta be so annoying to be you. And I said, my eyes just spot these things, you know, I can't help it. It sticks with us for a lifetime, right? Yeah, I know exactly where you're coming from. Like when I'm driving, you know, I see,
00:02:27
Speaker
other drivers doing things and of course you know myself doing some things sometimes or even like when I drive through a work zone you know I'll be looking at that because it's kind of one of the areas where you know I had some responsibility when I was in my job and you know I'll be looking at a work zone it's like oh you know they're not using the right sign there they're not using it properly that type of thing but my wife says just just drive through forget about it don't worry about it
00:02:54
Speaker
But it's like, I can't turn it off. Hard to do. Right, right. So 35 and a half years, Harold, that's a long time in a career that's wonderful. First of all, congratulations. Congratulations for serving the industry and our practice for that long, and for getting to a point where you can enjoy retirement. So congratulations to you, and thank you for the work. Thank you, Jill. I greatly appreciate it.
Career Beginnings and Unexpected Paths
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah, so take us back to 35 and a half years ago, how on earth did you wind up in the safety field? Where were you at the time and how did you find your way into it? How did I end up where I am today? Yeah. Well, you know, as we all have, there's many, many
00:03:40
Speaker
twists and turns in my in my life and you know you look back and you think well if I just would have gone left as opposed to right at this one juncture I would have ended up here as opposed to there but you know through the whole time I can say I have I've had no no regrets of any decisions that I've made or anything basically just to kind of start from the beginning I yeah
00:04:03
Speaker
Well, I'll, I'll start at college. That's probably, that's probably a good place to start because usually that's where most people are kind of their future kind of gets formed when they're in their college years. And I graduated from Shippensburg university. It's a state university within the Pennsylvania university system. And I had a, a major in biology and a minor in chemistry.
00:04:31
Speaker
Now what my goals, at least what I thought my goals were at that time was I would have liked to work for a like a fish and game commission, something like that, or get into the environmental field.
00:04:48
Speaker
And unfortunately, as we all find out from time to time, when I graduated, and that was in 1981, by the way, so many, many moons ago, there's a lot of, most of the federal and state agencies like that did that type of work. They, it was a period of time where they had hiring freezes on them and that type of thing. So, okay. So I, on the job search, as you know, we,
00:05:18
Speaker
we would do when we graduate from college and I actually became aware of a chemist position at a nuclear power plant.
00:05:29
Speaker
Now, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would work or even want to work as a chemist at a foreboding nuclear power plant. Sounds kind of like your parents might go, what? Exactly. Exactly. But it's like, OK, so let's let's pursue this. Let's let's see what's let's see what's available there. So I actually went and I interviewed and see here's where my
00:05:58
Speaker
My minor in chemistry paid off for me because they offered me a position as a chemist. So I started working at this nuclear power plant and I was in that chemist position for about two years, work rotating shifts, you know, was exposed to all the nuclear regulatory commission.
00:06:22
Speaker
regulations and procedures and you know all that very very strict formal structure that was there which was good I mean that was a good thing for me because throughout the rest of my life you know I kind of kept going back to some of the practices that I learned there
00:06:43
Speaker
So I was in that position for about two years, really enjoyed it. I loved doing that type of thing, working in the laboratory as a chemist and all that. Well, after about two years of that, I was offered a supervisory position
00:06:59
Speaker
in that same group, which was that was quite an eye-opener there because I was like working with peers one day and the next day I was their supervisor. And you're in your early 20s, I bet. I was. I started there when I was like 22. So now I'm like 24 and I'm supervising these people who the day before, you know, I was a co-worker with. So that was
00:07:27
Speaker
That was quite an education for me and made it through it. Again, that was the type of thing that was a good learning opportunity. And that certainly helped me out as I went through the rest of my career, too. Right. And so Harold, what was it like when you said it was a learning opportunity when all of a sudden, overnight, essentially, you become the supervisor?
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, what was that like? Was it was it challenging or did you immediately feel like some sort of shift in a power structure? And yeah, right. Well, it was kind of a peculiar time, I guess I'll say, because it's like some of the certainly the vast majority of my not now my employees who were before, you know, my co-workers, they accepted me, they congratulated me and all that type of thing.
00:08:19
Speaker
But there were a few who, you know, felt they should have had that position. So that was that wasn't something that went away overnight. In fact, I was in that position for, I guess, about maybe five years or so. And that never really went away with with some people. You know, they always it wasn't a certainly it certainly wasn't an adversarial relation working relationship, but there was always
00:08:46
Speaker
that and some folks it's like well you know that should have been me at that point in time they want they want to express that to me right right of course but of course you know it was just kind of always there but but but it was a very very positive experience and the fact you know when i got into the as a supervisor that's when i really started
00:09:06
Speaker
concentrating more on the safety aspect because as a chemist working in the lab you know going out taking samples going into radiological areas and all that type of thing I was I was certainly well aware of
00:09:24
Speaker
safety, but it was really my safety. You know, I was, I was responsible for my safety. And that's really pretty much the extent of what I really was concerned about. But now as a supervisor, I had all these people that were working for me. I had at that point in time, I think about 18 to 20 folks that reported to me.
00:09:49
Speaker
And now, you know, I was responsible for their safety. Yeah. Your, your circle widened, not just from an introspective position, like, like some of us experienced when we're in our early twenties, but now, oh man, there's people on my watch and I have to be concerned about them. Right. So it was a, it was a, it was a maturing process for me. Um,
00:10:15
Speaker
You know, it was quite, quite the eye opener for me that now, you know, I've got some responsibility for people. I wasn't, I wasn't married at the time, so I didn't have a family or anything like that. So, you know, I hadn't, I hadn't, um, you know, experienced that type of transition. Exactly. Exactly. So, uh, so anyways, so, so that's, that's where it was.
Transition to Hydro Plant and Leadership Lessons
00:10:38
Speaker
I was in that position for, I think about maybe five or six years. Um, good position, good, uh,
00:10:45
Speaker
Being a supervisor, again, that carried me through for most of my career. And then we came to a point where this nuclear plant was actually in the process of, they were phasing out some positions because one of the units was actually going to be shut down.
00:11:08
Speaker
And so about half, half the workforce in that whole group, which I would say there was probably, or as full-time employees, there might've been about a thousand full-time employees there. About half those folks were, they were assigned to one unit and the other half were assigned to the other unit. You know, you didn't really mix too much. So anyways, at that point in time, it was like, all right, you know, these, these positions.
00:11:32
Speaker
are going to be phased out down the road, you know, six months from now, a year from now, something like that. So, so, so I saw the handwriting on the wall and I didn't, I didn't lose my position, but I thought, you know, I don't know that I want somebody else to be making, making my career decisions for me. So I started looking for other opportunities.
00:11:57
Speaker
And within the same company, and not too far geographically from where I worked, there was another supervisory position that was becoming available. And it was in a, believe it or not, a hydro plant.
00:12:18
Speaker
So I went from the high tech nuclear world to a hydro plant that was built in, well, I was right around, I think it was 1904. It was built in 1904. So I was fortunate enough to get that position. I was at that point then I was a operation supervisor. And now I became even
00:12:44
Speaker
way, way more responsible, responsible for safety because there were, it wasn't a large workforce there. There were maybe 40 people, but because you had so few people, um, you know, and there was only two supervisors and a manager. So my, my areas of responsibility was of course the operation of the plant, which was a run of the river.
00:13:11
Speaker
Hydro plant I mean how what it what a shift for you Harold to go from the nuclear energy to you know I mean if you just wanted to crop up an image in your head when you said hydro plan I'm thinking oh my gosh you step so far back it's like the water wheel you know basically basically that's true I mean I
00:13:29
Speaker
I'll put it this way. When I first got there, I felt like I died and went to heaven because it was like we didn't have procedures for this. But, you know, we didn't have to get sign offs to do this task and that task and that type of thing. So it was like it was kind of like a breath of fresh air. Now, yeah, was it was it over time? Right. That certainly changed over time because that was more
00:13:54
Speaker
That was more indicative of the management that was there more so than just the nature of the beast. But the thing about once I got there, now I was actually responsible. Safety was one of my hats. I had safety. This was in your job description. I had safety. I had training. I had environmental. I had all the administrative functions.
00:14:21
Speaker
I had the operation of the plant. We had recreational facilities. I was actually the representative to the National Water Safety Congress that promoted public safety in power and power generating hydro facilities. So I was the representative for that and under that
00:14:46
Speaker
under that umbrella, I dealt with the public and now we're getting into a whole different area as far as safety because now it wasn't only our employees that we were concerned about, we were concerned about the public while they were boating
00:15:04
Speaker
and fishing and using our facilities. The environmental aspects was part of my job responsibility too. Did you feel the weight of that then Harold? Do you remember as a young person thinking, gosh, what have I stepped into here? Now I have, I mean, did that feel heavy to you? I was actually, it was kind of exhilarating. If I'd step into it right now, it'd probably kill me.
00:15:31
Speaker
But at that time, I really thought it was great because now I had all these different things that I could get involved in. And some of the nice things about it were like the environmental aspect of it. I mean, that went right back to my college major with biology and chemistry and all that type of thing. So I mean, that took me right back there.
00:15:57
Speaker
professional fun you were having. I was and the employees were they were just basically the salt of the earth type of employees who just were wonderful to work with. They were very very even though you know it wasn't like today's environment where safety is like really in the forefront I mean back in those days
00:16:23
Speaker
You work safe. These guys work safe because that's the way they always did it. And that's how they, that's how they got to go home at the end of every day. And these guys really lived safety. It wasn't just, it wasn't just, you know, a flavor of the month or a buzzword or something. These guys really cared about each other. And I could see that like when a new employee would come in, they would really take this person under their wing and they would not allow them to do anything.
00:16:52
Speaker
that could potentially be in a dangerous scenario until they had enough experience and these older workers had enough confidence in them that they could say, yup, I've seen Carl do this before and I think Carl's ready to do this task. And I'll tell you what, that was kind of sobering to me when I saw that, how these older employees would actually
00:17:18
Speaker
I mean, they felt totally responsible for the younger employees who were working with them. And that was a, that was another thing that I kind of, you know, carried inside me the rest of my career and the rest of my life too. Right. And they also, they also, I'm sure saw anyone they were bringing on board as someone who eventually would need to have their back as well. And so they needed to have confidence that that person could have their back, so to speak. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
00:17:46
Speaker
Do you remember Harold back then? You're not necessarily brand new in your field, but like you said, this was the first job where safety was really an assigned duty. And you're put into a work environment that you've not been in before. Do you remember any of the things that you were learning by way of safety that surprised you that went? I'm sure there were lots, but does anything stand out? Like, man, I never even thought of that as a safety thing.
00:18:13
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, like, that was actually the first time. Now, of course, when I was a chemist working at the nuclear plant, you know, I was I certainly was aware of like safety data sheets, that type of thing. But but now now I was responsible for them, you know, for the whole plant. So, you know, that was back in the day when we're talking early 90s now where
00:18:38
Speaker
you know, the way you tracked your safety data sheets was you had a spreadsheet and you actually had paper copies of every single chemical, every single you know,
00:18:51
Speaker
substance that you used in the workplace you had a paper copy there in a book you had like like three or four books so yeah that was something that was kind of new to me and it certainly made sense that yeah you gotta have this stuff here but again the first time I really you know needed to work with it
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah, it was certainly the first time when I ever dealt with OSHA coming in. OSHA would come in for just periodic inspections and of course we did have a couple thankfully not really severe
00:19:26
Speaker
incidents while I was there, but that was a new learning experience because I had never dealt with OSHA directly like that before. Just the training aspect of it.
00:19:41
Speaker
You know, again, earlier in my career, I took whatever training I was told I needed to take, but now I was actually responsible to look at what the people, you know, the jobs that they performed do a task analysis and determine, okay, so this, because this employee does this type of work.
00:19:56
Speaker
They need, you know, X, Y and Z training. You know, they go into the enclosed confined space. So they need enclosed confined space training. They also need the enclosed confined space rescue training. And what goes with that is respirator training and all these, all these, all these different things that, you know, kind of all linked together. And now that that, you know, is my responsibility to make sure that that'll happen. Now we had, you know, I will say I was
00:20:26
Speaker
fortunate. Throughout my whole career, I worked for a very large company. So we had corporate safety people that would come visit from time to time.
00:20:40
Speaker
but we really were kind of like an island on our own. So, you know, we had to do a lot of this on our own. So, yeah, as far as actually being, you know, responsible for safety aspects, I mean, as far as the training goes to getting back to that, you know, I was responsible to track the training and make sure that, you know, everybody, you know, okay, you sign an attendance sheet, make sure that,
00:21:06
Speaker
that gets logged in. And again, that was just all spreadsheets and that type of thing. We didn't really have anything more advanced than that. Right. So when you were doing that work and really finding your feet in safety, you had a corporate safety department or office, you said, at the corporate level. Is that where you went for information? Or did you have a mentor at the time?
00:21:34
Speaker
You know, were you creating a lot of this stuff on your own or did you have were you starting to build your network? I guess of Yeah, I would say, you know some some things were kind of in the infancy stage where you know We were getting into some new technology. So of course we needed new training, you know some different things like that But but this corporate safety group, you know, they were they were in a role that they were kind of there to drive
00:22:03
Speaker
the higher levels of safety, but we were still kind of like an island on our own where ultimately we were responsible. They would kind of like give us some general guidelines.
00:22:19
Speaker
okay so here's what you need to do but that was really my and the other supervisor and manager there it was kind of like our responsibility to figure out how to get it done right right yeah and so when you when you're in that particular role your operation supervisor now and you've got a number of years of experience you walked in with supervisory experience with people was it was it a little less bumpy or was it bumpy for you because you were the new guy
00:22:48
Speaker
I was it was it was less bumpy i would say because because now i had you know i had some time under my belt and you know i had some some supervisory type training there was actually one course it's a thing it's actually a ken blanchard course it's probably even still out there it's called
00:23:05
Speaker
situational leadership. And that was one of the, I would highly recommend if it is still out there, I'm pretty sure that it is. I would highly recommend any one who's a supervisor, especially if you're a new supervisor.
00:23:22
Speaker
If you could take that class, you should, because what it deals with is, well, basically the title situational leadership. You can't, you can't be the same person. You can't have the same response to every single one of your employees because what motivates one employee is not, it could actually demotivate the other employee.
00:23:45
Speaker
And, you know, one, you know, one way to deal with an employee, you know, some employees need you, they need you and they welcome you being right there, basically looking over their shoulder all the time. But then you have another employee who they're at a certain level where they would resent the fact if you were looking over their shoulder all the time. So, so, so what I learned through that.
00:24:13
Speaker
And what I learned through the experience of actually being a supervisor was that you need to treat people fairly, but you definitely don't want to treat them all the same. That does not work, never good work. One size does not fit all. No, absolutely not. So when I was in that role,
00:24:34
Speaker
there at the, uh, at the hydro plant, I'd say I was probably one of my best learning experiences of my whole career because I had so many different areas.
Corporate Changes and Generational Shifts
00:24:45
Speaker
Oh, I was a budget coordinator too. So, you know, I mean, you think, yeah, okay, you've got budget, you've got environmental and you got administration, you got,
00:24:53
Speaker
You know, all the computers, the IT stuff, you know, I wasn't an IT expert, but I was the one who was responsible to make sure, you know, Joe had a computer on his desk and, you know, it worked and all that type of thing. So I had such a large area.
00:25:10
Speaker
of so many different things. I would say at that job, there was never a time when I ever got bored because there was just always something new, always something new there. Sounds fun. It sounds warm.
00:25:25
Speaker
I looked quickly for our audience who's listening. Situational leadership does still exist, and it's through the Center for Leadership Studies. Yeah, I think that's the name of the corporation. I think it's Steve Blanchard. I would highly recommend anybody if you have the opportunity to take it. In fact, I was even certified to teach that class, and I taught that class many times throughout my
00:25:51
Speaker
throughout my career. So what was the next stop on your journey? Well at that point in time here again I seem to like always kind of like jump out of the plane before it would crash. I get out of that nuclear plant before people actually lost their jobs and okay so now I'm in the generating facility
00:26:16
Speaker
And it's kind of like a lot of companies are right now in the utility business. It's like, oh, we want to kind of like divest ourselves of any of our generation because a generation that's an unregulated environment. So, you know, as far as costs and profits and all that type of thing, it's kind of like a very sharp edge and it's much more competitive where in the transmission and distribution
00:26:46
Speaker
area uh it's much more regulated so anyways the handwriting was on the wall again of my company was going to sell off all their generation and that's that's pretty much the direction it went so again i i thought okay well here again i don't want somebody else being able to you know make my career decisions for me so i started looking at what potentially i i always
00:27:13
Speaker
So that's kind of like little different philosophy than what I see today. I see some of the generations since me, the millennials or whatever. I see them very much more prone to go from one company to another. But- That is a trend. Yeah, it is. But back in that day, and there were certainly people who did that, but there were people who
00:27:42
Speaker
Tended to, you know, stay with their company longer. And of course I did because I was there for 35 and a half years. So essentially, you know, I was looking for what else may be out there. And then I probably moved into the position that I enjoyed the most out of any of them. Now you, you probably think, well, you went from a hydro plant. You said you enjoyed that. I did enjoy that, but moving, excuse me, moving on to.
00:28:11
Speaker
this new position. I actually enjoyed it more and what that was was I actually had to relocate but this time I was married. I had both my sons. I have two sons.
00:28:28
Speaker
Um, had both by that time we had to move, we moved about 60 miles east because now I was working out of the corporate headquarters. And my response, I was working out of the corporate headquarters, but it was a regional employee and we had the utility was broken up into corporate group. And then each of the regions.
00:28:51
Speaker
Now these regions where I was basically in eastern Pennsylvania pretty much all of Eastern Pennsylvania other than one other utility You know, that was our service territory and so I moved into a position where I was responsible for training
00:29:11
Speaker
I was the environmental coordinator now for half of the state. And it was, oh, I loved it. I loved that because now I was, boy, now this is, this is right down my alley now, you know, now I'm going out, I'm going out on oil spills, you know, I'm going out, you know, dealing with S P C C plans for, um, for substations, you know, I'm dealing with, um,
00:29:38
Speaker
environmental impact studies of streams and you know we're having new construction so you know any place in this area that's my baby yeah maybe sort of akin in in a little bit of a way to what you thought you might do with environmental stuff when you you know your your environmental wish job that you had when you were finishing college it was yeah it absolutely moving out and about and getting to see different parts of the state and meeting different people right and
00:30:07
Speaker
And even with that, you still have the safety aspect, of course. But then the other part of my job, which is something, see, I found out that when I was at the hydro plant, when I was responsible for safety, I found out that I really, really enjoyed
00:30:23
Speaker
Presenting safety programs. I really like that. So so this position it just I mean it was perfect for me at the time because it was training and it was environmental so the other the other side of that the training aspect was I was responsible and it wasn't just
00:30:41
Speaker
for me to do the training, although at that point in time I did a lot of training, I was responsible to make sure that all of the regulatory, whether it be OSHA, EPA, DOT, any of that, I was responsible to make sure that all of that training got done for our regional employees.
Technological Advancements in Safety Training
00:31:02
Speaker
So that involved rescue training. The vast majority of training I actually did myself. I had some other people working with me. I wasn't a supervisor now at this point in time. I didn't have anybody reporting to me, which I guess kind of was a little bit of a relief for me too because I liked being a supervisor.
00:31:24
Speaker
But it does wear on you because as you're going through, somebody has an issue, somebody has a problem. Well, not your issue. That's your problem. Right. Whether it has to do with the direct work of the day or something personal. Absolutely. Yeah. And the personal aspects of it many times were tougher to deal with.
00:31:47
Speaker
And then the work type issues, but anyways, so I, so I had the opportunity to step away. And as you'll hear, as we get down the road here, only, only for a few years, but, but for a few years there, I didn't have anybody reporting to me. And now I guess I got to see, you know, by this time, now we're at the point where everybody has a computer on their desk up to that point in time, you know, computers were.
00:32:14
Speaker
It just wasn't you know, like the they weren't common they weren't common like like the admin folks who back in those days You know, they were called secretaries. Of course now that's not the terminology But yeah, they did word processing like on the old Wang systems that type of thing. That's what they use so now we're getting into the realm of okay, so now you got a computer and
00:32:37
Speaker
You know, use that we got a lot more sophisticated tracking systems for our training. Sure. I mean, that was a, there was some big steps forward there when we got to the point where we could actually.
00:32:52
Speaker
I could look at one regional office and I could tell you in five minutes and 10 minutes or probably in 30 seconds, I could tell you, okay, you know, Joshua needs bucket truck rescue training. You know, he needs a CPR first aid training.
00:33:08
Speaker
All that type of thing I could tell that whereas before I'd have to pull out a whole stack of papers and look at that technology was becoming your asset for the to be able to do the job. Absolutely. And there again in that in that realm again safety was.
00:33:25
Speaker
kind of overarching and all that because the training that was all really to, you know, to meet safety requirements and environmental was to meet safety requirements. Right. You know, you were, you were saying, Harold, when you took this position, you were in a responsible for training.
00:33:42
Speaker
environmental and safety and DOT and I think you listed off a few others and and you know for our audience that's listening when when people who aren't doing the work of a safety job so maybe it's your boss maybe you're trying to explain what your work is to someone else oftentimes managers or presidents or CEOs don't really know what
00:34:07
Speaker
fits in that box of safety. So they always think it's just safety. Maybe it's just OSHA. But that's rarely the case. It's more of the experience that you had. And it's on us as the safety professional to be able to educate the people to whom we report to,
00:34:25
Speaker
what the breadth and the depth of that job is. And instead of them thinking, oh, they're just that, you know, that annoying people that are just talking about lockout, tag out or, you know, whatever it is. When, when in fact you're trying to meet regulatory compliance with so many agencies, it makes your head spin. That's certainly an issue because, you know, as my, in my role there, I mean, I had to report to, uh, report it all the way up to the whole regional president, you know, regional management, that type of thing. And.
00:34:54
Speaker
You had to really be able to convey to them why it was important that we're doing what we're doing. Why is it important that we have these plans for a substation? Well, it's because we have the oil volume there. We have the oil capacity.
00:35:12
Speaker
You know, this is required by EPA. It's required by the state, this type of thing. You know, as far as the training goes and safety, well, you know, why does this employee have to do this rescue training? He's probably, yeah, he's never going to have to do it in his whole life. Well, true. But, you know, there is that possibility that they might have to. So yeah, that was something that was, it was always a challenge. Yeah. Interested to hear where this, where this role took you next. Well, again, I was in the, uh,
Coping with Corporate Uncertainty
00:35:42
Speaker
in that area now so okay some environmental and training training okay so now we're going down through now we're getting into mergers and we're getting into mergers and uh you know one region would and it was all this was all now still internal to the the same company but uh
00:36:07
Speaker
but you're looking out in a head like you had been for since the beginning to say is there an arterial bleed coming up somewhere where I need to make a shift exactly but now either fortunately or unfortunately there were some decisions made where
00:36:22
Speaker
You know, I didn't really have, I didn't really have the choice. It was basically like, okay, so some, some regions are going to get together. And this, this was a painful time for me now in this era, because, okay, so you're gonna, you're gonna combine two regions. They're going to be still the same company, but you know, you don't need as many training people. You don't need as many environmental people. You don't need as many engineers, all this type of thing.
00:36:48
Speaker
So i went through the period of time here where i had to apply for my own job a number of times. I was sitting outside my managers management's office. I saw people going on going and interviewing for my position.
00:37:03
Speaker
Oh, how stressful. Yeah, that was tough. But but but I survived all that. I survived all that. But but you kind of you kind of get that survivor mentality when you go through that, because there's good people who you work with side by side. One day they're there. The next day they're going really no fault of their own other than.
00:37:25
Speaker
that position's not needed anymore. So that was kind of a tough time. Right, and what was home life like for you then? I mean, but this time you've got a spouse and some kids that you're raising.
00:37:40
Speaker
Yep. That was now, now I'm thinking about different things and what I ever thought about in my life before, because it's like everything was just take one, you know, I, you know, I get promotions and everything was just kind of like going along, you know, no problem. No problem. Now all of a sudden. Okay. So, so, so this job, okay. So, so now you're in this job and guess what? It's posted. You have to apply for your own job. So yeah, that was tough of me, my wife and I, we had a lot of, uh,
00:38:10
Speaker
you know, conversations about, well, you know, maybe, maybe you should, you know, look some other places. And I did during that period of time, I looked, I looked outside of my company because I thought, you know, I just, this isn't giving me, yeah, it's not giving me a lot of warm fuzzies. Like I said, I see people who were good employees and they laugh. So, so, so that definitely, that definitely was a lot of wear and tear on me during that period of time. But,
00:38:38
Speaker
Ultimately, what occurred was they basically had like an, I'll call it an NFL draft, where they looked at, okay, I got this employee, I got this employee, I got this employee, you know, just like the draft. Okay, this guy, Pittsburgh wants this guy, you know, Seattle wants this guy. Well, it was like the training, the corporate training department wants this guy, the corporate environmental department wants this guy.
00:39:04
Speaker
and this other guy here well I guess nobody really wants him so we'll put him at the bottom of the list and he's like one of those undrafted free agent type guys okay but I was fortunate enough to be good analogy yeah I was fortunate enough to be picked up okay okay so Harold now you're going to be in training okay so now I'm in corporate training and that's essentially
00:39:29
Speaker
where I've been, you know, ever since, pretty much in a corporate training group. And then were you responsible for all types of training, whether it was like you'd done before with safety and environmental and other regulatory bodies as well?
00:39:46
Speaker
Uh, yeah, pretty much so because, uh, what occurred was, uh, now I had some other things kind of, kind of by this time, uh, in this corporate training group, you know, we were not only responsible for. Regulatory training, which was like, you know, like I said, the ocean and DOT and all that type of thing. But we also had a group that was responsible for more soft skills training, like just for instance, like this, uh, situational leadership, but I mentioned.
00:40:15
Speaker
So I became, I kind of worked in a couple of different groups there because I had some of that experience from the past. Like I got, I got, I was a facilitator. I got certified to be a facilitator by Franklin Covey. Like I can do, I can do the seven habits of highly effective people and you know, some of those types of things. And I really enjoyed those.
00:40:38
Speaker
But here again now as I'm kind of looking out for myself as time goes by and I'm seeing some of these soft skill type positions being looked at as do we really need these going forward? Do we need as many of these?
00:40:56
Speaker
But see, I had the background of the hard training. With the added benefit of this other thing, you had effectively diversified your portfolio. I did. I did. But really unknowingly, at one point in time, but then certainly consciously later, and basically I was asked at one point in time, okay, Harold, you know,
00:41:18
Speaker
Where do you want, you know, we want to keep you here in this group. And this was, you know, again, another reorganization, of course. You know, you want to go like the soft side or you want to, you want to go, you know, the regulatory training. Well, I, I went regulatory training and, and it was a good thing I did because that soft skills group, they kind of like floated off and kind of disappeared into the sunset. But I continued on. I became during that period of time, then I became a supervisor again.
00:41:48
Speaker
And I welcomed it because again, I like being a supervisor, but there was a part of me that kind of, my gut was like, do you really want to get back into this again? You know? But I did. That's a lot of responsibility. Right. But I did. And I stayed in that then for the rest of my career when I retired.
00:42:12
Speaker
I was a supervisor and I was responsible for, uh, now, now through different mergers and things like that. Now I'm working for a company that has 15,000 employees. Okay. So now we're.
00:42:24
Speaker
were big. One of my responsibilities was, as you mentioned earlier, was actually with Vivid
Adapting to Online Training and Vivid Collaboration
00:42:33
Speaker
Learning. And I'll just kind of tell you a little bit about that because I was responsible for the regulatory training for all transmission and distribution, our generation side and nuclear side. They had their own separate training group. So now I wasn't
00:42:49
Speaker
I wasn't dealing with any of that anymore. And I was all transmission and distribution, but I was still, you know, I was still 10,000 employees. So anyways, so, um, in 2003, our company decided, you know, we go out and we do all this training. We do like, uh, um, we do like ergonomic training. We do.
00:43:14
Speaker
Um, we do things like, um, you know, some of the rescue training, we do some of the flake fire safety. We do, you know, a variety of things like that. That was basically just basically it was refresher training. Some of that type of training wasn't something that somebody actually had to.
00:43:34
Speaker
put their hands on something and demonstrate to me that you can do CPR, just some basic safety knowledge and certain things like that. The theory-based stuff that meets the regulatory. Exactly. How do we do that now without having to have
00:43:58
Speaker
Training instructors go out and we had I think I think we were covering service territory now in like six states So we're like all over the place Wow, and you said what did you say 10,000 employees under your purview or something like that? There were 10,000 employees under the
00:44:13
Speaker
under the transmission distribution group who my group was responsible for giving them their regulatory training. And I had good instructors working for me and all that type of thing. But yeah, that was our responsibility.
00:44:30
Speaker
How do we get how we get this routine refresher training done without having to go out and visit these people and stand in front of them well we know we looked at some different platform to look at some different companies and ultimately what we did in two thousand three. We.
00:44:50
Speaker
We brought Vivid in. They interviewed us. We interviewed them. This is long before I was with the company. So I've not heard this history. So this is fascinating. All right. Well, yeah. Well, I'll tell you right now, most of the people that are in Vivid right now, they were not around at that period of time. Sure. We've grown a lot. Yeah. So anyways, so we looked at
00:45:16
Speaker
Do you meet our needs? And yeah, the decision was made.
00:45:22
Speaker
let's start doing the vivid, the vivid training, online training. And yeah, I was some major, I was some major growing pains with all that because, you know, we have alignment at that point in time that maybe never even touched a computer. And so, so, you know, we had to have like, you know, just some basic computer training classes so that people knew how to access a computer and, you know, use it and all that type of thing. And then,
00:45:50
Speaker
Then, of course, we had to educate our supervisors and we had administrators, we made administrators who could
00:46:00
Speaker
add people and take people out and run reports in the Vivid System and all that and it was it was probably really a time also of not only were you seeing right before your very eyes the evolution of technology from where you had started to where you were but many of the employees were too because it was you were probably early adopters to online training whereas
00:46:21
Speaker
you know, people today may have had experience or have experienced the computer or know how to operate their phone and navigate things in a way that people just simply didn't know because of the time. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, this was the first time we ever did anything like this. And most other companies, they didn't really have much experience with it either. And we didn't we didn't really know if it was going to work for us or not, because, you know, the thing about it is, OK, so we're going to we're going to provide this training. Is OSHA going to even
00:46:50
Speaker
You know, recognize this training is something that's, you know, something that's acceptable for, you know, for whatever. And that was, you know, I got involved in that with, you know, with some ocean inspectors and things. And we know we found out down the road that yes, all of the vivid content that we had, you know, when the OSHA would come in, an incident would occur. Hey, I want to see your, we need to see your training records. Tell you all the vivid, all the vivid course material, always held up, you know, work for us.
00:47:19
Speaker
And we had, we had, it was a very, very much of a success for us using that platform. And I guess the fact that it's 15, you know, almost 16 years later now.
00:47:35
Speaker
that, that company is still using vivid as their, as their safety training refresher training. I mean, that says something for vivid. It really does. It really says something for vivid. And I will say just from my own personal experience, you know, dealing with vivid, um, as far as customer service goes, I mean, I dealt with many, many, many vendors and many other.
00:47:59
Speaker
contractors that we dealt with for training programs and whatever it may be. And not just saying this, but I've told other people, Vivid always second to none as far as your customer service response, the knowledge of your employees and just customer service attitude was second to none. Thank you for that. My coworkers will be thrilled to.
00:48:26
Speaker
We'll be thrilled to hear that compliment because we do really work so hard on that aspect as being a differentiator to our to our clients experience to our customers experience with us. So thank you for that. You're welcome. And I'll tell you, that's one of the reasons why, you know, like when when I was asked to, you know, kind of.
00:48:46
Speaker
help out with a few things here after I retire. I was thrilled to be able to do that because I've always been a great believer in Vivid and everything that you guys have done. Now there's new products and things out there.
00:49:02
Speaker
You know, I never really used in my past, but I can certainly see the value of them. And just, I mean, your, your, your group's a great group and, uh, you know, evolution continues thrilled to be working with you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. For full disclosure for our, for our audience, um, in Harold's retirement, we've asked him to be, um, part of our focus group. We have a focus group at our company.
00:49:28
Speaker
that's made up of safety professionals from around the country. Some are retired. Harold is our one retired representative and we have people who span the
00:49:39
Speaker
expand the industry from just starting in their career to people who have been in it a long time in all different types of industry and in education. And we're so grateful to our focus group who really helped shape what our offering is going to be without sounding too commercially. The fun part is that we've codenamed our focus group, the Avengers.
00:49:59
Speaker
And so Harold is, Harold, you have a title in your retirement and it's Avenger. We're so grateful for your contribution to it. But it sounds like you and I both, you know, before I joined Vivid, I too was in a situation similar to you where, you know, how are we going to get this training done with all of these employees, you know, without having to
00:50:21
Speaker
handwrite all this curriculum and then figure out how to deliver it to the masses across multiple regions and states. Just like you, I looked for a solution as well and chose Vivid and was in full disclosure a client just like you with Vivid many years after you had been experienced with the company.
00:50:44
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for that history lesson. And in that piece, it's interesting to hear how how you how we how our company came to know you. And now I have the great privilege of getting to know you as well. And occasionally working with you is my pleasure. And there's kind of my life in a nutshell.
00:51:01
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's a pretty interesting nutshell. I mean, you weathered a storm in the same company, but you had all these job changes. You were saying before that different generations change jobs more often, but you're not necessarily unlike them. You just happen to make those job changes within the same organization.
Career Reflections and Advice for New Safety Professionals
00:51:23
Speaker
Oh, no, no, you're absolutely right. Like some people say, oh, you were in the same job for 35 and a half years. No, I wasn't in the same job for 35 and a half years. And I actually moved, moved, you know, physically like three times because, you know, it was different areas and right. And that. So, yeah, it wasn't it certainly wasn't like, you know, and I do know some people, you know, who have worked in the same job.
00:51:49
Speaker
Same location, 40 years, you know, 50 years, but no, I've been around a lot of different places without a doubt. Right. So Harold, for people who are listening to this, who maybe are just starting out, what, what would be your sage advice to someone starting in our career? Well, you know, some of the things I've seen over the years, as far as safety goes is,
00:52:18
Speaker
You know, many, many years ago, it was more of a punitive type thing. Like somebody, somebody who was a safety professional was basically looked upon as a policeman. And, you know, I don't, I don't see that so much anymore. Now I see a safety person as more of a consultant and more of a someone who's there to help you, you know, not to hit you over the head with a stick when you make a mistake. So I think people, you know, people who, you know, aspire to be,
00:52:47
Speaker
in the safety realm, you know, they really need to approach it in that way. You know, I think, I think something that's important for a younger person coming into the safety realm is actually get out, you know, if you're going to be
00:53:02
Speaker
working with a group of people and you're going to be responsible for, you know, some of their safety. I never liked to look at a safety professional and say, you know, you're responsible for my safety. You know, you're not, you know, each individual person is responsible for safety, but, but a safety representative or a safety manager, supervisor, whatever, they do have some responsibilities, you know, for an area. And I guess,
00:53:29
Speaker
I guess what some advice I would say is, you know, get out, spend some time with those people, see, you know, see what they do. Don't just sit at your desk and, you know, fill out reports and, you know, fill in spreadsheets and that type of thing. Get out and get to know the people, get to know what their jobs are.
00:53:47
Speaker
And you're going to be a lot more respected than if you're just the kind of person that shows up when there's a problem. That's right. That's right. Yeah. My, my coworkers often ask, you know, like kind of profile, what a safety professional is like. Um, what are their jobs like? Who are they? And I, you know, my response often is they are rarely ivory tower dwellers.
00:54:10
Speaker
And those who may not be very successful in their job, because you're right. It's so important to understand the workforce, the people you're working with, the type of work activities people are doing, not to do guesswork about it. But at the same time, it buys you respect and trust.
00:54:26
Speaker
With the employees to whom you're responsible for providing the right education and training so they can be responsible for their own safety. Absolutely. You certainly can't do that from an ivory tower perspective. No, and I've seen that approach. I've seen folks in the safety group that they're the holier than thou type of
00:54:51
Speaker
personality where, you know, the only time you'll ever see them is when there's a problem. And then, and then what they're coming out to do is to punish people, you know, come out with, uh, you know, we're going to suspend you. We're going to do this. We're going to do that.
00:55:05
Speaker
And, and, and where that person, you know, that safety professional early on, you know, months before, a year before or whatever, they could have been out, you know, interfacing with these people and maybe seeing that there's a problem or maybe seeing there's a work practice that could be done, you know, more safely. And at that point in time, you know, make some changes. Then a year from now, you're not going to have to sit in a meeting where somebody got hurt.
00:55:31
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah. Harold, as we start winding up our time together today, I'm wondering, do you have a favorite safety story or maybe something impactful, something that kept getting you out of bed year after year to do the job? Or when people say, what did you do in your career? What's your favorite story, whether it's fun or whether it's something that is really motivating?
00:56:02
Speaker
You know, I guess what, what motivated me more than anything was, you know, when I, like I say, I really, I really did like to provide training and I haven't really done. I didn't do much of that in my last few years because I had people working for me, but you know, it really, it really made me feel good. And it really made me feel like I accomplished something when I, when I did a training class and somebody would come some old grizzled lineman who, you know, hates training and did not want to be there.
00:56:22
Speaker
Yeah, I would just say
00:56:31
Speaker
You know, he come up to me at the end of the training and say, you know what, this is boring stuff. But he made it interesting for me and I actually learned something. And, you know, just getting some feedback like that, you know, that always made me feel like, okay, I guess it's worthwhile doing what I'm doing.
00:56:49
Speaker
I made a difference for somebody. Right. Yeah, one person. Yeah, just that day. I did that and I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but that day, you know, I did what I accomplished to do that day and that was a good thing.
00:57:04
Speaker
Yeah yeah I mean and that is that is our job right and it it's um and sometimes it's one person sometimes it's a whole group of people and you never know but um knowing that we're we're laying our hand on that arc and we're we're um bending it toward toward a safer workplace and sending people home the same way they arrived as that's exactly right yeah that's it that's it
00:57:27
Speaker
Well Harold, thank you so much for sharing your story with us and thank you for what you contributed to the greater good in all of our careers and those 10,000 employees in the East. It's a great body of work and thank you for sharing it with us today. Well again, thank you for the opportunity. It was a real honor to be on with you here today.
00:57:54
Speaker
It was my pleasure. Thank you very much. You're welcome. And thank you all so much for joining in and listening today. And thank you for the work that you all do to make sure your workers make it home safe every day. You can listen to all of our episodes at vividlearningsystems.com or subscribe in the podcast player of your choosing. If you have a suggestion for a guest, including if it's you, please contact me at social at vividlearningsystems.com. Until next time, thanks for listening.