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#4: Teach me.
122 Plays7 years ago
To pay his way through school, Jeremiah started working in agriculture. Today, he’s the Director of Occupational Safety & Environmental Risk Management for a prestigious organization in the zoo and aquarium industry. While studying animal science and planning to attend veterinary school, he began a career in safety to support his young family, eventually moving on to larger leadership roles and never looking back. Speaking with series host Jill James, Jeremiah shares what he’s learned along the way, his good fortune to work early on in high-performing Safety cultures, what he is most proud of, and the reason why “teach” and “me” are the two most important words he’s ever learned.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Episode
00:00:10
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro, brought to you by Vivid Learning Systems and the Health and Safety Institute, episode number four. My name is Jill James, Vivid's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Jeremiah. Jeremiah is from the zoo and aquarium industry on the West Coast and is a Director of Occupational Safety and Environmental Risk Management. Welcome, Jeremiah, and thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.
00:00:40
Speaker
Great. So Jeremiah, how many years have you been in safety? How long have you been doing this kind of work? So I would say 13 years total, probably 10 years, formally in a safety type position. Okay, great. So when you think to the way back,
00:01:00
Speaker
Understanding that not all of us came into safety directly. It wasn't, you know, like so many of us didn't, we weren't little kids thinking we were going to get into this career.
Journey into the Safety Field
00:01:09
Speaker
What was, what was the back doorway you, you came into it? Like what were some of those first jobs that sort of led you and put you on this path?
00:01:17
Speaker
Well, it's interesting, and I think you're right, the accidental safety manager. Many of us never planned on being in this role. When I grew up, I didn't say I wanted to be a safety manager when I was a kid. But I started in a production setting after college. I got a job, went to work. But I was responsible for managing a large group of people.
00:01:39
Speaker
And the company I was with was, you know, very risk focused and tried to control risk. And so the emphasis was on PPE and ergonomics and keeping everybody fit, just like you started your intro. We wanted everybody to go home in the same condition they came to work. And, um, I was fortunate that the company I was with really had a strong developed safety culture and it rubbed off on every supervisor, every manager.
00:02:02
Speaker
And by being able to pick up that skill, it really afforded me opportunities down the road that got me where I am today. So it was something I had to embrace as part of our job responsibilities. Yeah. So you said it was your first job out of college in a production facility. What did you go to college for? What's your degree?
00:02:21
Speaker
So I went to school for animal science, like a lot of folks. I thought I was going to be a veterinarian. Oh, wow. Interesting. But grad school seemed kind of a lofty goal, and I worked a lot through college. So the grades weren't quite where they were supposed to be, and it was such a competitive to get into vet school. And I got to a point where I just
00:02:45
Speaker
was accumulating dead in college, I needed to get to work. And so I looked for the best opportunity I could in that field. And being in animal science, it was naturally in agriculture. And so I ended up with a large agricultural company that really focused on safety and risk, like I mentioned before. And I was fortunate that I had that opportunity.
00:03:07
Speaker
Yeah. So what part of the country was that first job? So that was in the Midwest. Um, actually West Texas up in the panhandle and, um, there's more cows and people and that was the industry I was working in. Right. Well, that's, that's cool. So how long were you at that first job
Transitioning Roles and Training
00:03:23
Speaker
about?
00:03:23
Speaker
Um, let's see. I, I, I was a production supervisor for about a year and it was the type of work that was physical. It was demanding. I was on the night shift. It had a small young family. Um, and, and an opportunity came up, uh, in the environmental department, which was something that had, uh, had a microbiology component. It was wastewater, biogas, things I was really interested in. And I was able to apply.
00:03:49
Speaker
some of the science background that I'd had in school and always had an interest, but it opened up a whole other level of risk. Instead of just looking at PPE and ergonomics for folks that were working an hourly shift, just trying to get through a shift, it was really looking at more hazard recognition, like going into confined spaces or H2S and working with large equipment and machine guarding and things like that. So it went from that personal safety factor to
00:04:17
Speaker
Now it's recognized big risk and you're working on smaller teams. You've got to be more dynamic. You've got to plan ahead. You need policies and procedures. So it was really a great chance to kind of broaden that experience. I didn't even realize it was happening at the time. I was just doing the job. Right. Was it intimidating? I mean, that's a pretty big responsibility for a young person, not necessarily with that background. Was it intimidating or do you remember it being more like exhilarating and you're like digging into the research piece of how does this work?
00:04:47
Speaker
You know, I was fortunate that the company I was with had a really great training program and so we spent time in multiple different departments before we landed where we would be working.
00:04:59
Speaker
And it was a department that I'd spent a couple weeks with that I knew I had an interest in. So when the opportunity came, you know, I was really excited about it. There were other benefits that got me off the night shift. It got me, so I get to see my family more and things like that. So there were motivating factors, but I knew it was the opportunity for me at that facility at that time. And so I fully embraced it and it was exciting. You know, it really was.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah. So you were there for a while and then what was the next step? What was the next part of your safety journey? So I did the environmental management piece, which was environmental auditing and again, wastewater management. And I got to go to different facilities and stuff like that all over North America. And it gave me the opportunity when it came to leap into what we all know as the EH and S role, environmental health and safety.
00:05:53
Speaker
Um, an opportunity came up and it was actually a canning industry, um, where they were lacking some environmental experience. They had some opportunities we'll say with, uh, some of their permitting and stuff like that. And I, I, I got to work with an individual that was, that was strong on the safety side, not on the environmental side. And so we kind of combined our powers, but that was the first time I had the formal safety title of an EHS manager.
00:06:21
Speaker
So it was the two combined. And so at that point, that's where it was, hey, you're responsible now for these supervisors, making sure that they're managing appropriately, keeping their staff safe, setting up programs, reducing their X mod, all those types of things that come along with the safety program. So that was, you know, that was about five years into my career where I actually had that
00:06:47
Speaker
in true safety title. And so it was something I embraced and I was eager to get out there and make a difference. And really in this safety role, you have that opportunity. Right, you do. So it sounds like maybe that was one of your first opportunities to kind of have a mentor in the same work environment
Mentorship in Safety Management
00:07:05
Speaker
too. You said you had partnered with someone who had more of a background in safety. It was. You know, I had a great environmental mentor and I owe a lot to him. He taught me a lot.
00:07:15
Speaker
about that side. And he was always safety minded. He never wanted to get anybody hurt. But to have someone that was purely focused on risk management and safety from the broad perspective. Yeah, it takes a mentor. The safety is a learned behavior. I mean, all of these stuff, you've got to have someone kind of show you the ropes and get you up to speed, especially for the industry specific stuff, you know, yeah, there, you know, there's, there's a common knowledge in the
00:07:41
Speaker
and the plant or the group that you work with. And that's key to helping you be successful as a safety manager. Yeah. Can you think of anything from back in those days that in the moment you can think, wow, I never thought I'd do that, or that was a really cool thing I'm really proud of, and think about it still to this day, or man, that was such a crazy thing I had to do to build street cred. I can't believe I did that.
00:08:10
Speaker
Oh, there's plenty of things. I can remember my days in the rendering plants where we had big steam cookers and pressure vessels, different things like that where maybe there was a spill or a failure of some sort that constantly would go, things would go awry during a shift in a rendering facility. And having to get in with your rubber boots and a shovel with all the guys and
00:08:37
Speaker
and start shoveling. And it's unique experiences I'll never forget. Coming home and having to leave my clothes, my work clothes on the front porch because my wife wouldn't let them come in the front door. Yeah, that's dramatic. The stuff that I really enjoyed early on was getting into the confined space piece and the confined space entry and participating in those types of trainings, the hands-on stuff.
00:09:05
Speaker
We would do lagoon clean outs or we had these H2S filters that we would have to remove the medium out of and so working side by side with contractors and staff to put together a rescue plan to practice that piece and fortunately we never had incidents but we always felt like we were prepared for them.
00:09:26
Speaker
Which is great, it gives you a lot of confidence that you're doing the right thing, that you're taking care of your teammates. It's a much better work environment when you know everybody's got your back and you know the plan, you know what you're going to do, and to be able to do it with confidence.
00:09:43
Speaker
When you were doing those plans way back then, confined space, and probably, I'm guessing, training people side by side, like, this is how we're going to do it. This is how we're going to
Challenges and Support in Safety Compliance
00:09:52
Speaker
monitor the air. This is the rescue equipment we're going to use. Here's how we're locking things out. Was it the people that you're working with then, the people doing the work, was it a big sell? Or did they kind of go along and say, OK, this makes a lot of sense? Or did you have detractors who were like, we've been doing it this way for 20 years. Why are we have to listen to you, kid?
00:10:12
Speaker
You know, the fortunate part.
00:10:16
Speaker
At that time in my career and in that role, I had the buy-in from the upper management from the corporate level that, you know, safety is going to be a priority. We're not budging on compliance. So it made that piece easier. It doesn't mean that I haven't run into that, you know, in other areas. So I was lucky in that format where I was able to, you know, get the grounding and develop the skill set that we had the buy-in and the hierarchy.
00:10:42
Speaker
that made it possible. At that stage, if I hadn't had that, I don't think I could have pursued a safety career any further. It would have been too much of a struggle, and I probably would have gone a different way. But at that point in my career, we had the upper management buy-in.
00:10:59
Speaker
Which I know most safety managers struggle with that they don't always have that they're always coaching up and coaching down But in that situation Where I really started to get my feet wet and really started to have influence I was fortunate to have folks above me that knew the value in the work and what that I was doing and the size of the organization and corporation because I
00:11:22
Speaker
Risk was so important to them, you know, they saw value in it. So there was really a top-down approach at that point Lucky you I mean, that's it That's I think unusual for a lot of people in our in our field to kind of walk into jobs where that where that culture and that emphasis already exists
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah. You mentioned the rendering plant, which makes me think of when I was working with OSHA, I investigated exactly one rendering plant. And it's the closest I ever got in my career to vomiting.
00:11:57
Speaker
And so when you're describing what you just described, I totally am transported back to this rendering plant. And it was in July that I was inspecting it in Minnesota when it's hot and humid. And you talked about your wife telling you to leave the clothes on the porch, the leather of my belt.
00:12:18
Speaker
smelled like the rendering plant. Yeah, I don't envy the guys that do that for a living. No, right? And if we weren't on the puck, I could tell you a wonderful story about a college intern that came and worked and ended up in the rendering plant and had some experience to you. And while we were doing one of these cleanups, this young man was running in and out of the plant.
00:12:47
Speaker
to, you know, um, vomit, as you said, and one of the managers goes, where are you going? It's like, it, it, it doesn't matter where you don't have to worry about keeping the floor clean. Oh my gosh, that's so funny. So if no one's ever experienced it, I mean, that's, that's the best description. I mean, if once you step into it, it's like you, that's the normal reaction, you know? Yeah.
00:13:12
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't the plant inside that bothered me so badly. And I think I have a pretty strong stomach, but it was, they had a loadout bay. And so all these trucks, all these semis would back into this loadout bay, you know, kind of down a little bit of an embankment and it was covered over and it was, it was
00:13:34
Speaker
It was hot, and it was summer, and doing my job, I was walking between all of these semis, I was looking to see if wheels were chucked, or if dock locks were being used, or you know, whatever, and it was between those trucks, where it was really bad. Yeah, there's a unique slurry, there's a unique kind of... Yeah, there's nothing like it.
00:13:58
Speaker
Right. So the crazy things that we do in this job, and then like you said, people that work in these facilities year after year for their livelihood and our role. What is our role? Our role is to make that as safe and as pleasant for them as possible. So in the canning industry,
00:14:21
Speaker
Different from where you had been in the agricultural industry you added some I guess probably some more Machinery knowledge. I'm guessing to your to your bag of safety tricks. Okay sure You know the canning industry. It's very unique because you have
00:14:36
Speaker
not unlike a lot of other agriculture you have these short harvest seasons where you have these facilities that run around the clock and you have seasonal folks so you've got everyone's got to be trained or retrained but yeah you've got a lot more conveyor belts moving equipment the can seamers the can fillers everything is spinning turning it's steam powered the cookers are steam powered so it's hot but there's a there
00:15:05
Speaker
There's automation, but there's a lot more manual process. It's an industry that really hasn't changed a lot from back in the 40s and 50s. Some of the equipment we ran was old ductile iron equipment that was built in the 30s, 40s, or 50s.
00:15:23
Speaker
You know, because the technology hasn't changed much. So it was a different, definitely a different environment, you know, but we still had the material handling, material moving issues, whether it's forklifts, flatbed trucks, conveyor belts, a lot of different things like that that probably presented the most risk just because everybody's in a hurry, everybody's in a tight space.
00:15:47
Speaker
And you have to keep up. We had facilities that had 100 trucks a day, another facility that had 300 trucks a day, and these are, you know, produce coming straight from the field that needs to be in a can in four to six hours. So there's a lot of pressure. But every individual is a valued individual with a certain skill set. You know, they're not
00:16:08
Speaker
You can't just go find another seamer mechanic that can work on a seamer. You got to keep those guys motivated, healthy. And it's tough because those are the types of jobs where there are no weekends. These guys work the whole harvest, you know, maybe 90 days, 120 days. And it's important to them because they want to get as much work as they can during that period.
00:16:32
Speaker
And they follow the harvest. They may go somewhere else and do something in another location three months later. Sure. So pressure, pressure's high all the way around from safety to, yeah, the whole thing is high. So back then, particularly when you're running 24 hour shifts, how did you do the training back then? And I'm guessing you were working some pretty late nights or overnights too, but how did you approach that with all those people?
00:16:55
Speaker
Well, we found over time that the most effective way was to try to get everybody pre-hire from the season and do a four to five hour safety orientation where we covered your basics, whether it was an emergency action plan, machine guarding, personal protective equipment, heat stress was huge.
00:17:18
Speaker
So we front loaded the season with as much safety messaging as we could. We actually partnered with the union to help them to understand, hey, we're here to keep your folks safe. And they bought into it as well. But it did take a lot of oversight.
00:17:36
Speaker
during the season. Every shift had an EMT on it. It was kind of the first responder but also managed the safety process. We instituted an inspection program for before and after each break for supervisors and they worked with EMTs. We had cooling stations set up. We used to have to flush our eye washes about every hour because this was such a warm environment.
00:18:02
Speaker
Oh wow, the water would get too hot. The water would get warm in the eye washes. So we had guys that basically around the clock were making rounds and keeping safety at the forefront.
00:18:20
Speaker
personal protective equipment was issued by the supervisors. So the inspections were done by the supervisors, but we had somebody in safety to have oversight for each shift. So it was really the important part was sharing their responsibilities, making sure that everybody knew their part
00:18:38
Speaker
in keeping their staff members safe. It took me back to being that supervisor on a production floor and understanding how important each one of my team members is. And that experience is what helped me be successful with the folks in the cannery and developing a system that wasn't
00:18:56
Speaker
You have to make it easy for a frontline supervisor to manage safety. You have to make the PPE available immediately. You can't have them run halfway across the plant when they're trying to meet a production goal. You have to have it at their fingertips. You have to make it easy for them to do, and you have to help them understand why it's important to keep their staff running and how, when they don't, how it can really impact them.
Expanding Safety in Zoos and Aquariums
00:19:23
Speaker
Right. Right. And what can happen in those times? So you built one skill built onto another skill. So what was, what was the next, what was the next stop in your career after, after the canning industry? Well, I had a short stop, uh, in produce, uh, with lettuce, actually, uh, fresh lettuce. And, um, that was, uh, it was, it was very similar to the canning piece. Uh, and then after that I segued into zoos and aquariums. I know it sounds like kind of a leap.
00:19:53
Speaker
But with the animal science background and at that point I'd gotten pretty astute in Reducing ex-mods and workers comp claims, which is all part of a safety managers role that by
00:20:08
Speaker
By developing a process to minimize those injuries, workers comp claims, when somebody needs that, that's something that translates across all industry. So I was fortunate that I got into the Zoon Aquarium
00:20:26
Speaker
industry and was able to take over some of that piece on the workers compensation, develop a safety program, and help turn a program around where things had kind of gotten a little bit out of hand.
00:20:40
Speaker
So in your career, I mean, this is a really big change. I mean, Zoo and Aquarium industry, okay, so that's a change. But in my head, I'm thinking, you have more than employees now. You've got volunteers, you've got the public, the people who are enjoying the Zoo and Aquarium industry. Has that all been added to your safety plate as well?
00:21:06
Speaker
Well, it's kind of funny because you talk about being an accidental safety manager. Yeah. You know, we wear all these different hats, especially these facilities where you have that EH and S role. So a part of what I did is I made a security too. I never kind of include that in the repertoire of things.
00:21:23
Speaker
that we've done, but site security, you know, for particularly the cannery. We had warehouses in an area where we had to keep things secure. And so having some of that background, translating over into now, yeah, we have a public facing guest experience where folks are coming in and out. How do we keep them safe? How do we keep the staff safe? And then we have, you know, a living collection that we're also responsible for.
00:21:52
Speaker
So, no, I think it's... That's more than a trifecta. Right. And it boils down to, you know, having a savvy eye to identify risk or hazards. And, you know, and then it's just, you know, general duty, you know, falling back on what's the best thing that we can do to keep people from avoiding this hazard or injuring themselves on this. And as long as you are willing to take the responsibility, share those responsibilities with others, get their buy-in.
00:22:21
Speaker
I think I think a lot of safety management principles, you know, translate to every industry. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's intense. So you've worked in a couple different parts of the country. You know, you're on the west coast now and you were in the Midwest before and I forgot to ask where the canning industry was.
00:22:43
Speaker
How has the way that you approach things changed or did it change with people in just different parts of the country? Is there a different vibe or a different way that you approach the employees that you're working with? That's an interesting question and I think probably in your role as you travel from
00:23:01
Speaker
location to location. It's probably pretty obvious to you, but I don't think it's obvious to folks that don't get from region to region, but I would say absolutely yes. Texas has a certain way of doing things. They try to get things done immediately. Let's address it now and let's get it fixed. On the West Coast, you talk like California casual and things take time. Sometimes you have to
00:23:28
Speaker
you have to be a little bit more diplomatic with your approach, with your messaging, you have to front-end load a lot of the reasoning for why we need to do this to help folks understand, to solicit that buy-in, and then still it takes developing a partnership to work along to get this objective accomplished. I think in every
00:23:54
Speaker
every location, you still have the old timer that says, hey, we've been doing this for 30 years this way, nothing's ever happened. But, you know, I think there are differences in regions and I won't necessarily say work ethic, but just the core values are different from region to region and how that translates into safety and responsibility is always different.
00:24:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think so too. When I was in my last job, I was serving a number of different states across the country. And so I would take my show on the road, more or less. And I remember one time specifically, there was some training I was doing to key groups of managers with them across, I think, three or four states. And so I started out with my first one in the Midwest in Minnesota.
00:24:44
Speaker
and then I took it next to Missouri. And it was so hard. It fell flat. It had been this really great interaction. We had a great time. People were sharing. It was interactive. The training went well. I did exactly the same thing in Missouri and it fell flat.
00:25:05
Speaker
And I remember going to our administrative assistant at the time who had been with the company for like 25 years. And I said, Lynn, I was such a failure here. Like, I don't know what I did wrong. And she says, you've got to slow down. You've got to take time. You're in the South. People want to know who you are. They want to know that you know their name and you need to build a rapport.
00:25:32
Speaker
Like in a different way than you apparently do back home and I'm like Okay. Okay. So, you know the next time I went back and I really spent some time with everybody and In that particular case, I've always like practicing everybody's names, you know, you know when you when you have so many people it's like how could I ever remember everybody's names, but I was like I'm gonna learn all these people's names and
00:25:56
Speaker
And so before we started anything, I'm like, I'm back. Thanks for being with me again. And then I went around and said out loud all of their names and asked something about them. And they're like, hey, you really know who we are. And it completely changed the dynamic. And it was something that I had just taken, I didn't know that that was part of the job too. And it was because it was their regional thing. They really wanted to build rapport.
00:26:23
Speaker
And it was important to them in the way that I did it and that I spoke their name and who among us wouldn't want that. But it was an awakening for me that different parts of the country are different.
00:26:35
Speaker
I think there's certain areas, but it's unique that with safety, especially with safety management and working with a group, even if you're an outsider, we're lucky that we're able to make that connection between getting back home to your family and how safety is important.
00:26:56
Speaker
And the better that you know the individuals or the better that they understand you have the same goal or you make that connection, sometimes the more receptive they are to your messaging. I don't know if you're talking about something else in the industry if you have that same opportunity that you do with safety.
00:27:14
Speaker
Yeah, right. Right. And you mentioned making it relatable to family and bringing it home. How does being a safety professional work for you when you're not at work? Do you ever get to turn the button off? And what do your kids think about your job? Well, you know, it's an interesting question.
Safety Mindset Beyond Work
00:27:37
Speaker
There's a part of me that tries not to take too much
00:27:40
Speaker
work home. I've got a family that is a young family and we spend a lot of time doing youth sports and fishing and things like that, but it always comes back to something that's safety related. So if my wife and my kids, especially if, you know, they see me doing something I'm not supposed to, they're their own little safety manager. So like, hey, aren't you supposed to do this or that, you know, a certain way.
00:28:07
Speaker
But, you know, it's interesting because you can't turn off safety. You know, it's something you see on a daily basis. And once you start to think that way, it really does transform you. It transforms, you know, pretty much everything you do on a daily basis. You know, now with the risk management piece, you know, it really has changed the way we kind of look or how I look at things, you know, more critically from that perspective
00:28:37
Speaker
that i didn't always do in the past um but there are other things that you know naturally you know i i self-select that you know i'm not i'm not going bungee jumping right exactly me either because i'm so nervous about right i who inspected the gear was it load rated what's it attached to yeah i'm i'm i'm you know now i'm kind of skeptical at amusement parks kind
00:29:00
Speaker
I was skeptical and hopping on a pair of skis or snowboarding going down a mountain. I just know that accidents happen and especially with kids and family expect it to some degree, but a lot of it is preventable. Maybe we don't have as much adventurous, extreme fun as I would if I wasn't a safety man.
00:29:23
Speaker
Right. I know. I get that from my family and friends to, you know, driving down the road and I'll see something. I'll be like, oh, you know, like, oh my gosh. And they're like, could you just turn it off? Like, I'm sorry, my eyes are trained to notice these things.
00:29:41
Speaker
my son at a very young age I remember him specifically asking me like mom what's our safety plan for that and I'm like oh no oh no here I here I've done it for better or ill it's at home and it's not something that leaves you you know so
00:30:00
Speaker
Yeah, right. Definitely, definitely. So you've been at this career for a while. How has technology entered into what you do, like in the evolution of, you know, you've had these jobs, like what's what sort of change technologically and safety for
Technology's Role in Safety
00:30:16
Speaker
you?
00:30:16
Speaker
Well, you know, I think one of the most apparent is we've gone from old-fashioned, you know, a white paper and a tailgate topic and doing a lot of the training in a classroom format, which we still do in certain applications, but that used to be the standard. I mean, that used to be how you had to do all your safety training. You had to bring somebody into the safety trailer, the safety
00:30:41
Speaker
classroom and sit down and watch a video okay let's talk about it now show me you know how to do it you know i think uh... with learning management systems you've got all sorts of technology that folks can have it on their phone they can have it on a tablet they can have it on a computer and i think that's really helpful for the safety manager safety supervisor to get the content not there but you know that was something we didn't have i didn't have ten years ago and then the stuff that we did have
00:31:10
Speaker
wasn't really up to speed or it wasn't something that anybody really wanted to sit through an hour of or much less four hours of. So from that perspective, it's changed. But I'd also say the tablet technology of having a touchscreen and a tablet makes things like doing an inspection and keeping that record so much easier.
00:31:31
Speaker
or going out and taking a picture for an investigation. Used to you'd have like those little disposable cameras and like a pouch and you'd have like a, okay, write out your narrative of everything that happened, take some pictures, then you got to go get those developed or something like that. Now with a tablet, you can take a picture or a telephone, everyone's got a phone, and then you can fill out the inspection report or the incident report.
00:31:58
Speaker
all right there and then the records are kept. You put it in a folder, you put it in a file, you've got it right there. So that's a big change. And if you talk about industry, just the technologies with PLCs and frequency drives and the way so many things are automated now, that's changed
00:32:19
Speaker
the level of risk for the folks that are on the front line, that are out there working, that are working with the equipment machinery processes, which, you know, it does make their job easier.
00:32:31
Speaker
So, Jeremiah, when you're stuck, where do you go for help? What are your key places that you go when you're trying to... I mean, because I know at least, and I'm guessing you've probably discovered we're never going to know it all in safety. So, what are your sources or where do you go or do you have current mentors or how does that work for you?
00:32:51
Speaker
Well, you know, I've called you several times and shot you an email. Goes both ways. So thank you. No, I mean, I think it's important to have counterparts and other folks that network with people that do similar work to what you do.
00:33:08
Speaker
Because nothing's really new. Everything's been done before to a large extent. But there are good resources, whether it's on the internet, through the Kalosha site, whether it's trying to look up letters of interpretation, different things like that. It is tough to sift through a regulation and try to find exactly what you need. So having someone
00:33:37
Speaker
they can either help you kind of leapfrog ahead to get to the right spot or says, you know, I've seen that before, or I remember we did this. So having a network of safety folks that you can reach out to is important. Yeah. So where do you, has your network that you've got now, is it just kind of organic from your past, from your work past, or do you have like, since you're in the zoo and aquarium industry, do you have a specific network that you reach out to there as well? Well,
00:34:06
Speaker
A little bit of both, obviously. There are folks that I've done hands-on training with. When it comes to confined spacers, there's someone that I know he's my go-to. If I've got any question on configuration of a space or rescue or anything like that, he's the guy I go to.
Learning from Industry Networks and Workers
00:34:26
Speaker
But when it comes to industry-specific stuff, we have the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
00:34:33
Speaker
They do our accreditation for zoos and aquariums and they have a safety and risk management portion. So they have a safety committee that you can go to and ask questions or bounce things off of and see what the rest of the industry is doing. But even here, we're fortunate that we have
00:34:55
Speaker
you know, career electricians, career plumbers, people in the crafts and trades. You don't think of that as a zero aquarium, but all those jobs are really important. And many of them have 20 plus years experience and they're a resource too. Exactly. And so sometimes that's the best thing is to go to the end user really and say, you know, what do you know about this? What do you understand about this? What are the risks? What are the contractors and the folks that you work with? What are they telling you?
00:35:23
Speaker
Yeah, what do you see? And that gives you a good place to start sometimes. Yeah, I think that's really powerful. When you're not specific to those crafts, how can you get that information? I know I've talked to electricians specifically a number of times, just trying to understand what arc flash is.
00:35:45
Speaker
and i mean i can read about it i can digest videos about it i can look at it but to like talk to an electrician and say has have you ever seen this in your field like and what were the circumstances at play and like what happened and they can give you so many stories that are real world application things that you would never know because you're not an electrician
00:36:08
Speaker
Right, no, and that's the perfect example. That's kind of what I was thinking about in the back of my mind is exactly that. You know, every career electrician and guy that's been around long enough knows somebody or has witnessed or seen somebody that's been involved in an incident like that.
00:36:24
Speaker
And it's powerful. That story or that understanding is much more powerful to a group or to helping folks realize the hazard that really don't see it. So yeah, that practical hands-on experience resonates a lot, especially when you get to the frontline working group.
00:36:48
Speaker
Yeah, and collecting those stories, you know, I think, I think our discipline is like, you know, we understand the regulations, we are looking at the science of it, but then we're collecting stories, because it's the only way to transfer that information, you know, in a believable way. Yes.
00:37:06
Speaker
So it's, you know, I was curious, you started you started your career production manager, you know, working shoulder to shoulder supervising people. And now you're at where you are now, you know, what skills or what do you carry over just about learning about people? And like, how has that how has that shaped your approach, especially since you started out the way that you did? How has that shaped your approach to to humanity?
00:37:32
Speaker
Well, it's a great question. And I fall back on this. I was really fortunate that a supervisor early on, when I worked in agriculture, I speak some Spanish. I don't speak a lot. I can kind of get the crew to do what I need, and I can understand some. But the two most important words that I learned were enseñame, which is teach me.
00:37:58
Speaker
and I would walk up to someone and you know there's always that awkward well this is my supervisor and they're an hourly individual and just ask them to teach me what they were doing and that was the best icebreaker and once they showed me what they were doing then I clumsily tried to do the same thing that they did you know two thousand times a shift you know with ease it was an icebreaker but it was it was also that they understood I want to understand
00:38:27
Speaker
their job so I could either help them make it easier or help them be more productive. And I always carry that when I ask a manager or supervisor to do something extra. Safety's not supposed to be something extra, but inevitably it is. They have their own responsibilities. They've got their own deadlines. They've got goals to meet.
00:38:49
Speaker
that aren't necessarily safety related and safety is supposed to be part of what they do. But anytime you have an additional ask, it's an additional task. And so trying to look at it from their lens and how you can incorporate or weave it in to what they do on a daily basis and add value is probably the approach that's helped me be most successful. But it really is.
00:39:11
Speaker
teach me, help me understand, come from the position of understanding first versus walking in and saying everybody needs to wear this type of PPE and everybody needs to do this inspection. So that was years and years ago but those two words have really been valuable for me and it just changed my whole perspective, my paradigm on the way people
00:39:38
Speaker
view you as a leader or as someone that's got authority to try to understand their perspective first, you know, you're going to be a lot more successful. Right. It removes assumption and assumption is not always it's never a good place to start. So that's yeah, that's beautiful. What part of what part of the job do you really
00:40:02
Speaker
like what's the, if I could offload that, what would it be? You know, sometimes, you know, sometimes somebody cuts a corner, somebody does something for whatever reason, whether it's time or resource, they don't stop and make the time to do something appropriate. And so they cut a corner or they violate a safety rule or they put someone inadvertently at risk.
00:40:32
Speaker
that they really shouldn't. The corrective action piece is never fun. It's an important part if you continue to have issues, but it's not the best part of the job. Safety shouldn't be punitive, but when you get into circumstances where somebody doesn't lock something out or elevated work or
00:40:53
Speaker
going into a confined space without following a protocol, they've really put someone's health and safety at risk. And that's serious. And, you know, when every supervisor is bought in and every manager is bought in and they understand, that's great. When someone
00:41:10
Speaker
just cuts a corner when they knew or they claim they didn't know but they should have known. You know, that's tough to deal with. But it's our role and that's part of our responsibility.
Dealing with Non-Compliance and Mentoring Satisfaction
00:41:22
Speaker
You know, you hear that we should be the kind of the moral compass for our organization at times and that's a tough piece. It is. It's a big responsibility. Right. What keeps you up at night? Oh, man.
00:41:39
Speaker
Um, there's, there's plenty that keeps me up at night. Um, you know, it's sometimes it's, you know, it's just, Hey, you know, I didn't communicate well enough how big of that hazard is, you know, and, and, and you kind of are holding your breath and thinking, man, um,
00:41:57
Speaker
I hope that doesn't get to someone. That kind of piece and then again when we get new folks that come in that haven't had the opportunity to be fully trained or
00:42:15
Speaker
through the onboarding process still are young, eager, overzealous. Those are the types of folks that you love to have them, but they put themselves at risk when they shouldn't. So sometimes that keeps me up to.
00:42:32
Speaker
Yeah, right, right. So what what drives you to keep at this profession or when you're feeling kind of slogging in it as you know, I mean, we're human beings, right? Not every day is wonderful. What keeps you going at it? Or is there like some story or something in the background kind of playing in your head that propels you to keep moving?
00:42:52
Speaker
You know, probably the thing I'm most proud of is being a mentor and being able to develop a couple of other folks into the safety role. There's a young man I work with in the canning industry. He's become a safety professional. He started as an EMT for me. He became a lead EMT. So he's an accidental safety manager just like the rest of us.
00:43:15
Speaker
He was going to be an EMT on an ambulance and do all kinds of stuff like that. I was able to develop him into the role and he fully embraced it and he's excellent at it and I'm really proud of that. There's a gentleman I work with now that had a different background, a human resources background.
00:43:38
Speaker
but has fully embraced the role and the skill set and developing folks along in that role so that then they can go out and do the good that we've done in their own way with their own style but have a solid background. I'm a coach at heart and that's what I love to do as a coach and that's what I feel like we're lucky in this AD.
00:44:05
Speaker
role that we're able to coach others, develop others. And they say, hope this doesn't happen, but a great safety manager will manage themselves out of a job. If you teach enough people to be safety managers just like you, all of a sudden they're doing all the work.
00:44:23
Speaker
That's right. It's really hard to get there. It is. Yeah, it is. I use the fishing analogy, right? If you teach them to fish, they'll be able to eat forever. And this job isn't just our job. It's not just your job, just my job in a facility. It's really everybody's. And the more we can teach them, the better.
00:44:44
Speaker
So, Jeremiah, you're mentoring. That's an excellent point that you made. And I'm wondering if anybody who's listening, who's maybe kind of new in their career and is wondering, like, how do you find a mentor? Like, how do you go about doing it? What advice would you give people who, like, I don't know who I'd talk to. Like, how do you do that?
00:45:06
Speaker
That's a good question. And I don't know that there's an easy answer, but I do know that there are a lot of professionals out there just like you and me. They want to share what they know. And so if you can ever get to any forum or networking forum, whether it's at a training, go to those trainings hosted by third parties where you get folks from different industries. I guarantee if you poke around, you'll find someone that's like-minded and you'll find someone
00:45:36
Speaker
Maybe they've got a little gray in their hair or something, but they want to teach. They're a resource and they want to share that information. That's the great thing about safety individuals is we all know it's a collaborative effort. Whether it's in your industry or outside of your industry, either join a group or go to a training that gets you away from
00:46:00
Speaker
your regular work group and gets you out into areas with other industries. Like I said, all this stuff translates to multiple industries, into every industry. Yeah, absolutely it does. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, and with mentoring, I guess, attending conferences and meeting people, I think that's an excellent way for people to make contacts. I know that I've had numbers of people just directly ask me, like, would you ever consider
00:46:27
Speaker
mentoring or could I call you sometimes and ask you questions? And I don't believe I've ever said no to anyone. And I have, you know, I have a number of people that kind of contact me regularly who are gotten into the job just like you accidentally, just like me accidentally. And I just sort of feel it's my responsibility to help where I can.
00:46:49
Speaker
Right, right. I think every safety manager feels that way. We kind of have that common tie. It's a tie that binds us that we all want to do good. We all, like you said, we want everyone to get home safe. But we know these hard lessons that have been learned. Some of these regulations are written in blood, a lot of them. And we've seen the impact to the families and to the coworkers. And none of us want to see that.
00:47:18
Speaker
for anybody and I think that's you know that's part of our kind of badge of honor is that you know it's important for us to share and like you said we accumulate these stories um some of them are firsthand some of them are second third hand but we all know that they were real they happened there were real people involved and there were victims and um there were families and I think we all take that serious that
00:47:45
Speaker
We never want to be the one that has to call a family and say, this happened. And so anything we can do to help prevent that from happening and sharing that knowledge with other folks, it's valuable. And most safety managers are more than willing to share it. Yeah, I think so too. So Jeremiah, last question. What do you think is the highest priority for our profession today? Wow.
00:48:13
Speaker
Or where do you see it going right now? You know, I think the highest priority for our profession. We've got technology is getting, you know, so far ahead of itself. And with our, I'm gonna drop the keyword, the millennial generation, you know, is that we're bringing folks into industry that there's not as much of a
00:48:41
Speaker
or I don't see as much of the blue color element in that class and that demographic, yet we still have needs in these jobs and these roles. So how do we combine the technology and the training
00:48:57
Speaker
and get those stories out in front so that we can continue to have people to embrace hard work and doing so with a safety culture in mind to be productive, be interactive. My biggest concern is that everyone's stuck with their face in their phone or some other piece of technology. We don't have that face-to-face one-on-one interaction.
00:49:19
Speaker
That's the one thing with the online training pieces is that you're interacting with the computer.
Future Challenges in Safety Profession
00:49:28
Speaker
I think you've got to combine that with the tailgate piece or some face-to-face interaction. There's a big divide between
00:49:37
Speaker
You've got your baby boomers and then the folks in between and the younger generation coming up. How do we get the core values that resonate from top to bottom from all those age groups to help develop a hardworking, yet safe, productive labor force here? Because we have so many great opportunities here in the U.S. whether it's agriculture, textiles,
00:50:06
Speaker
There are so many different industries. We're going to need able-bodied individuals to keep doing these jobs as we see Baby Boomers retiring out. There could really be a labor shortage if enough people don't get into these roles. So we've got to make these jobs.
00:50:27
Speaker
dynamic, we've got to make the technology apply, and we've got to get the workforce educated and really ingrained to want to do this type of stuff. You know, maybe some of it is what you spoke about earlier, which is just so simple, teach me, right? Right. And so if our
00:50:48
Speaker
if our new generation coming into the workforce is equipped with the confidence to be able to ask and say, teach me. And the people on the other end that are willing to show and teach. So like you said, we can do training, we can do things online, we can do things virtually.
00:51:10
Speaker
And that's wonderful for setting baselines, for getting specific types of information transferred to people. But I think there's a lot of power in that. Teach me. Show me once they're in that role. That's where the rubber meets the road with safety. It's what is someone going to do when no one else is watching? Exactly.
00:51:33
Speaker
That you get that, you know, um, and that's where that question that you, that you said so perfectly, teach me, you know, that's, that's how it happens. That's what happens. Show me how you do this. Teach me how you teach me how to do it. Yeah.
Closing Remarks and Future Directions
00:51:49
Speaker
Well, Jeremiah, thank you so much, um, for being, for being with me today and being with our audience. I really appreciate it.
00:51:56
Speaker
Well, it was my pleasure and I look forward to hearing more of the podcasts. I want to hear about other incidental, accidental safety managers' experiences and hopefully somebody got some value from our discussion today.
00:52:14
Speaker
I'm sure they did. I'm sure they did. Thank you so much. Thank you all so much for joining in and listening today. And thank you for the work 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 yourself, please contact me at social at vividlearningsystems.com. Until next time, thanks for listening.