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#56: Printing Companies, Paper, and Safety
66 Plays5 years ago
In this episode of The Accidental Safety Pro, podcast series host Jill James is joined by Jeff, a seasoned safety & health professional with over 20 years in the industry. Jeff currently works as an environmental health and safety pro in a manufacturing setting in Wisconsin. Come listen as Jeff recounts his early days of safety, from getting his degree at UW-Stout to working in a paper mill, and much more.
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Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:10
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by Vivid Learning Systems and the Health and Safety Institute. My name is Jill James, Vivid's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Jeff. Jeff is an environmental health and safety professional in a manufacturing setting in West Central Wisconsin. Jeff, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Jill. I appreciate it.
00:00:33
Speaker
So Jeff, right off the bat, you and I are kind of came from competing colleges, didn't we? Yes, we did. You are a, well, you can tell the audience, where did you graduate with your safety degree? Sure. I actually got both of my degrees from UW Stout.
00:00:51
Speaker
And mine are from the University of Minnesota in Duluth. And so when I was a student in Duluth, we were always talking about those stealth grads and the safety program. It went both ways, trust me. Did it? Yes. Especially when I was there, it had a lot to do with the
00:01:10
Speaker
Semiconductor fields and students trying to get either internships or jobs. I know, right? You're just paving the way. That's awesome.
Career Beginnings in Safety
00:01:21
Speaker
Well, Jeff, how many years have you been in the career now? Well, let's see. I started in 1998.
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah. So that's that 20, 21 years, something like that. Right. A while. Yeah. I've got you by a few years, but not by much. It's been a long career. When you think back, I've been at this number of different employers, but I've been at this for a couple of decades and it's like, wow. All the changes that have occurred since
00:01:58
Speaker
since I started and stuff, learning on the regs in a book, highlighting. That's exactly how I learned them. And it's still my favorite way to look at the OSHA regulations is to take out my physical copy of my well-worn coffee spilled book.
00:02:16
Speaker
Um, me too. I prefer paper over, over digital. Yeah. I do too. It's just easier to, it's easier to read them. Yeah. Talk, speaking of, you know, long career, this week I happened to do just a little bit of, you know, statistics for myself. I was thinking about.
00:02:33
Speaker
you know the number of workplaces i've been in just in my career with OSHA which lasted about 11 years and i and i counted up how many inspections i had done in that time and the number is 528 where i was lead investigator that doesn't count the ones that i was a partner on
00:02:53
Speaker
and i thought yeah you know i guess that's why every time someone says like a business or a company name or what they do i kind of have that cloud caption over my head that i'm like yeah i've been in a place like that oh yeah i've been in a place like that it was it was certainly certainly worth the time but i'm interested to hear and have you share with our audience
00:03:14
Speaker
this storied career? What happened after? Well, actually, you know what, let's start before that. How did you decide you wanted to get into safety and then go from
Influences and Education
00:03:25
Speaker
there? Yeah, I don't remember exactly when it occurred, but I know I was still an undergrad at Stout. And I guess it was, it was a conversation I had with my father who was HR.
00:03:44
Speaker
for a manufacturing company in central Wisconsin. And I don't know how we got on it, but obviously he was talking to me about a story about an unfortunate incident that occurred at their plant. And it was a very severe injury where an employee had taken their hands out of the pullback restraints.
00:04:08
Speaker
punch press. And unfortunately, and I don't remember the exact details, but then the just the the unfortunate was a loss of limb. And so then he's telling me more about workers comp. And it wasn't so much about the story of what had happened as and it was very tragic. But it was
00:04:31
Speaker
you know, how some cases can go, there's a workers comp and then and but you know, the sole supposed to be the sole remedy. And yet, there was more lidded, there was litigation going on and not knowing anything about safety. I'm like, that's not fair. If workers comp is supposed to do as you say it's supposed to do, then how can this person turn it into a lawsuit? And that kind of stuck with me. As I was
00:05:01
Speaker
I might've been home for a break or something. So I went back to school and I was nearing the end of my undergraduate degree. And as maybe some students do, you start to wonder, well, is this really what I want to do? Or is it, what am I really going to do with this degree? Yeah. And what were you pursuing as an undergrad? It was a, um, uh, business administration. Sure. And I thought, well, what am I, what avenue am I truly going to take? And so I saw,
00:05:29
Speaker
And that kept resonating with me, that situation. And it really bugged me. And I didn't know why, other than the obvious human impact that it has. And so I saw that there was an OSHA class, voluntary OSHA compliance, in fact, is what it was called at the time. And I took it as an undergrad. And there was graduate level students in there. So
00:05:57
Speaker
By taking as undergrad, I didn't have to do all the work that they did, but I got to learn the regulations and learn a little bit more about what is OSHA, what is safety. And it kind of helped me really understand and tie the two together of this individual who was really seriously injured and maimed. And how can people help with those situations, you know, and make people understand that
00:06:26
Speaker
just because it's not working right, you never take your hands out of the pullback restraint. So you don't bypass, you know, certain things. And so that's what sort of started it. So then when I graduated, I decided to go straight into grad school, and, and then eventually graduated in 98 and went on from there. That's
00:06:54
Speaker
that's kind of how it started. It was just a weird conversation, just a conversation between my dad and I and moved on from there. Fabulous, fabulous. Yeah, interesting to have that HR perspective, you know, growing up in your house as well. So what was that? What was that first job out of grad school? It was a
First Job Experience
00:07:17
Speaker
a printing company and, um, in the twin cities that, uh, twin cities of Minnesota. Yeah. If Minnesota, correct. I had to cross the dreaded river into Minnesota and, uh, um, and, uh, it was a safety coordinator, um, position, um, and maintenance actually at the time took care of the environmental. So I hadn't yet really started full fledged into the environmental, um, but it was.
00:07:46
Speaker
It was interesting. Yeah, paper mills have, gosh, everything. Well, this wasn't a paper mill, it was a printing company. Oh, printing company, I'm sorry. Yeah, if I said paper mill, I apologize. I don't think you did. Okay. But it was a printing company and never seen equipment like this before. And you had talked in some of your other podcasts, your mentors called you Kid. Well, I wasn't called Kid, but
00:08:14
Speaker
I had a lot of basically, well, prove it type. Yeah. Um, cause I come in as the, you know, certainly the, the, the youngster of the group, uh, being the only safety person there, but still this, the youngster, um, in management and, you know, who am I to tell somebody of say 20, 25, 30 years of experience that there's a better way to do things. And so even though I knew at the time being fresh out of school,
00:08:44
Speaker
I could just about recite the regulations and what they mean. Um, I still had to, especially one supervisor, I still had to, I had to literally print it out, highlight it. And, uh, after doing that two or three times, then he, he, uh, uh, I broke through the barrier and stuff like that. But it was also learning how to deal with, um,
00:09:08
Speaker
bilingual individuals. And challenges with training and yeah, yeah. And finally found an employee who was bilingual enough that actually more than enough to help us translate documents and orientation and, and things like that. It was things that we didn't talk about that kind of stuff in school. And there was a new new twist on things.
00:09:33
Speaker
Right. Right.
Childhood Influences
00:09:35
Speaker
Right. And did that particular shop, did it also have union representation too? No, it did not. That came much later in my career. Which is another different partnership in our field of practice too. Very unique. And yes, as to what happened, that happened to be actually at a paper mill.
00:09:58
Speaker
Yeah, okay. So there's a lot of paper in my work career. Well, I guess, you know, I got my first manufacturing exposure as a, as a kid, like a tiny kid, elementary school, my growing up, my father worked in the printing industry. Okay. And so I sold my Girl Scout cookies among the whirling web presses.
00:10:22
Speaker
Yes. And, you know, I'm like, why did they ever even let a kid on the, you know, on the plant floor? And, you know, with these giant, giant rolls and rollers and rolls of paper and all these moving parts. Right. You know, which, yeah, which started. You would never get away with that today, I would hope. No, I hope not. I hope not. Yeah. So what was, what was your next stop? It was actually, I was there for about three years. Okay.
00:10:52
Speaker
I was actually there when 9 11
Career Transitions and Education Impact
00:10:54
Speaker
occurred. And so that actually, you know, put a twist on things and, and, uh, you know, what can we do to, um, is there anything that we can do, you know, from a, um, safety perspective, you know, it just, obviously the world changed for those of us of our generation. Um, and, uh, so we, you know, site security was always pretty tough, but, uh, you know, there are other things that we had to worry about. Um, but shortly thereafter.
00:11:20
Speaker
There was an opportunity to move back to central Wisconsin, actually at a place that I did an internship for my master's degree. And that was also that one was not in paper, but in painting and chemical industry. Yeah. So you really got to, did you get to lean into the, to the health and environmental piece in that job?
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, this one was strictly safety manager role. And I helped a little bit with environmental, but they had an engineer who was strictly environmental. But yet, with some of the experience I had learned in my first job, I always wanted to kind of just still sit in on a meeting or two and all that. But this one was, yeah, very much my also first exposure to industrial hygiene in the workplace.
00:12:19
Speaker
about things of or ergonomics and safe lifting because there was not as much a little too much material manual material handling and static electricity because we're dealing with flammable liquids from the painting perspective and making sure that the flammable liquids rooms are you know, it's a good draw out of there. So we maintain
00:12:46
Speaker
you know, good air quality and things like that. Did you feel like your education prepared you well, at least, you know, as you got into these first couple of jobs? Do you recall at the time thinking, Okay, I, I remember learning this, I at least know how to get started? Yeah, how did that work for you? I think, well, was stout anyway, I'm not sure how Duluth maybe differed or anything. But they
00:13:15
Speaker
took a more holistic approach, you know, where you're going to teach you a whole lot about everything. Yeah, right. It was generalist. It was generals and you know, from fire safety, DOT, insurance, same things like that. And all the hardcore, you know, confined space lockouts and those kind of things. Industrial hygiene. And certainly there were specializations that you could focus on.
00:13:44
Speaker
just there were more generals. And so it was still, still very much of things that we learned about. But yet, even in the regulations, to a certain degree, you know, they don't talk or touch on every aspect of what you might see in the workplace. Yeah, can't, right? Right. Otherwise, that that reg book would be probably 10 times the size that it is, if not more. So, you know, it was, okay, we read the regulation, and
00:14:13
Speaker
try to figure out what are they trying to tell me? And how does that apply to this situation? And I'm struggling. Okay, so now I'm going to call, you know, a colleague and say, Hey, I'm trying to figure this out, you know, and work with use that network that I have in my young career at that time, if not, call a professor and say, Hey, I'm struggling. What? This is what I read. Am I reading this correctly? Am I interpreting this right?
00:14:42
Speaker
So I can go back to management and or the safety committee or whatever we you know, the situation may have been at the time. Yeah, and make sure that you know, we take care of things. Yeah, yeah, I still do that to this day. Yeah, I do as well. I don't necessarily go back to the college as much but no, neither. It's it's, you know, colleagues that I've worked with over the years or certainly at my current employer. Yeah.
00:15:08
Speaker
Just work your network. Work the network and especially in those plants that have similar hazards, similar operations, really work those sources. And, you know, we eventually figured it out and it all works out in the end. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good.
Current Role and Responsibilities
00:15:25
Speaker
Good. So what was your next stop? Actually a competitor of theirs. You know, I didn't have to worry about non-compete because the
00:15:37
Speaker
You know, from a safety perspective, what is there? You know, we shamelessly steal from each other anyway. And we steal and share and it's all good. That's right. So it was similar hazards, similar risks. They had a little bit of, they had some aluminum extrusion in that facility, which was a different animal than what I was exposed to before. Very intriguing, very interesting.
00:16:06
Speaker
line of work or industry that that is. But a lot of spray painting of powder coating and liquid spraying and things like that. So a lot of similar things that I saw. But the aluminum extrusion was new and ultimately some fabrication came into play and really learning about and taking the machine guarding to the next step.
00:16:34
Speaker
But what I had to worry about a lot, unfortunately, and I remember from one of your other podcasts was just dealing with the sheer volume of workers comp that we had. And trying to get the employees back, you know, one in a very healed up manner, you know, they're ready to come back, but also in a timely fashion, can be a struggle when you're trying to educate the doctors and
00:17:02
Speaker
And because they don't go to school for OSHA regulations or anything like that. So coordinating with them. And I remember holding a couple of training sessions with some of the local physicians trying to educate them on how can we work together to still treat the employee the way they need to be as far as medically speaking, but yet work with me to get them to come back to work on light duty or work hardening.
00:17:31
Speaker
and things of that nature. And that was tough, but also I think very educational for both sides. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that's a good tip for the people who are listening as well that, you know, to make those relationships if you can with the medical community where you're working.
00:17:50
Speaker
you know there are if particularly if the medical facilities in your area have occupational medicine departments they often will welcome an opportunity to tour a work environment so that they can picture in their minds where employees are working so when they get someone to treat from your facility they can go oh yeah i know what that's like i've been in there and it helps kind of break down those barriers
00:18:19
Speaker
and build some trust as well if you're inviting them into your facility to say, hey, you know, we actually do have a light duty program. These are the types of jobs that we have. And so, you know, when someone is coming to you, you know, we, you know, trying to build that relationship early prior to something happening so that they feel okay with releasing their patient back to work in some capacity. I agree 100%. I tried to get them to do that as often as possible.
00:18:48
Speaker
And some we're willing to, some just say that, you know, and they're busy. Yeah, right. But even to the extent to say to the physical therapists, if that, you know, throw them from the occupational medicine department, and if not the acmed department themselves is to let's have you guys come out. Yeah. And, and give tours. So they get that understanding and they see the risks that we have. And, and also to a different extent, but leveraging the insurance companies
00:19:17
Speaker
that that do give us workers comp, you know, insurance. I've had I use them I've used are not forget the name voluntary OSHA. Oh, Wisconsin Wisconsin consultation.
OSHA Consultation Benefits
00:19:34
Speaker
I use them a lot. And to the extent that I could
00:19:39
Speaker
At one point we got too big for the program, but utilizing them really helped a lot. Right. And so Jeff is talking about the OSHA consultation programs, which is a different piece of OSHA compliance. So different than the people who investigate you.
00:19:58
Speaker
is always in every state, whether it's federal or state run OSHA program, they have a consultation division where you can invite them to come into your workplace. You can invite a health professional or a safety professional to come in and help you with anything that you'd like help with. And so you can limit the scope of what you have them help you with. Like maybe you can say, I'm really interested in having someone work with me on some ergonomic solutions for a particular area.
00:20:25
Speaker
And they can come and work with you on that or some industrial hygiene monitoring or machine guarding issue, anything like that. Yep. And I've used them for both most of the safety side of things and the IH side of things and very, very good people. I doubt the people I worked with are still there. They've probably retired by now, but yeah, they were really helpful and helped us really move the program along.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah, good and free service, too, that does not trigger an inspection, though a lot of people believe that it can. Right, right. Fake news there. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's next?
Economic Challenges and Opportunities
00:21:12
Speaker
Let's see. Well, the economic downturn of 08 sort of led me to some to look
00:21:21
Speaker
elsewhere and decided to take a job at a paper converting company. The paper is coming back again in northern Wisconsin. And that one had a fairly established program already. But yet they hadn't really had a full time HSE person there before.
00:21:51
Speaker
sort of that was part their job and others where there wasn't. So this is where other than the place in central Wisconsin, but this is where really my environmental continued to take off. By the time I left there, there was three production lines where they converted paper, basically paper from a mill, a paper mill.
00:22:20
Speaker
added value to it, rolled it back up and sent it out as a raw material for their customers. And each line had its own oxidizer, for example. And really learning more about intrinsically safe devices and spill containments. And the whole company as a whole really understood not just the site itself, but the corporate level.
00:22:49
Speaker
really understood what it meant to take EH&S seriously, give it the funding that it needed, which is always important for us. And it was a good employer to work for me. It was, hey, we need to do this, or get competing quotes for Arc Flash, for example. And one was,
00:23:17
Speaker
$8,000 or so cheaper than the other one, but yet the product we got from the more expensive one was better. And so the plant manager said, well, it makes sense. Let's spend the money to do it right and get the better end product beyond just the labeling of everything, but the training and even the one lines and the spreadsheets that we get talking about the hazards and how we can correct them, those kinds of things. And so that was refreshing.
00:23:47
Speaker
to experience the previous employers struggled a little bit to fully try to fund everything that needed to be done to make the right changes needed. So when you say funding, Jeff, does that mean that you actually had a budget since that's sort of a, I mean, that's a legit question to ask. So many of us don't. No.
00:24:12
Speaker
I didn't, I didn't. I mean, it was a percent of sales. Interesting. It was. And I'm like, well, how do I, by the time I know what your percent of sales are, I mean, I've already spent it. I've already gone through that time period. But over time, I got to figure out a rough estimate of what I'm allowed to spend. And in the later years that I was there, we started developing a better budget and
00:24:41
Speaker
But there's things like, you know, safety glasses and cut resistance gloves. Those are just the consumables. Yes, they're, they're budgeted, but there's really no preventing them from preventing us from buying them. You have to have those, right? Okay. So it might be, you know, from a budgetary standpoint, it might be taking our our forecast detectors and instead of buying a new one, maybe we send it out to be refurbished instead of buying brand new.
00:25:11
Speaker
So those are the kinds of things that we would look at, budgetary wise. Right. Or deciding what your budget would be for that arc flash study you were talking about. Yep. Yep. That came very early on. And so I really didn't, fortunately, didn't have to worry about it as much. But yeah, there was other things that we, yeah, it really was. And so to say that we would do pinch point studies and
00:25:40
Speaker
Oh, we got to beef up our machine guarding or, uh, you know, what are we going to use from your light curtains or scan floor scanners? Or, you know, it was, uh, from that kind of perspective, we were really able to make a great impact, um, in employee safety.
Safety Incidents and Learnings
00:25:58
Speaker
The employees always didn't think it was a great impact because they would forget that they were there, they would trip the light curtain and the machine would stop. Um, and so.
00:26:08
Speaker
you know, from that perspective, it keeps going back to, well, here's why we're doing it, keep educating them, and saying, Hey, you know, this is why this is here. You know, this, if we don't guard this hazard, things will happen. And that's one site, the second site that I had, that something major happened in the workplace, that sort of
00:26:35
Speaker
shaped how I take things, how I approach people, things like that. Sure. The first one was in my first job, right out of college. And that one was a very unfortunate incident. A gentleman had a, a, we later find out a massive heart attack. And he was almost immediately dead, apparently. But still, I was one of the first responders. And
00:27:05
Speaker
having first aid CPR training just three weeks prior in my first job and and all these things that yeah, right it was It really shook me We basically started One of them a maintenance tech and myself were the first two We were in the same class in the same boat. And so those wonderful thoughts of what is it 15 to 2 is it 30 to 1?
00:27:33
Speaker
Uh, what do we do? Yeah. Under duress trying to remember what you just learned. Exactly. And, and basically I told him, I said, it's better than nothing. You know, I think it's 15 to two and I think it was actually back then. Um, but, uh, so we should, we just started, uh, we were just wrapping up fortunately for us because I, I was admittedly scared and, um, uh, uh,
00:28:02
Speaker
Another person who had more experience in first aid CPR and all that took over. So then I made, I did everything else. I made sure the scene was safe. I made sure we got everything cleared out of the way for the emergency responders. I checked where are people out at the street on the edge of the parking lot? Did we have people halfway at the door? Everything that we're supposed to do and people were already doing it, which was phenomenal.
00:28:29
Speaker
And the next one was at that place in northern Wisconsin. We had some exposed rollers. And unfortunately, without going into too much detail, the employee ended up being pulled through two rollers that were eight and a half inches apart. It was never identified on our pinch point assessments, which we did annually. And that had been there for, I was there, I think,
00:29:00
Speaker
five or six years at the time, it never crossed our minds. Yeah. And this is, it was extremely troubling to everybody. Because when we're doing our pinch point assessments, we're looking for belts and pulleys, chains and sprockets, those things that are so close together, that it's, well, obvious. Yeah, right. And go
Fresh Perspectives in Safety
00:29:20
Speaker
ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah, well, I was just, I was just thinking, you know, the number of times that I was told, you know, when I was with OSHA, people would go
00:29:29
Speaker
Why didn't I see that? Like, why did you see it? And I didn't, I've been walking past the same thing for, you know, and they would cite whatever period of time of years or months or whatever. And you know, it's that fresh eyes perspective. It's, it's, it's simply that, you know, and, and, you know,
00:29:46
Speaker
giving grace to people because literally there's so many moving parts like literal moving parts. It is difficult and I think that's the beauty of occasionally bringing in fresh eyes because you do get used to those things or even if you are struggling with how to bring fresh eyes in it can be as
00:30:08
Speaker
as simple as, you know, doing a department swap with someone else, you know, who isn't normally in that same area to be, to be looking in a way that your eyes might not be seeing it. Yeah. And it was, fortunately, the employee, he did get hurt, but turned out okay. Everything worked out in the end. And that was great.
00:30:33
Speaker
We did get a visit from your counterparts and things like that. And it worked out. We got cited for lockout tag out because it was a cleaning operation. But it's easier from an economics and employee strain perspective to do it while moving.
00:30:56
Speaker
So ultimate what we decided we figured out a way to do it through machine guarding and through enabling switches or live man switches. They call them dead man switches and I said I don't like that term. So enabling switches and actually we showed OSHA our corrective action and they said we need a video on that because that's an intriguing way of dealing with a lockout issue
00:31:22
Speaker
but through machine guarding and things like that. So in tool selection and things. And so it had some silver linings, but it wasn't without its struggles and difficult times. So how that had shaped my career was really explaining to people that you might not like these rules, even though we explained to them and you understand them. I said, look, my job is to make sure you go home.
00:31:51
Speaker
at the end of the night, it's all of our jobs to look out after each other. You know, we don't have to like each other, but there is no reason why everyone can't go home at the end of the day. Yeah. And really, truly retrying to, and sometimes you can't get through their heads. So you try to go through their hearts.
00:32:12
Speaker
Mm hmm. That's right. And just like when asking for money. I mean, yes, I mean, there are, you know, there are many things that we ask for in in life where we need to partner with someone on. And so not everyone's motivation is the same as yours. And so understanding that sometimes it's a it's a cerebral motivation and sometimes it's a heart motivation. And, you know, understanding that, you know, how can we how can you approach this in a couple of different areas so that you can come to a common agreement?
00:32:42
Speaker
regardless of what your motivation is, right? Yeah. And so that really, and I think that really played well with with the employees. You know, say looking, it's not just this, these cold hard facts, or whether it's a or regulations. I mean, there's reasons why these regulations be it from OSHA, or the DNR, or even a corporate perspective. There are reasons why.
00:33:12
Speaker
they exist. And one of my professors long time ago said, and it's, it doesn't sound well today because of PC and whatnot. But he goes, basically, all these regulations are written in blood. Unfortunately, as the Industrial Revolution, all these things took place, people have been hurt. And so it's been a reactive culture, to a certain degree, because they were written after and developed after somebody got hurt.
00:33:39
Speaker
And, uh, and, and things like that. And, you know, and so it's try to explain it to them from the heart side of things, guys and gals, this is, this is where this started from.
Origin and Importance of Safety Regulations
00:33:52
Speaker
And yes, it's, it may not be, um, comfortable if we had to wear bump caps, for example. Yes, it's hot sometimes, but tell you what, here's why, you know, do you really want to go home or have to go to the hospital?
00:34:07
Speaker
with at least just a bump on your head or worse. And over time, you build that rapport with people and they really get to see where you're coming from. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Thanks for sharing those incidents and how they shaped what you do. Appreciate that. Yeah. So you're in a manufacturing setting now. Was that the next stop after the place you were?
00:34:35
Speaker
Uh, not, no, it was, there was an actual paper mill just in between that was a short stint. Um, and, uh, that was eye-opening. I mean, you're talking about something that, uh, had its roots that were literally over a hundred years old. Um, the water wheels are still there and still in place and still functioning and, uh, and things of that nature. And he, he,
00:35:00
Speaker
you look at machine guarding in a certain light, then all of a sudden you go to a paper mill and it's shocking. It's massive scale. Yes. And these aren't even large paper machines compared to some plants that I learned about once I was there. But it was, again, in somewhat of a relief, I didn't have to worry about environmental. They had an environmental manager there. And so it was strictly safety.
00:35:29
Speaker
And of course, workers comp that goes with it. This was the union facility. Hmm. Okay. My only one in my career so far. Um, and, uh, that was eye opening. And I, I remember on one of your podcasts and it was talking about, you know, cause I had the exact or fairly similar circumstance, um, where there was, there was a slip trip fall hazard. And, um, I asked.
00:35:57
Speaker
in this case, I happen to be a maintenance person, if they would help, you know, clean that up, and or take care of it. And they said after break, you know, because it was break time. And and I said, Well, I said, No, nevermind. I said, I'll take care of it. And of course, that didn't sit well with the union. And I'm like, Look, I get it that
00:36:25
Speaker
that may be their job to do, but I'm not gonna let a hazard just sit there. And I said, what if I say, okay, fine, Billy, whatever his name was, and say, okay, you promise you're gonna take care of it, right? And then two seconds later, someone can walk through, slip, trip, fall, and who knows what could happen as far as an injury goes. So I said, I'm gonna fix these things no matter whose job it is, because I don't want someone to get hurt. And, you know,
00:36:55
Speaker
The issue was dropped fairly quickly. I mean, they knew it's not exactly a right or wrong, but it was the right decision to make because they in the end don't want anyone to get hurt either.
00:37:06
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and, you know, regardless union or not, I mean, that could have simply been a piece of, you know, a belief system in a human being who was like, Yeah, it's fine. That's gonna sit it there. I'm gonna go, I go right cup of coffee, or, or, you know, or the misguided understanding that well, I saw it, they'll see it too. Yeah, right. And it's pretty obvious. Well, no, it's not. It's not obvious. Sometimes it's not common sense. Sometimes
00:37:36
Speaker
And so, like I said, it wasn't there very long, a little under a year, in fact. And it was eye-opening. It was a great experience. And then came to the facility, to the company that I'm at now, which has some paper in it, but not 100% like some of the other employers.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah, so you have a literal paper trail in your career. Literally, yes, yes. You have a little bit of paper everywhere you've been. Sometimes you don't think about it, most of the time you think back and like, holy smokes. I like paper manufacturing in one way, shape or form or another. But yeah, I came to my current employer and it's another type company that does it right. And I don't really have to
00:38:38
Speaker
tongue in cheek a little bit worry about a budget too much. And have environmental health safety workers comp responsibilities. But this is the first employer in my career that I actually have a staff. Otherwise, I've been a one man wrecking crew. Yeah, my whole career and it's, it's
00:39:03
Speaker
Yeah, which is really common, which is really common. We're often solo operators. Yeah. So what sort of positions do you have on your team? Interesting title. Okay. Yep. Um, and a, um, um, actually lost an employee to an internal job bid. So I'm actually looking for another, uh, um, we're going to actually increase the requirements. And so we're going to have another HSC tech. Okay.
00:39:31
Speaker
And then I have a contract environmental gentleman. Wow. So I've been, I'm to be honest, blessed because of the amount of work that the employer requires, the demands of this facility. I don't know that any one person could last very long here. And, uh,
00:39:59
Speaker
So yes, it's interesting, it's challenging and refreshing all at the same time to have a group of people who have common interests being the HSE field and know that, especially a team that I know that if I were gone for training like I was last week, they have it covered.
00:40:28
Speaker
I'm not going to get a text unless, of course, the worst of the worst occurs, saying, hey, can you help us decide some basic thing? And so it's very refreshing. And knowing that if I get a phone call in the middle of the night, it's for the worst of the worst, which fortunately has not happened very often, that there's people here. There's even the on-site supervisors who are
00:40:59
Speaker
trained enough to know how to deal with some of the basic things. And that's been a relief as well. Because it's not something I've had the benefit of for most of my career. Right. So talk more about this HSC analyst position, because I think that's probably perking some
Safety Champions and Data Analysis
00:41:14
Speaker
ears. Like, what is that? Is that like a data person? Basically. But this individual does more than that. And in fact, is shortly after this person started before me.
00:41:29
Speaker
work themselves beyond the role. But the way that the role is intended to be is basically, and I don't want to diminish the title or the person's role, or certain contributions, but crunching data. And so we look at our leading and lagging indicators. And, and to a certain extent, some data entry that has to be reported to corporate, but
00:41:58
Speaker
that in a nutshell is really what it is. And it affords us, especially if we're a solo operator, you always are trying to look at your leading and lagging indicators and to help you figure out where do I focus our time and things like that. And so this is really, it's really a helpful position. But like I said, the individuals work themselves out and beyond.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So Jeff, for people who are listening, who are maybe starting out and are wondering, hmm, what sort of numbers or where would you be gathering or looking for leading and lagging indicators? Can you give maybe an example of some places that you're gathering data from? Sure. Well, simply, you can start with near misses or near hits, close calls, depends on what you, you know, what you call it, first aid reports. Unfortunately, that's a lagging because the incident already occurred.
00:42:57
Speaker
But then, unfortunately, if you have recordables, so you're looking at your, you know, those things that where the event already occurred, you're looking at the data generated from those investigations or root causes. And so those would be your lagging indicators. And hopefully, you're looking for and can find trends that would sort of point you in the right direction.
00:43:21
Speaker
whether is it training or is it procedural or holy cow, it's machine guarding. We need to improve there. From a leading perspective, and each site can, each company or person can do it a little bit differently, but we have a variety of different tools that we look at and from an ergonomics perspective. So we assess a job or a task and it generates a score.
00:43:50
Speaker
through the software that we use, and it risk ranks it. Same with our hazard identification, risk analysis, Sohaira, even MOC management change, these things that we have and even through our machine guarding assessments. So you are able to tie a number to it or some sort of identifier to it or risk ranking to them and figure out
00:44:19
Speaker
And through the software, it tells us, oh, this is a red or an orange or a yellow. It depends on how it breaks it out. So it helps you identify where to start to make corrective actions. And we apply the same principles to energy, water, and waste. Interesting. So Jeff, is this software something that's specific to safety, or is it part of the manufacturing software that you're using? This is something that's
00:44:49
Speaker
safety related. It's not something that's generic. It's something that the company subscribes to, at least from the ergonomics perspective. Yeah, okay. The MOC and the Hira and the machine guarding is company driven. They had they created the tools that we use. And so those are internally generated. Sure. But again, it just gives us and say, okay, well, our
00:45:15
Speaker
I'll throw out just an odd number, but average risk score for ergonomics of 16. So our goal for 2020 is to reduce the overall average risk score to a 12. And versus saying, I'm going to reduce from 12 red categories to 11. Well, you have no idea how many risk points that might take to get it out of that category.
00:45:44
Speaker
it might not be feasible to get it out of that category. So those are some things we do. And quite honestly, the analyst position that you talked about created something that's also what we use from a leading perspective, we call it safety champions. And it's been used before it's been used even before the analyst was here. But yet that person
00:46:11
Speaker
sort of modified it, updated it, and put some fresh light to it. And what that is, is a topic is created. In fact, this month, we're going to talk about Lockout Tagout. And so it's a one pager kind of information. We talk a little bit about policy, procedure. But then what we do is,
00:46:38
Speaker
For example, next Thursday, have an all employee safety meeting. So we'll talk about some generic topics in that meeting. The second part of that meeting is going to be our safety champion part. And so, um, I, or even one of my team in the near future, we'll say, well, here's what the topic of the sea of the safety champions is about February lockout tag out. And then we're going to go out and hazard hunt.
00:47:05
Speaker
Um, and, uh, so the second part of that or the third part of that meeting, I guess is more hands-on it's, and, and the safety champions are the leadership staff that we have here at the site. So quality manager, operations manager, uh, materials manager, maintenance manager, HR, myself, plant manager, we all share and have a, a department that we are assigned to.
00:47:35
Speaker
And so then basically it's, this is actually next week is the first, this is the format we're going to try for 2020. Last year, it was a little bit different. But I roll out the topic, everyone hears the same message, and then we go out on the floor and we execute it. Whether it's a hazard hunt, we're gonna, are all the lockout placards hanging the way they're supposed to be? Are they legible? Even some basic things like that, or
00:48:02
Speaker
you know, it could be container labeling, slip trip falls, other single pallets, hoses, extension cords, and a whole host of things that we will look at. Again, different topics and things of that nature. So that's, it's
00:48:20
Speaker
unique to this workplace that I've been a part of. Maybe there's others that are doing it, but. Right. And so the champions piece you said that made up of people from the leadership team, they, when you're doing the hazard hunt, each of you is sort of assigned a different department. Is that what I, is that what I heard?
00:48:38
Speaker
Yes, that's correct to be the champion in that particular area. Well, employees are coming together to put eyes on things and correct. They'll do a refresher to say, hey, OK, now remember, we're looking for lockout tag out. Oh, by the way, though, there's always if you spot anything else, we're not going to ignore it. You know, we it's at the old age of see something, say something and and and things like that. We're looking at lockout.
00:49:05
Speaker
or looking at GHS or whatever that might be, but we're always on the lookout for something else. What else popped up that we need to address? And then so we take all these findings and we plunk them into a spreadsheet. And I wish there was a magic tool for that, but it's old school Excel spreadsheet. And if work orders are entered in, we track things through work orders and basically HSC will track it to completion.
00:49:34
Speaker
Yeah, fantastic. That's a really great model, and I bet people who will be listening to this episode will think, hmm, maybe I want to try that in my facility. There's a couple of other things, Jeff, that you had shared with me when we've talked before that I was wondering if you would mind talking about. One of them being
00:49:55
Speaker
partnerships you've had, um, with regard to safety with, um, you know, community partners in, in the community where you, where you, where you live and operate. And then the other one was about zero waste. I remember you talked about that too. And I think that's just interesting. Sure. Um, and in fact, I know when we talked about my most recent employer, we, we did a, uh, mass casualty mock event, uh, the county,
Community Collaboration for Safety
00:50:24
Speaker
approached us and asked if we would be interested in helping. And I'm quite honestly, I thought it was just, you know, my time, my resources, things like that, from a manufacturer's perspective, as this, this, this, these meetings wore on, all of a sudden, I figured out, no, they really want us to do it on site, that we're the guinea pigs of this drill. And, and I'm like, wow, okay, yeah, sure. No, this is even better. So we
00:50:54
Speaker
over the course of about a year, had meetings developing the, the, the plan. And quite honestly, it was, it was interesting. At the time that we started this, we said, well, let's have it where it's in the middle of winter and there's a lot of snow, cold temperatures, et cetera. Let's make it bad. Yeah. Yeah. And, and well, quite honestly, as we started getting closer to the date when we did it, which was,
00:51:24
Speaker
late summer last year, even as we're developing this, February of last year came and I don't know, certainly everybody who listens to this is not going to know, but when we have 50 inches of snow in one month and 50, 60 degree below zero wind chills, we are starting to really wonder that this may come true. And so it got us to thinking about, well, what is the snow load on our roof and things like that.
00:51:54
Speaker
But we basically launched it as a, we had a script, but we did a 911 call and we had, I already had employees who volunteered their time. We did this all outside to minimize impact to the facility and production. But, and so we had the local hospital who was involved and those individuals actually did some moulage or
00:52:22
Speaker
put some makeup on some of our people and to sort of make it a little bit more live. And so we had, being in a little smaller community had a bunch of different agencies involved, mutual aid agencies involved, sheriff's police, fire, EMS, life flight was participated, the hospital, and then certainly us as well. And so it was a real test to everybody's
00:52:51
Speaker
policies and procedures and cultries and things like that. And it went well. Everybody really enjoyed it. You know, and it was sometimes it's just triage on site and say, okay, you're dealt with. No, they actually transported to the hospital. And then the hospital had to do their thing. Yeah. Yeah. What a massive undertaking. And how how smart? It was I thought very well thought out. I think everybody did a really good job. I even
00:53:20
Speaker
As we were talking about this, I forgot that one of the, the employer that I was at up north, we did a mock spill drill with a local fire department up there and, and, um, um, what would they do if we lost containment of a tanker that was on site and things like that. And, and, you know, the, the local communities, if those who are listening can do it and can pull it off, yes, it serves the, the,
00:53:48
Speaker
the local emergency responders very well, but also, to a certain extent, it's self-serving. They know what your hazards are, and to a certain degree, and then they can better respond and things like that.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah. So if someone's listening to this and they're thinking, gosh, I want to do this in my community, was the, was the, uh, the, the entity that spearheaded it like EMS at the county level? Is that how it started? Yeah, it was the, yeah, it was the county emergency management, um, uh, manager coordinator, where their title would be, um, initially sought us out, but. You know, if there's someone out there who wants to do something, I believe, I'm not sure about every state, but at least in Wisconsin,
00:54:31
Speaker
What I'm learning is that every county has to do some sort of drill and document and things like that. And so that might be something that if you're interested, they would contact that person.
00:54:42
Speaker
Yeah, wonderful. Wonderful. What a great idea. I know one of our other podcast guests, Brandy, I believe it's episode number two, talks about something similar that she did in the facility where she's currently working as well and in partnership with the local law enforcement agency. I think they were the spearhead there, the sheriff's department in that setting. Yeah.
00:55:07
Speaker
Well, then you mentioned something about landfill or zero landfill.
Sustainability Efforts
00:55:12
Speaker
Yeah, zero waste initiative. We have been working very diligently. In fact, it's a corporate mandate. Even though it's costing us a fair amount more money per year, we have been so far, we're almost on a year, been able to eliminate our waste streams from the landfill.
00:55:36
Speaker
Oh, 100% goes to a waste to energy site, which means that our trash now has nothing to do with our recycling, we still recycle and stress it and still look for ways to do better with that. But everything that would normally go into the trash compactor goes to a location that without going into 100% details on what they do or how they do it. But in essence, they they incinerate the trash
00:56:05
Speaker
And they make energy with it and stuff like that. So it's pretty interesting. And yes, we're coming up on one year next month. And that's what we have to do in order. That's just step one in order to get certified within our company.
00:56:28
Speaker
And so we're pretty excited about that and that we're able to achieve it. And, uh, yeah, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. And it's, it's, even though it's costing us more money, the company I work for really strives that even though it's, it's, even though it costs more money and things like that, it's the right thing to do. And, um, and so that's sort of the mantra that we have been able to do this and, and stuff like that. So, um,
00:56:57
Speaker
It's, it's really, it's really good. Yeah.
Personal Preferences in Safety Roles
00:57:00
Speaker
Well, Jeff, as we wrap up our time today, I'm curious to know you've given examples of, you know, your, your work, you've been able to do in environmental work. You've been able to do in health work. You've been able to do in safety. Do you have, do you have a favorite of those three? Well, I would say safety is probably my favorite and in part because I think it's a little bit
00:57:27
Speaker
even to a certain extent easier. Sometimes dealing with the EPA and the DNR can be quite challenging. It's complex for sure. It can be depending upon where you are and what you know permit you might have. But from the safety perspective, and I think for the most part, is it it's because you're dealing with the people to go back to the to the opening story I gave it's it's that human side of things is
00:57:55
Speaker
Yeah, there's you're dealing with equipment and the cold equipment and all that. But when you deal with the people and working where there's the human machine interface and interactions and, and really, even from maybe almost from an educator's perspective, where else you see the light bulb go off in their face or in their head, that they finally get it, or that they understand what you're doing, or you're, you're educating and training them. And you can see that they're excited about it or that they
00:58:24
Speaker
how they can apply something. Those are the rewards or the thank yous that you all too often don't necessarily get, but where they appreciate your efforts.
00:58:35
Speaker
That's why I continue to do what I do. Yeah. And it sounds like, you know, that's kind of what intrigued you right from the start from that conversation that you had with your dad all those years ago. You know, I didn't think about it exactly like that until I asked you asked the question and I'm, you know, I'm trying to answer and it's like, wow, this really does. Yeah. Full circle. Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:58
Speaker
Yeah, wonderful. Jeff, thank you so much for your time today and the wisdom that you shared and for the work that you've been doing all this time in the great state of Wisconsin.
Closing Remarks and Contact Information
00:59:10
Speaker
Well, thank you and thank you for doing the podcast. I enjoy listening to those as well.
00:59:16
Speaker
You're welcome, you're welcome. And thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution, making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day. If you'd like to join the conversation about this episode or any of our previous episodes, you can follow our page and join the Accidental Safety Pro community group on Facebook.
00:59:38
Speaker
And if you're not subscribed and you want to hear past and future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player that you'd like. You can also find all of the episodes at vividlearningsystems.com slash podcast. We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes. It really helps us connect the show with more and more safety and health professionals like Jeff and I.
01:00:02
Speaker
And of course, go ahead and share any episodes you'd like with your friends. If you have a suggestion for a guest, including if it's you, you can go ahead and contact me at social at vividlearningsystems.com. Special thanks to Will Moss, our podcast producer. Until next time, thanks for listening.