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119: Live From ASSP Safety 2024
412 Plays3 months ago
It's back! Jill sat down with EHS professionals who were attending this year's ASSP’s Safety Conference and Expo in Denver, Colorado. She talked with people from many different industries and asked what their favorite part of being a safety professional, advice for other professionals, favorite success stories, and what the future of EHS looks like to them. thank you to those EHS pros who stopped by the HSI booth and contributed to this podcast. See you again next year!
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Transcript
Introduction at ASSP Conference
00:00:08
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Curl, brought to you by HSI. My name is Jill James, HSI's Chief Safety Officer. This episode is recorded live at the 2024 American Society of Safety Professionals Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado.
EHS Career Paths and Advice
00:00:22
Speaker
I had the pleasure of asking short form questions to several EHS professionals who graciously shared their thoughts on their favorite part of being a safety professional. How they found their profession, advice for other their professionals and their success stories and what the future of EHS looks like to them. Enjoy. Well, what is your name and where are you from?
00:00:47
Speaker
Hi, my name is Dwayne Reeds. I am from Lebanon to the sea. I am in the corrugated business as a EHS Badger. Wonderful. How long have you been in this industry? In corrugated, I've only been in six months, but I have been in the safety of going out six years. Wonderful. Is this your first time at ASSP or have you been here before? My very first time. Well, welcome to the show. That's wonderful. How are you enjoying it so far? I'm enjoying that. I get to know a vendor. Yeah. They only call for a sub manager before this. Been to another one. I can't remember the name.
00:01:26
Speaker
But I did go to the Tennessee OSHA Congress a couple times. so got So this is way bigger than that. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. The biggest ever, in fact. The biggest ever,
Dwayne Reeds' Journey into EHS
00:01:37
Speaker
in fact. So how did you get into the EHS profession?
00:01:40
Speaker
Well, I originally didn't really ah think that I would be in safety. um So as I served four years in the military. and was served I was stationed at Fort Campbell. Which branch? Army. So no slack battalion. So I did one tour with them, got out, went to school and got ah an associate's in electronic engineering because I thought that was what I wanted to do. so I was working on automated guided vehicles. That position of safety came open. Before that I did a little bit of construction safety with when I was doing fire alarm systems and security systems and things like that. um So I was always interested in safety but never thought that I would be where I'm at now. Position open, I didn't get it the first time.
00:02:29
Speaker
um And something happened where they ended up offering me a year later the job. Um, so it was, a it was a struggle cause I wasn't given much in the beginning. So I had to like learn a lot. Yeah. On your own. Yes. So getting into the process, uh, ended up two or three years later, uh, mentor of mine, she ended up being my boss. She taught me to go into school. Okay.
00:02:57
Speaker
So I ended up going to EKU and graduating um ah with my bachelor's last December, summa cum laude. so um Fabulous. And EKU is University of Kentucky. University. okay So in Eastern Kentucky University. Eastern Kentucky. OK, yeah got it. Got it. It's good. I think these are good things to share with people on the podcast because not every university has a safety program, so you should shout out your program. yes Yeah, Eastern Kentucky University has a fantastic online program. All the instructors are are great. They teach ah teach you weight the way in a way you can understand, even from people that's never done safety before. I was previously in the field, so I got to learn. But I also made it a way to like teach people things that we learned you know through the case, through the ah weekly
00:03:54
Speaker
Journals that we have to do. I can't really think of the name, but that's what yeah So sure sure so it was a big big achievement ah it a huge achievement and then you landed your first job post degree I post-degree. Well while I was working before I got my degree I was able to work for Tennessee OSHA for a little while. um So I got to do a lot of my internships through Tennessee OSHA and was given the opportunity to fa update their training programs for their co-shows.
00:04:28
Speaker
So that was ah Kayla Bailey. She was really good to me and ah and taught me a lot. on the way but That's another good tip for our listeners when they're looking for internships out of school is to go to the OSHA program. Yeah, or your state OSHA programs. That's wonderful. wonderful ah There's some great people at Tennessee OSHA. yeah Air and pits and also another supervisor But mine was Kayla Bailey and she recently got promoted to manager area manager. So She's a really good good at what she does
00:05:05
Speaker
That's wonderful. So when i after I graduate in December, um I was able to get a job ah back in the private private sector. private sector ah So that's where I'm at now and that's how I got into the corrugated field. The and ah job that I'm working now, their safety Their support and safety from corporate down is like, um it's one of
Zach's Path from Engineering to Safety
00:05:34
Speaker
the best, if not the best. So they really care about their people. Yeah, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. Well, welcome to the profession, formerly. Thank you. Yeah, and welcome to ASSP. Thank you. Thank you for coming. I'm glad to be here. Thank you.
00:05:48
Speaker
My name is Zach, and I have worked in safety for going on six years. Well, I started in school in engineering, ah realized math was too hard for me. I didn't want to put as much effort into math, I guess. I had a professor kind of track me down and talk me about safety, and I've always loved construction and pushed me into the safety world. Yeah, so here I am. Nice. So what's the best thing about your job? um Honestly, ah All the cool people I get to work with. I think the company I work for is great. Everybody's pretty close. Doors always open. I don't know, helping others. I mean, safety in general. it's We're all here for a common goal. so So actually, I got in the safety profession by accident, of course. I started my career as a firefighter right out of college and loved the fire service. And unfortunately, one day I was injured in the line of duty when a coworker broke a simple safety rule. and
00:06:46
Speaker
I actually ended up breaking 16 bones at the same time and had to retire from the fire service. My father owned a construction company, so I went to work for him. This is something to do. And being in construction as a firefighter, construction safety kind of, I started seeing how many people get hurt, how many simple safety rules are hurting other people, just like they did me. And I started chasing safety myself and kind of made it my mission to keep people from getting hurt the same way I did. so There's a bit of a, I guess, coming at it from the victim side, I guess. So I actually started out in training. I was just doing new employee orientations, new employee training, training them how to work in our warehouse just with their job functions. And my manager reached out to me one day and said, hey, I need somebody that
00:07:38
Speaker
can take over the forklift program. we It was just kind of in disarray, no documentation, anything like that. And that that's really where it started. I jumped in. I had just a smidge of experience with forklifts. But then just went to the training, went to like train the trainer training. And that's just kind of where my career took off. A couple of years later, I moved into like an actual safety role and have gone from there.
00:08:06
Speaker
Well, welcome to the Accidental Safety Pro podcast. Thanks for having me here. You're welcome. What is your name, your industry and where on this planet are you from?
Mentorship and Career Development in EHS
00:08:16
Speaker
ah So my name is Theodore Krieg and I work at Huntsman Polyurethanes. I personally live up in Wisconsin, Delavan. But my facility that I work at is in Ringwood, Illinois. That's great. And you and I share an accent.
00:08:35
Speaker
and we also share a friend in Dr. Todd Lucie. Yes, he is awesome. He is one of my favorite ah safety professional people that I've ever met. And are you ah are you a product of his of his teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater? Yep, he was one of my professors and um I look very highly of him.
00:08:58
Speaker
That's great. Thank you. Thank you. So what advice do you have for EHS professionals for someone new starting out? ah So one of the things that I think I really struggled on when I first got into, I mean, just entering real life was the fact that I didn't really have any form of mentor to help guide me on what which decisions to make or how to go about different situations, um how to help change culture.
00:09:27
Speaker
So I think that was one of the things that really, really made um getting into this career very difficult for me in the beginning. um But I look back at it and I wish that I had had a very good mentor right off the bat. Over time, I definitely have found ah amazing mentors, such as my current boss, Scott Bolden.
00:09:53
Speaker
um But I think that would have helped me right out of the career ah to really get me to also enjoy it more um because then it would have made it a little bit easier. you know so It's a hard grind if you do it and many of us do it alone. yeahp And I'm a firm believer that um mentors are literally the best and greatest cheat code of life. um You can always read like a book on like a specific topic, but if you actually have somebody in your
00:10:27
Speaker
ah contacts that you're able to actually talk to that has real life experiences with those. um I believe that they're able to help you a lot more than what you're able to just read off of the internet or anything like that. That's true.
00:10:39
Speaker
That's true, and mentors can be within our profession, and they can also be people who are not in our profession. Absolutely. Like like your boss right now. Yep. Right? Yep. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's fabulous. Some people will say they have a personal board of directors. Yep. And it can be a collection of mentors for different aspects of life. Good advice, Ted. Thank you very much. Thank you, and thanks for coming. And thanks for coming to the show.
00:11:04
Speaker
Well, hello, I am Jason Lucas. I am currently the HSE director of North Shore Steel and formerly a podcast host and partner of the Safety Justice League.
00:11:16
Speaker
wonderful and you are also being an alum of the safety throw podcast yeah absolutely it was my very first podcast that i was able to ever be on which kind of started a whole journey of podcasting that's wonderful this podcast is six years old now wow and you might have been in like hiding on youtube Yeah, if even year two, yeah. Oh pink jit for covering you bad oh absolutely. how's the show going for So far it has been absolutely amazing. Really enjoying getting a chance. It's it's it's like a safety family reunion.
00:11:50
Speaker
You get to come back and and meet up with everybody. You just start conversations that you ended a year ago. So it's always been amazing. it's pretty for you And what question would you like to, what would you like to talk about? You know what, I would, I think I want to talk about what advice I have for any new EHS professional. and we see their faces walking around here. So what would you tell? There there are so many. And i've had this has been the first year where I'm really kind of in a mentoring feel. i've I've been doing it for a long time, but I've never really felt like a mentor. So advice that I would give to a new EHS professional is do not lose the caring that you have for people. You got into safety for a reason, whether it was accidentally, like me, or whether whether it was an intentional drive to get into
00:12:37
Speaker
what I call the people business, which is safety. Don't ever let anything make you lose that love for people and continue to grow those relationships with them, because that is how you're going to continue to be successful in the field. Well, welcome back to the podcast, Leslie Stuckel, ASSP's Educator of the Year, and our most recent podcast. Welcome to ASSP's Thanks, Jill. It's good to be back with you and to meet you in person. It's been so fun.
00:13:09
Speaker
one've just seen each other their Right, right. It's amazing. Yep. Yeah. ah Yeah, right, exactly, yeah. Yeah, so the question for you is, what do you think the future for the agency profession is? Yeah, well, that's ah that's a very interesting question. you know And as as somebody who's been in the industry now for a long time, you know it's kind of interesting to think about where we go from here versus where we where we've come from. And I think that some things will be the same.
00:13:45
Speaker
Taking care of people, looking out for people will be the same going forward because people will go to work and the way that they work will probably change most definitely as technology advances and the the the the things that people do may be different but they still need to be taken care of and so I think the next generation and you know It's good, I'm a college professor and so I work with college students and i we try to tell them, you know, what do you have to look forward to here? What do you need to be able to do? And and we teach them all the technical things that they need to be taught, but I think the the more important thing is they need to be agile.
00:14:28
Speaker
They need to be curious. They need to embrace new things and new technologies and new ways to do the old things.
Future Challenges in EHS
00:14:36
Speaker
right New technologies and ways to protect people, but the need to protect people will always always be there. As long as we have people working, there's going to be a need to protect them. so It's interesting. i you know I just went to Italy over the summer and I got to tour the Roman ruins.
00:14:53
Speaker
and all these centuries old structures and centuries old, things that have been built since 79 AD. And one of the things that really struck me from this whole experience was humanity has not changed.
00:15:09
Speaker
in five, six thousand years. We're still people, we still have wants, we still have needs. The technology we use to do the work and live the lives we live always has has changed and evolved but we're still just people and people need protection and I think that's not going to change and so future EHS professionals need to really remember that always but yet also be open to the new things that come.
00:15:35
Speaker
Because I know even for myself, as we get older, we become more and more resistant to change, right? But I think we always need to be open to new things and new technologies. curiosity Absolutely. Always be curious. Always be open to improvement. you know um I often call myself a connoisseur of good ideas, right? Because I'm always looking for the next big interesting thing. so I feel like that's important in any profession, including ours, is to always be curious, always be looking to improve, and embracing new things as they come. you know sobra Thank you. Thank you. It's good to see you.
00:16:17
Speaker
what is your name My name is Kelly. And Kelly, what industry do you work for, and how long have you been in EHS? I work in manufacturing, and I have been in EHS more than 20 years, 23-ish. How many times have you been at a conference, would you say? Honestly, um I haven't been here. I haven't been to a conference probably in eight years, maybe, is a guess. Welcome back. Yeah, thank you.
00:16:48
Speaker
Glad to
Transforming Safety Culture
00:16:49
Speaker
be here. It's been great. I hear you have a success story at VHS. Could you tell us about that? I do. I do. And um it usually gets me choked up, so I will warn everybody in advance. But stories often do. Yes, yes. So my first a kind of major full-time role in in safety, I was at a manufacturing plant in the Midwest. And in total time, I was there about 10 years, and and we did a really nice um Safety culture turnaround by the end of that um that I was I was thrilled to be a part of but um there's one story in particular that that I carry with me and so every area had a safety representative and we would have these meetings and do activities and
00:17:42
Speaker
There was this one fellow who would never part really participate. He would show up, but he wouldn't really um contribute. Even I would call on him, hey, what what do you think? And he would just say nothing, or I don't know. So here, I think we ought to relate to that. Yes, yes.
00:17:59
Speaker
so one day um he he stops me in the shop he was on his way out for the day on his way to the time clock and he stopped me and and he said hey um you know that near miss bulletin that you pulled published yesterday yeah he said I used to work in that department years ago and we used to do a that task, it was an assembly task, we used to do that another way and I really think if they did it this other way and he explained to me how they did it and he said if they did it this way I think it would be better yeah and it would be safer.
00:18:35
Speaker
And I was like, wow, that is really great. Thank you so much for bringing that forward. I'll republish that bulletin with and add that to it. That's going to be great. And I said, but they're going to know that I didn't come up with it. And when somebody asks me,
00:18:51
Speaker
I actually wanted to put his name on the bulletin. Hey, so-and-so came out to me and said, i and I said, they're going to know it's. You can't believe this guy came over here. Right. And and he,
00:19:04
Speaker
I said, they're going to know it it's not me. So I said, what can I, what can I tell him? I have to tell them something. Because at first he didn't want credit at all. And he really still didn't. But I said, they're going to know it's not me. I have to tell them something. He said, well, thought about it. And he said, just tell him it was a safety guy.
00:19:20
Speaker
And he he I said, okay. And I stood there, yeah frozen. And he went on his way, clocked down and went home. And I think I stood there for two or three minutes, like, oh my gosh, the guy that I didn't think was listening. I didn't think he cared. um He does. he just I think it was just how he yeah communicated and and so forth. But he identified as a safety guy, unbeknownst to you, for all this time. He did. He did. And he had worked there.
00:19:50
Speaker
For 30 years or something he you know not his first rodeo um and he was only recently involved ah in in the safety safety team work, but um but yeah, so that was ah That was amazing, and I still cherish that moment um because he he did care, he was listening. So you know that would be ah my my ah suggestion for um for anybody really or even people new to safety even is you know don't give up. um you know They may actually be listening, they may be paying attention, um but for whatever reason they just don't want to come forward. But um you know keep creating opportunities for people to come forward. come from a place of caring um and wanting to help others and being open to, and um but you you know, listen. um and i And I think people will will come forward as they feel comfortable. And it just took him that long to do it. But man, he the the guy that I thought didn't care called himself a safety guy. So it's the coolest thing ever. Excellent success story. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you. Welcome back to ASSP.
00:21:01
Speaker
Nate Williams, I'm a but lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. And I've been doing the safety profession for three weeks. So for 22 years, I was an infantry officer at the tactical level and recently was assigned to the Army Safety Office. And so now I am um helping to write policy and and assessments for safety and occupational health across
Insights on Safety Trends and Innovation
00:21:29
Speaker
the U.S. Army.
00:21:29
Speaker
The best thing about my job is I know nothing about safety until I got to this job. And so just learning um everything from industrial hygiene to health physicist or physics and all kinds of things I had no idea about. So that's really a cool thing, really being exposed to a lot of things that I didn't even know you know were needed or you know a thing within our profession.
00:21:54
Speaker
or at least within the Army. So doing that and then also having real impactful, or having ah an opportunity to really impact the Army writ large through safety policy. So yeah, that's the best part. Welcome to ASSP. What is your name and where are you from? Hi, my name is Vinnie Papano. I am based out of Austin, Texas, and I work for a company called Highness. And what brings you to the show?
00:22:24
Speaker
So Highlands is attending the show to really get exposed to all of the new innovation in the safety channel. And you're not officially an EHS person, but you come here anyway, right? Yeah. And so what, tell me more about what brings you here. And is this your first time? So this is my first safety show. My background is in facilities. That's primarily where we do most of our business. but Safety really touches every industry and every channel. It does. So incredibly important to just be up to speed on all the newest trends and really it's something that our customers and our distributors are asking for. Wonderful, wonderful. What is the best thing about your job and facilities? The best thing about my job I would say is
00:23:11
Speaker
getting introduced to all of the different products, all of the new innovations, all of the technology, especially now since we're a lot more AI driven. um And again, just all of the different industries that facilities very much like safety touches a lot of different channels. So I would say that's my favorite part is learning all the different aspects of safety of facilities, all the different products, all the different solutions, things you could never imagine. So you are with, um, there's 6,000 of us here. So you're with 599,000 EHS professionals. Well, there might be more people like you here. Probably there is. So what is it, what is it like to be around this many EHS professionals? If you were to like talk about what's the vibe of the profession, what are you picking up? I would definitely say a wealth of knowledge. oh wow there' Yes, there's a lot of incredibly knowledgeable people walking around. i've I've had lots of conversations and learned lots of different things, especially because, again, safety touches all of the different channels. so i
00:24:20
Speaker
met yeah EHS professionals from different companies and they all, their jobs all, their goals similar, but the way that they get there can be very different. and The products that they use to get there are very different. So again, have very much appreciated meeting all of the different folks, all of the different sides of the business and all the different solutions that they bring to the table. Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you, Vinnie. And thanks for coming to ASSP. Thank you. Hope you come back. Absolutely.
Closing Remarks and Call to Action
00:24:49
Speaker
We hope you enjoyed this special episode of the Accidental Safety Pro live from ASSP 2024. If you're attending the National Safety Congress and Expo September 16th through the 18th, be sure to stop by our booth number 1559 and say hello.
00:25:06
Speaker
As always, thank you for listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good. Making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, you can subscribe subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player you'd like.
00:25:26
Speaker
We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review the show. It helps us connect the show with more and more yeah EHS professionals. Special thanks to Amort Gould, our podcast producer. And until next time, thanks for listening.