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129: 16 Broken Bones, Finding Your Why, and Human and Organizational Performance
240 Plays5 days ago
Ryan Word's journey began as a firefighter in Georgia, where a fire truck accident prompted his shift to working for his family’s construction company. He eventually moved to a major construction corporation in Orlando, climbed the ladder to superintendent, and started taking notice of safety more while working on theme park jobsites. He played a crucial role in developing a safety plan for a BROWZ certification, and decided that would be his next career move. Ryan is now a Safety Manager at FTI and is active in the local ASSP chapter, currently serving as chapter president. He is passionate about discovering individuals' motivations for safety and advocates for human and organizational performance principles. Ryan also contributes to the ASSP Professional Safety Journal, sharing insights on various safety topics.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:09
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded May 2nd,
Meet Ryan Word: Safety Manager
00:00:15
Speaker
2025. My name is Jill James, HSI's Chief Safety Officer. And today our guest is Ryan Word.
00:00:21
Speaker
Ryan is Safety Manager at FTI, an electrical solutions provider. Ryan is also a president of ASSP's Nicolet Chapter. Ryan joins us today from Menasha, Wisconsin.
Ryan's Career Beginnings
00:00:35
Speaker
Welcome to the show, Ryan. Thank you, Jill. It's wonderful to be here. And I feel like maybe I just didn't do a great job with couple Wisconsin pronunciations, though I'm a Minnesotan.
00:00:48
Speaker
Nicolay. Did I get that? yeah Nicolay. Nicolay. Manasha. Yes. Yeah. OK, great. Great. you You think my Midwestern accent would have this down.
00:01:01
Speaker
Ryan, it's so nice that you're making time to be with us today. Really appreciate it And I'm interested to hear about your origin story and where it started with safety.
00:01:15
Speaker
and So I'm definitely not one to pick on a Midwest accent because um I'm not from the Midwest. I constantly get accused of mispronouncing things up here. um I'm originally from Georgia.
The Impact of Injury on Career
00:01:26
Speaker
And that's kind of where, you know, my origin story, if you will, started off. um Originally, ran out of high school. Yeah. I wasn't sure what I want to do with my life. I went to college for a little bit.
00:01:38
Speaker
um That didn't work out. So I decided to join the fire department because I was always interested in helping people. um And the fire department has seemed like a great career opportunity. So a small county in rural Georgia, i joined the fire department.
00:01:52
Speaker
um I started to make a career for myself and I really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed getting to help people. Loved the job. um But unfortunately, just three years into my career in the fire service, I was pretty severely injured when one of my coworkers ignored a fairly simple safety rule.
00:02:08
Speaker
Essentially, we had a super tanker at our fire station, which is a fire truck that can hold 5,000 gallons of water. And anybody who's ever operated one, there's a simple concept they teach you in tanker training that you only drive with that truck absolutely full or absolutely empty and nothing in between.
00:02:26
Speaker
Because of the slashing around of the water? Absolutely, yeah. 5,000 gallons of water is 40,000 pounds. So you can imagine half a tank, you go around a curve and there's 20,000 pounds slashing side to side.
00:02:39
Speaker
yeah You know, you get ah dangerous condition. Yeah. So we were at the fire station one morning and a call came out to go help our neighboring county. um for a fire and they needed water so a fellow firefighter jumped in the truck i jumped in the passenger seat and away we tore out of the station um and about a mile into our response we ran ah went around a curve and the truck got a little shaky side to side and i even asked them you know hey how much water is in the tank and he reached down and pushed the button and we were just shy of three quarters of a tank
00:03:12
Speaker
And like, oh, well, you know, that's not good. um Hey, about a half a mile up ahead, there's a school where we refill all the time. We can pull over, cop off the truck and keep on
Transition to Construction
00:03:23
Speaker
going.
00:03:24
Speaker
yeah And, you know, looking back there, the famous last words, he said, no, it's not really a big deal. We'll be fine. Oh, gosh. And about a quarter mile past the school, we went into an S curve and that water sloshed just like they warned you it might.
00:03:38
Speaker
um And we ended up rolling that fire truck almost eight times off the side of a highway. Holy crap, Ryan. Wow. And so um I was but just shy of 21 at the time.
00:03:51
Speaker
I ended up breaking both my arms, um broke some bones on my leg, messed up a knee, both my shoulders, broke even a couple of toes just to pepper in some fun and ended up getting hurt, you know, pretty badly.
00:04:04
Speaker
And that was the end of my fire career. um And out of nowhere from something as simple as a safety rule, but, you know, um move you you have to move on. There's nothing I could do about at the time.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, i bet you were angry I bet you were recovering for months. Yeah, both arms in a sling at the same time as a a fun time. Oh, I can't even imagine. where you did you were you who were you living with at the time Were you living with family?
00:04:33
Speaker
Um, my parents, um, I moved back in with my parents after the accident. Yeah. Um, and probably much to their chagrin, I ended up on the couch in their living room for probably a couple of months because after the accident, there was some recovery and then, um, the first of a couple shoulder surgeries and. Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:53
Speaker
Um, so luckily, you know, I've been, you know, trying to strike it out on my own, but my parents being the loving parents, they are, you know, brought me back home. They were able to help take care of me until I was up on my feet and moving again.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah. Regarding your partner that you were with that day in the truck, was he injured as well? ah He was. Fortunately, he was not wearing his seatbelt. um So his injuries were actually a little worse than mine.
00:05:21
Speaker
Wow. And really, ah never had a lot of contact with him after the accident, maybe once or twice. um My best guess, I think he felt really bad for how badly I got injured.
00:05:34
Speaker
yeah um So he wasn't, you know, we never really had good conversation
Safety in Theme Parks
00:05:38
Speaker
afterwards. So yeah i I followed him for a little while while could in his recovery. um But unfortunately, yeah i never really got to talk to him much after that.
00:05:46
Speaker
Probably not an uncommon thing with situations like that. Well, I'm glad that you survived, Ryan. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So as you're as you were recovering and you're starting to get back up on your feet, like literal feet, because your toes were broken, too.
00:06:02
Speaker
Um, wow what were you, what did you decide? Like, gosh, have to reassess. I was on this projector jury to do this job. Now what?
00:06:13
Speaker
And that's really where convenience came in. Um, my father owned a construction company. So, and my mother worked there as well. So being there at the house with them, seeing the construction all the time, um my dad had a need for some help around the construction site. So,
00:06:30
Speaker
As I recovered, I started working for him got into a little bit more of the construction side with him. I'd always had a little bit of background construction. He'd owned a construction company most of my life. So, you know, I've been on site since I was a teenager.
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah. But I dove back in. Um, and that's kind of where I got my foot in the door into construction as a career as, Hey, I can't be a firefighter anymore. I have some background experience and support in construction already with my family.
00:06:58
Speaker
So I changed my career over to construction, um, and decided to try it out that way. Well, Ryan, I mean, you went from one high risk job and into another high risk job.
00:07:10
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's I wouldn't have even seen it that way at the time. um Sure, because you're in your early twenty s Yeah. you I mean, you had definitely knew you weren't ah in in um invincible after
Creating a Safety Manual
00:07:25
Speaker
rolling a fire truck eight times, but you're still in your twenty s Right. And so, yeah, right around then, um the economy was taking a bit of a dip. So my parents decided to sell the construction company off.
00:07:37
Speaker
um And they actually fulfilled one of their lifelong dreams. They moved down to Orlando, Florida. um My mom always wanted to work for a particular amusement park in Orlando. Okay. um And my dad went down and joined a big construction firm in Orlando. um So I was at home back in Georgia for maybe another year by myself. And I finally decided...
00:07:58
Speaker
You know, maybe I should go down to Orlando. There's a huge construction and economy down there. And let's see if I can give it a go. And ended up um moving to Orlando, applied to work for the same company my dad did and went right back into construction and started off, you know, a foreman then ah or a carpenter and then a foreman.
00:08:16
Speaker
um Eventually became a superintendent. and And in a superintendent, especially working for a major theme park in Orlando, I really started to first see that glimpse of construction safety.
00:08:29
Speaker
And that's kind of where i got that taste. And you take a firefighter, somebody who was dedicated to, you know, public safety, personal safety, yeah and put them in a construction environment, especially at theme parks where they're extremely strict about their safety rules. And you kind of start breeding the start of a safety guy.
00:08:48
Speaker
Yeah, um that's very interesting. ands And so working at the at the theme park, did did they have some safety elements that you were like, oh, this is interesting that sort of opened your eyes to the world of workplace health and safety?
00:09:05
Speaker
So I'll admit, it um my first interactions with their safety team came from me being more of the general contractor, construction worker. I was not a huge fan of safety people at the time.
00:09:17
Speaker
um Like, oh, what are these silly rules? And it'll take me longer to follow your rules and it'll take me to get the entire job done. All the stereotypical trappings, right? Yes, all the things that I love to hear now. yeah right, right. I have to admit that I was just as guilty as saying them.
00:09:35
Speaker
But yeah, they offer a lot of support and a lot of training. And I've always been the inquisitive type who of loves learning new things. So I slowly just started absorbing everything those clients had to offer.
00:09:48
Speaker
And then slowly started looking around at the company I was working for and realizing that we didn't really have that great of a safety culture. It was more accidents weren't
Passion for Safety and Career Challenges
00:09:59
Speaker
happening, but not on purpose. Yeah.
00:10:01
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Not a proactive approach. Not at all. Yeah. And I saw it. I kind of looked at it. I even expressed interest to the company. Like, hey, should we have a safety person who does these things? You know, especially we work for multiple large theme parks down there and they are very strict with their safety.
00:10:22
Speaker
And it wasn't really a priority for the company. It wasn't something they were interested in, which is fine. Yeah. Yeah. you know Or like I say it's not fine. It's their decision to make, not mine. um But one day, kind of what the catalyst that changed my career was one of those large theme parks came to us and said, hey, um starting next year, we're going to require all of our contractors to be certified through browse.
00:10:50
Speaker
um Which is a contractor management and yeah qualification system. And, you know, as a contractor of ours, we would like you to be one of the first ones in this program to you know, be certified and try out this new wave of safety qualification for us.
00:11:10
Speaker
So the company agreed. They were a huge client of ours. So, of course, we're going to do what we can to make them happy. And they submitted their current safety plan through browse for certification. And they returned it with a score of somewhere around 25 out of 100. Ooh, ouch.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yes. And a lot of red letters and a lot of hey, you are not compliant with all of these things. And there was a corporate conversation of how do we fix this?
00:11:35
Speaker
They were talking about hiring a consultant, um hiring You know, there's some there's some companies that do out-of-the-box safety plans where you just fill in your company's information.
00:11:46
Speaker
We had looked at a lot of those solutions, but we weren't really making any headway. So one weekend, um I was like, you know, they told us everything that should be in this plan to make them happy.
00:11:59
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Why couldn't we just make it ourselves based on what they told us? Mm-hmm. So I had a 1926 manual and I took it home one weekend with my laptop and I spent the entire weekend writing a rough draft of a manual Go Ryan. That's awesome. That's awesome.
00:12:19
Speaker
You know, I saw it. I figured it'd be fun um because I'm, you know, a bit of a nerd, I guess. ah
Finding New Opportunities
00:12:26
Speaker
And that Monday i took it to my father's office um and said, hey, I know we've been talking about how we want to do this.
00:12:34
Speaker
I decided I'd take a crack at it. Here's what I made. And he sat down with me and we kind of went through it page by page. And he was the first one to really say like, hey, you know, you did a good job with this. actually...
00:12:45
Speaker
This might be the way to go. He helped me revise it. You know, he's been in the business a lot longer than I was. So, you know, that corporate language and the proper voice and the way to speak, he helped out with.
00:12:59
Speaker
And we submitted it to Browse. Oh, my gosh. I can't wait to hear what happened. Okay. They returned it with 91.
00:13:09
Speaker
so So I was i was tickled. um When they returned it, they gave me more notes of what needed to be fixed. And that was really my first introduction to OSHA properly. I never had a 10 or a 30.
00:13:21
Speaker
um But when they return it to you, they'll tell you, you need to focus more on fall protection. Reference Subpart M 1926 500. And they tell you where to what look at. where to go what to look at and what they're looking for.
00:13:35
Speaker
So I just took it, sat down with the manual and found what they wanted. um And that was really that first taste, that first introduction. And I was pretty much hooked from then on out that, hey, I think this is a i think this is a viable career path for me.
00:13:52
Speaker
Take a safety guy firefighter and put him into construction. And that's exactly what you breed was a construction safety guy. Oh, that's such a good story and um makes my OSHA heart just warm, Ryan, hearing that you sat down on a weekend with the Code of Federal Regulations and you read it until you understood it. That's fantastic.
00:14:13
Speaker
Yeah, my um the construction people I work with now, they'll sometimes tease me for that because that's definitely not a normal thing just to sit down and enjoy reading the CFR abudment. Hey, somebody's got to do it.
00:14:26
Speaker
And have some yeah I mean, I find it. um Well, anyway, I have my I have my favorite paper copies and I, you know, use the online version. And I would say that I'm in those regulations multiple times a week.
00:14:41
Speaker
And in fact, you know, about 45 minutes before this recording started, I was helping someone. It's so good. All right. So you Browse now now thinks you're the bomb.
00:14:57
Speaker
What happens next? yeah So I slowly just started diving more and more into the safety aspect of the business operations. um Even started working with some of the estimators. Hey, you know, I'm starting to understand what these requirements are. we can look at things in the pre-bid phase yeah and actually come up with these solutions ahead of time and really just started sharpening my skills and abilities.
00:15:21
Speaker
Doing these projects every time a safety project came up or a project with a large safety implication. know, I was the superintendent for any of those projects and I got to do some wild projects, you know, some that I can't necessarily talk about, but some that were.
00:15:38
Speaker
Crazy fun, live animals. I did a project with the tigers at one of the theme parks and whoa um just crazy projects I wouldn't have got to do if it weren't for that you know safety specification as a superintendent.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah. And so i kept building up that repertoire projects. And eventually I decided, you know, as much as I like construction, I had gone up to a, I've been promoted to a project manager.
00:16:03
Speaker
I'm still kind of in charge of those types of projects, but I decided, um, we had one child, my wife was pregnant and i was really looking at what did I want to do? How did I want my career to progress?
00:16:17
Speaker
And I decided i thought safety would be ah better fit for my personality and style and So I approached that company and said, hey, you know, obviously I've been doing a lot of safety stuff for you guys.
00:16:29
Speaker
This is a place that I think we really have an opportunity for. i think this is where I see myself um growing and expanding. And I think I think we should consider a full time safety person. And I'd like to put my hat in the ring.
00:16:42
Speaker
And they pretty much said no. Because you were doing two jobs for them, being a superintendent and a safety person and being paid for one, not two jobs. Got it. Yep. And their their philosophy as a company was they didn't like overhead.
00:16:56
Speaker
So even our HR person had to enter in time tickets, um do something that generated revenue. They didn't like overhead in general. So the idea of having a safety person who's all overhead doesn't generate profit, um which now I can laugh at because, you know, it's...
00:17:14
Speaker
Safety can generate profit when it's done properly, but that was their philosophy is this is all overhead. It's not worth the cost. No, you'll be a PM. You'll be a superintendent. um And that's where you should be.
00:17:26
Speaker
And yeah, I said, no. so that for you no So I started putting feelers out that obviously if I really want to make a career in safety, working for a company that doesn't believe in a full-time safety person isn't going to be a good fit.
00:17:40
Speaker
Right. um So I put some feelers out and I was um lucky enough that I found another company that worked with the same clients in the same area.
00:17:51
Speaker
um And I had applied for a kind of an entry level safety position with them to, you know, I wanted to go into full time safety and I met their team. um I was supposed to have an interview with their safety director.
00:18:04
Speaker
And the week that I was supposed to have the interview with their safety director, their safety director quit without notice. Oh, And I was already in the interview process. I'd interviewed with the CFO and, you know conversation was kind of, Hey, we really like you. We like what you've done. We understand that this hasn't really been your role, but there's an opportunity here if you think you're up to the challenge.
00:18:27
Speaker
Um, so I took over the role as safety manager, um, for a construction and manufacturing company with about 1400 employees, whoa um, as my first full-time safety gig.
Life in Wisconsin and New Roles
00:18:40
Speaker
Oh, congratulations. And now you had to spend another weekend reading the 1910 regulations if you had manufacturing. So, yeah, and I did the same thing with them. they had um They had a good safety culture already, but some of the manuals and things were still a little outdated or loose.
00:18:59
Speaker
sure um So I sat down and I looked at their manual and I rewrote their manual from scratch. And we kind of made it a training document based on the 26 or the 10, depending on which side of the business you were in. yeah And that's such a great company to work for. I worked with them, really got to build that experience, especially being from a general contractor stepping into safety.
00:19:21
Speaker
I had a lot better experience relating with the guys in the field having done their job. Yeah. And, yeah, that was that was the biggest development curve of my safety career was finally getting that, A, the support of a company that's really interested in safety.
00:19:38
Speaker
There wasn't anything I took to them that if I couldn't explain why it was a good idea why it would protect people, they wouldn't say no. yeah Yeah. They were fantastic to work with. And so when you took that position, were there other safety people as well? Like, did you end up supervising people because he took the job that the guy walked out of?
00:19:59
Speaker
So in the beginning, um, There was a gentleman who worked there who was in HR, and they moved him over to be over the manufacturing side of safety.
00:20:11
Speaker
So he had a ah HR background, and he had the the familiarity with the company, the culture, and what the company did. Mm-hmm. And so the agreement was kind of, hey, Ryan, um ah he ended up being, you know, one of my best friends there in Florida. So I'll call by name. You they're like, hey, this is Zach.
00:20:29
Speaker
Zach is he's been here for five years. He's really good with the company, ah but he's newer to the idea of safety. You know, you obviously you're really passionate about safety, but you're new to the company. And they kind of put us together to co-lead that department.
00:20:42
Speaker
And Zach was more in charge of the manufacturing side and I was in charge of the field side. Uh-huh. um And it started with the two of us and we really work well together and built each other up.
00:20:53
Speaker
um By the time I left, we had hired in think he had three and he was hiring one more when I left. um And it didn't end up, we had a ah good team that we were supervising there in Florida.
00:21:09
Speaker
There at the end of my time with that company. Yeah. So then then what happened and how great you were able to have that opportunity and have someone do walk together.
00:21:22
Speaker
Oh yeah, no, i i can't I can't express how much I appreciate having you know a partner right there for us to you know grow and bounce ideas off of. And we really got to be creative and innovative.
00:21:34
Speaker
um For me, the next step, while I was in Florida living in construction, I met my wife um down in Florida. So you know I told you I'm from Georgia.
00:21:44
Speaker
I'd moved down to Orlando and I met my wife in Orlando. Mm-hmm. And we ended up getting married. I was thinking, I'm calling my wife. um And we had two children.
00:21:55
Speaker
And, you know, by this point, working for that company, um my kids were just about school-aged. And we were looking to see what we wanted to do for school. um And unfortunately, the schools in our area down there weren't that great.
00:22:08
Speaker
And Orlando, although it's fun for recreation and for adults, and my wife and I had had wonderful times there in Florida, um we really didn't think it was the best place for raising our kids.
00:22:20
Speaker
So my wife is from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. and here we go Here we go. This is how you got to the Midwest. Okay. The first thing everybody asks when I tell them Orlando to Oshkosh, you know, is why?
00:22:34
Speaker
well obviously because of the winter and like ice fishing, right? Right. Yeah. ah um Knee deep snow is something I never experienced in Florida. So yeah. Awesome. So, um yeah, my wife, my wife was wanting to come back home um to be near to her family and to be kind of closer to the environment that she was used to.
00:22:56
Speaker
um I'm more of a outgoing people person. So I knew that no matter where moved, I would be able to implant myself, you know, build community up around me and work.
00:23:07
Speaker
So we decided that and we were going to pack up our family and move to Wisconsin. so um I did look for some, I started looking for jobs in Wisconsin and I told my boss down in Florida, um the CFO I was working for that, you know, i absolutely love this job. I love everybody here. This has been such a ah great opportunity.
00:23:28
Speaker
um And, you know, it broke my heart having to do It's probably one of the hardest things I've ever done was I wrote the letter, the resignation letter to give to my boss. And um the way the campus was set up, it's almost a quarter mile walk from my desk to his desk.
00:23:42
Speaker
And, you know, I got up the nerve that I needed to go talk to him. I walk all the way across campus and he wasn't his desk. Oh, man. And I walked back to my office and I tried it again later that day and he wasn't there. i mean, it this like you need a, the I feel like there's a theme song accompanying you on this walk every time. mean, just, you know, I've never been in a position to resign from a job that I love. You know, usually if you're, if you're changing your employment is for a reason.
00:24:12
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Right. Right. I've done that too. And it is, yeah, it's, uh, Yeah. So that was quite difficult, but I met with him and he was super supportive. He said, you know, throughout his life, um he she had great mentoring words. You know, he told me about how throughout his life they had moved for his job, moved for his wife's job.
00:24:33
Speaker
And that, you know, you do what you have to do to support your family. And if that's the move I needed to make, then he would support me entirely. And he did. um So I ended up ah packing up the entire family and moving north and And when I first moved to Wisconsin, um I don't know if it was just stereotypical or just the luck of the draw, but I ended up in a cheese plant.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yes, for anyone who's listening who doesn't know that Wisconsin is the cheese state and they actually were cheese heads at the ah the football games. Absolutely. That is pretty funny, Ryan. ah I mean, it was that it was the you know stereotypical obligatory safety guide to guy a cheese plant.
00:25:18
Speaker
ah huh And um not a bad company at all. But my whole background was in construction. You know, i had some experience with the 1910 being there in Florida.
00:25:29
Speaker
But construction is where I was really more passionate. So I only worked there a few years. And luckily, I ran into ah fdi where I work now. um And it started as just...
00:25:41
Speaker
I knew somebody who worked at FTI and I reached out, you know, they kind showed me the website. Um, I saw the job openings and at first I thought it was just a small mom and pop shop out of Manasha and they have a YouTube series called charged. Um,
00:25:58
Speaker
where they talk about their ladders last program where, you know, ladders are the last tool that's acceptable to be used. And regardless of cost, they will use any other tool before a ladder to reduce falls.
00:26:11
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah. And they had a no knives policy where you're not allowed to use any straight open blade knife at all across the entire company. And they had this video series that explains, you know, it might be difficult, but these are the things you have to do if you really want to keep people safe.
00:26:27
Speaker
And then I was hooked by that culture. And um yeah, luckily i was able to start here with faith and spend time. Two years now I've been with Faith Technologies, FTI, up here in Wisconsin, and I don't have to rewrite the manual, so they already had a wonderful manual.
00:26:48
Speaker
Wonderful, okay. oh But now it's it's just been wonderful that... I actually get to operate in a good safety culture. I'm not building one up around me. I'm i'm getting to be a part of a good team, and this allowed me to really explore the safety space um because faith is a huge proponent in being involved in our safety community.
Pursuing Further Education
00:27:09
Speaker
So like you said at the introduction, i got to join ASSP. I become a member of the board, became vice president of the board, and then you know just got elected in as the president of the board.
00:27:21
Speaker
um and I've got to do a lot of speaking opportunities and engagement and other opportunities I've gotten because faith really believes in us being part of our safety community and supporting us in those actions.
00:27:34
Speaker
Oh, that's so great. And congratulations on being the regional ASSP president. That's pretty sweet. Oh, thank you. That's pretty sweet. Yeah. So um I think you did you wanted to talk about your, you you decided maybe so on some formal education. What's happening with that?
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah, so unlike most of the people I work with and safety now, I never actually went to school for safety. um Down in Florida, I did my OSHA 1030 and eventually my 500 and 510. Yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker
yeah um So I'd had, you know, job site experience. I've had hands on experience. um But you even the job I have now, one of the qualifications on the website was a bachelor's in safety.
00:28:19
Speaker
And luckily, um FTI believes more in the interview and the talent than they do about the paper credentials. So I was able to get the job. But I realized so many people have just that deep foundation from a safety education that I didn't have.
00:28:34
Speaker
that, you know, experience is wonderful. and I still believe there's things you learn from experience that you may not learn from school, but there's a foundation from that school that you don't get any other way. um So, yeah, I'm now enrolled with University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, working on my bachelor's and safety degree with them.
00:28:52
Speaker
That way, hopefully, I can tag that degree with the experience and i keep my career growing. That is awesome. And shout out to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where my friend, Dr. Todd Lusheen,
00:29:04
Speaker
is professor in that program. And he's been a guest on the show a number of times. That's great, Ryan. You'll get ah you'll get a good education there. That's that's really cool. Yeah.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, I was sad with ah Dr. Todd. He was supposed to get to be my instructor this year. And there was a change at the last minute. So yeah, i've got to I've got to meet and work with Dr. Lachine many, many times. But he didn't get to be my professor this semester. But I'm hoping um' hoping our past will crawl us in that setting as well.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah, they absolutely will. And he's he's on the ASSP board, too, so you'll probably you'll probably cross paths in that way as well. you um I think you had told me you wrote an article for ASSP as well. What was that about?
00:29:44
Speaker
Yeah, so when I first moved up to Wisconsin, had joined ASSP. And, you know, i mentioned... My passion and safety and my experience was really in construction.
00:29:55
Speaker
yeah So working in that cheese plant, I really didn't have as much challenge in my career as I was used to. yeah so I started looking for other outlets in safety.
00:30:06
Speaker
And that's where I really got more involved with ASSP for the first time. And I did a professional development conference where I got to speak. And the topic I went over was called Retraining is Not a Corrective Action.
00:30:20
Speaker
and And it was, you know, focused on looking further than just saying, oh, we need to train people again as a solution to investigations.
00:30:31
Speaker
And one of my friends up here told me, hey, have you ever considered writing? for the PSJ. And of course, no. um Professional safety journal, by the way, if anyone. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. that No, that's fine. i hopeful Yeah. Yeah. ah um It's nothing I'd ever considered because I've never, you know,
00:30:53
Speaker
I guess not to make myself sound bad, but I've never been much of a reader. I've never been one that just wants to sit down and dig through, um you know, sit down and read a novel. Unless it's the CFR. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. For some reason I can read CFR all night long, but if you give me a novel, it's just not my cup of tea.
00:31:14
Speaker
So the idea of writing anything other than a safety manual, that wasn't really... in my you know thought process. um But I sat down and I turned what was an hour-long PowerPoint into 2,000 words in an article and had some coworkers read it and see if it made sense. And the more I put it on paper, the more that idea kind of went concrete in my mind of retraining is not a corrective action.
00:31:43
Speaker
who And I submitted that one to the PSJ. And actually, they ended up accepting three articles in total. total um But that was the first one. And they published that one.
00:31:56
Speaker
i guess that was the first one they accepted, but they published it January of this year. Wow. um They held it for article that it fit better in. But then after I wrote that one, they kind of, you know, the one of the editors told me some of the things that they were interested in.
00:32:12
Speaker
And so after that article was accepted, they i wrote two more for them. um Addressing cognitive dissonance in the American workplace. Kind of talking about why people don't necessarily believe you when you tell them certain things.
00:32:24
Speaker
who and why people like me like I used to fight the safety guy you know why yeah why um and then the third one was stigmas the calls of safety silence is what it's called but talking about the stigmas of things that people don't like to talk about in the workplace Ryan those are yeah fascinating want to read them and we will try to get them in the show notes so as people are listening to this they'll be able to find them yeah absolutely Oh, that's fantastic.
Becoming a Safety Writer
00:32:54
Speaker
So you are now a budding writer.
00:32:57
Speaker
Yeah. opening Something I never would have thought for myself, they gave me a pen, like a lapel pen that says PSJ author on the pen. And ah at first I felt so pretentious with the idea of calling myself an author.
00:33:13
Speaker
uh-huh i have one of those from them as well it's kind of sweet yeah but now like you know so it's my desk and it's rather endearing i've enjoyed it i've um i've continued writing i've sent a few more to them um i've met a few other people so um there's some other people even within my chapter that have written some articles that have been published so there's a little community of people up here that have written and published and i've really got to expand that network with them as well and it's been really fun that's pretty sweet so you you had you had told me when we were planning this conversation that you're allergic to spare time and i think i think we're getting a flavor for that now the guy who sits on the cell phone reads the cfr and decides to become an accidental writer as well what else are you um what else do you do in your ah allergic to spare time time Yes, that's always been my joke. um
00:34:08
Speaker
And my wife will tell you, too. I'm allergic to spare time. You know, I started. um i work full time, obviously. um I'm married. I have two great kids.
00:34:19
Speaker
i Currently, i have a foreign exchange kid at home as well. ah And then we decided to put my son in scouts, Cub Scouts, when he was in kindergarten.
00:34:31
Speaker
But they didn't have a den leader to run his group of four boys. So i was like, you know what? We put in the Scouts. i want to be able to spend time with them. I'll be the Den Leader. So I took over Den Leader for the Scouts.
00:34:42
Speaker
The next year, they said, hey, we don't have anybody to run the popcorn sale. You know, there's only 50 kids and $30,000 worth popcorn. But, you know, would you be interested? So um last year, I became the popcorn colonel.
00:34:58
Speaker
And really, if I'm telling the truth, I only accept it because the title sounds fun. That's hilarious. but pop But I became popcorn colonel. And then this year, um our cub master is stepping down.
00:35:09
Speaker
So they were looking for a new cub master. And of course, I can't say no. So um this year, I became the cub master for my local Cub Scout troop. um I'm over our whole little army of cubs.
00:35:20
Speaker
And that's a really great program. um You mentioned ASSP. So I started off on the board. um went by as president and was recently elected to president. So I get to spend a lot of time with ASSP.
00:35:34
Speaker
oh and Yeah, brett Red Cross and ABC as well. yeah Yeah, so ah Red Cross started as I was a CPR instructor in Florida, and I found out more and more about Red Cross.
00:35:45
Speaker
I didn't realize that CPR training is one of the main ways that American Red Cross funds their disaster services that they provide people. And as I had more and more involvement with Red Cross, um I slowly joined their disaster action teams, which respond to tornadoes, fires and disasters all across the country.
00:36:05
Speaker
oh And then again, because I can't say no, I ended up being... um A lead for the counties that I live in or of two counties that I live in and near here in Wisconsin. I lead a disaster action team, um became a shelter supervisor for emergency shelters with them.
00:36:20
Speaker
I teach hands only CPR through Red Cross um as a volunteer. And then, yeah, the um ABC joined the safety committee there. Yeah. and And ABC for anyone who doesn't know, it's Associated Building Contractors.
00:36:35
Speaker
So, yeah. And then, yeah, just to boot, just because I guess I wasn't quite busy enough, I also started full-time college. So...
00:36:44
Speaker
I stay pretty busy. Oh, man. You had um quite the bounce back from, i think you told me, 16 broken bones. Yeah.
00:36:55
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it was... What a return. What a return. Yeah, I'm glad you both survived. Yeah. Ryan, um... I know that you have a passion and do you want to talk about what your passion is?
00:37:10
Speaker
i mean, you are a passionate person. We've been hearing them the whole time. However, i think there's one that you wanted to talk about for sure. So one thing that I talk about a lot And my safety journey when I talk to people is finding your why.
00:37:27
Speaker
um It's another thing that attracted me to faith because what's your why is a um a mantra for them as a company. And it's something that I get to start off a lot of safety trainings with.
00:37:38
Speaker
is I personally got to live out the experience of what happens when safety goes wrong. um I was severely injured at an early age. um And we didn't even talk about it, but 10 years after my injury, i was on a job site in Orlando, climbing a ladder and one of the screws in my shoulder failed.
00:37:57
Speaker
And my shoulder came back apart. um I ended up hitting the ground, having to have surgery again to rebuild my shoulder. And the second time they rebuilt it, um I spent almost 16 weeks immobilized, having to sleep in a chair upright, not allowed to lay down, not allowed to take a shower.
00:38:13
Speaker
um And at that time, i had almost two-year-old and a pregnant wife. Oh, man. And I couldn't help out in the house. I couldn't hold my own child. All because a decade before, somebody thought...
00:38:26
Speaker
A simple safety rule didn't apply to them. Yeah. And that became my why. Yeah. You know, the reason I do what I do is to stop little what seem to be insignificant moments from having lifelong impacts on people and changing people's lives for the worse just because.
00:38:43
Speaker
hmm. We didn't think further than the moment we were living in. So that what's your why? why is Why do you do what you do? um It's such a thing that I'm passionate about that I work with people. It's also the same reason I volunteer.
00:38:56
Speaker
you know american red cra I believe in helping people. So American Red Cross, they embody that. I believe in sharing safety with the people around me. ASSP is where I found my niche there.
00:39:07
Speaker
um I believe the outdoors and the things that Boy Scout teaches are good for children. So I ended up there as well. um I find those things that are important to me. Why? Why do I do what I do?
00:39:20
Speaker
Why do i follow the paths I do? And when you can identify your why, you really get to find your strengths and explore those strengths. So finding your why has always been a big thing for me. And I love asking people that question.
00:39:33
Speaker
Why are you here? Why are you working? Why is it important for you to go home at the end of the day? if you can get people to answer that question, you get some actually pretty decent conversations out of people.
00:39:46
Speaker
Yeah, when you when you talk with people about that, do you ever get deer in the headlights like it's something that people hadn't considered? Or ah how do how do those conversations usually go until you start seeing lights coming on? Or does everyone that you speak with just innately know when you start drilling in?
00:40:03
Speaker
No, some people are right there. They understand what I'm asking and um they'll dive into it. You get a handful of people who they think their why is maybe insignificant. no What do you care about? and Like, well, really, let just want to go home and play video games.
00:40:16
Speaker
But that's important to you. And that's what you do. You don't live to work. You live for that. And if that's what's important to you, that's fine. The deer in the headlights people, um usually my question to them is, hey,
00:40:28
Speaker
You know, you get PTO. What are you doing with your next PTO? What are you doing on your next day off? Tell me about your hobbies. Especially asking people about like their PTO.
00:40:40
Speaker
hu They will inadvertently give you their why. Good tip. Oh, oh yeah. I'm going down to i'm going um going down to the Dells and we're to to the water park or I'm going hunting. I'm taking three days off to go hunting.
00:40:52
Speaker
um And you'll see people get really passionate about their PTO and then tell them, like, great, so we have a why. is Fantastic.
00:41:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And you use that y as as one of the drivers to compel people to engage with safety for themselves and their cohorts.
00:41:14
Speaker
Absolutely. Trying to get people from where I first started off in my career in safety where, you know, we'll do this because we have to. the client won't hire us if we don't do this. yeah Yeah.
00:41:26
Speaker
We've been doing this 15 years and nobody's been hurt. And everything, retraining was the answer to everything, to getting people to care about their own safety and realizing that really your success is based on personally.
00:41:39
Speaker
So what's important to you, my wife and kids, fantastic. Make the choices that take you home to your wife and kid every day. And when you can get people on board with that, you start, you start really getting somewhere with, um you know, talking to them about safety and getting them to buy into their own safety.
00:41:55
Speaker
And that's when you truly see culture start to progress and get better. For sure. For sure. Yeah. um Ryan, will you talk about human cause and performance? I think that's another one of your passions.
00:42:09
Speaker
Absolutely. um It started with me. Hop, human and organizational performance, was a very interesting topic. ah topic Obviously, I'm a safety net. I told you i sit down and read the CFR for funsies.
00:42:23
Speaker
um So when i when I stumbled across this concept of hop, um I read ah James Reason's book, Human Error. And then, my goodness, I can't remember the name. There was a podcast.
00:42:37
Speaker
um The Hot Podcast. The podcast with no name. um and I'm kicking myself for not being able to remember the host's name. That's okay. That's okay. You keep you keep going. i can see if I can Google it. I think it's The the Hot Podcast with no name was the name of it.
00:42:54
Speaker
Okay. But each episode was kind of a deep dive into what is human and organizational performance. And I was smitten with the topic. So I started reading and doing research, um did some psychological research. one of the That topic alone was one of the things that got me back into college because I want to i want my minor to be in industrial psychology um for that purpose.
00:43:18
Speaker
But...
Exploring Human and Organizational Performance (HOP)
00:43:19
Speaker
Taking that information, digesting it, and trying to find ways that people could relate to it is what started that training session that I was doing with ASSP about retraining is not a corrective action.
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah. So getting down to not blaming the employee for things that happen. So an accident happens, and sure, we could say, you know, Jill, you shouldn't have done this. Let's just retrain Jill and move on.
00:43:42
Speaker
But that doesn't fix anything. One of the principles of HOP is blame fixes nothing. um And you can either learn and improve or blame and punish, but you can't do both.
00:43:53
Speaker
sorry Taking those principles is what led to that presentation um and ultimately that first article through the PSJ. ah So finding a way to relate safety to the human causes behind it.
00:44:10
Speaker
oh I'll give, ah I guess, an example of a story. Working at a plant, there was an incident where a newer employee um reached her arm into a machine with a moving component inside and got snagged by the machine and almost pulled into the machine herself.
00:44:29
Speaker
um And luckily, she escaped with only minor injuries. And when we first started that investigation, the first thing the supervisor said was, Like, why would she put her arm in that machine?
00:44:41
Speaker
And somebody else chined in with, well, we should just fire her and set a, you know, make a point. And let's let's make an example and make sure everybody knows that you don't do this or you get fired.
00:44:52
Speaker
And we said, well, let's hold on a second. Like, why? You're right. Why would any human just stick their arm into a moving machine with huge blades and pieces and Yeah, they don't set out to to hurt themselves.
00:45:04
Speaker
Right. So let's look deeper and find out why. And we found out that this particular machine had been having the same problem for months. oh huh And what should happen is they should stop production.
00:45:19
Speaker
you know lock out the machine, get a tool, fix the little problem, and then restart all the machines. But that takes time. inconveniences a lot of people. So it's not an easy decision to make that I'm just going to shut down an entire factory so I can fix my you know problem.
00:45:36
Speaker
a So there's a tremendous amount of pressure on the employees, especially a new employee, not to be the one to shut down production. yeah And when we asked the employee, like, hey, where did you get the idea to do it that way? Like, why...
00:45:49
Speaker
you know, why was your first thought to just stick your arm in there to fix it? And she said, well, it wasn't my first thought, but I've seen other people do it. And I thought I could too.
00:46:00
Speaker
And that was, you know, an aha moment. So we went back to the other operators and, hey, explain to me, you know, have you seen this problem? Have you done this? And, you know at first they didn't want to talk to me about it, but eventually they admitted, actually, pretty much everybody, every operator we have has done the exact same thing.
00:46:18
Speaker
Just we've been here long enough to know the machine. And so we knew how to put our arm in and get it out before it got hung. She didn't. And so you start seeing a human correlation that, yeah a this is a known problem that nobody's fixed.
00:46:32
Speaker
There's tremendous pressure on these employees because stop work responsibility includes shutting down an entire production line um with huge implications. And all of our peers are doing the exact same thing.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yeah, and I want to just pause for second, Ryan, and say huge implications means monetary implications. Right. and human beings need to know that their human bodies are of greater value than the financial piece to their employer always.
00:47:10
Speaker
Right? They absolutely should be. I wish more companies felt that way too. Exactly, Ryan. Exactly. And that's that's a piece of what you were talking about with the finding your why, right?
00:47:21
Speaker
i mean, if you're if your why is to do you know go home, be with your family, go on vacation, go hunting, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, that has to be the overpowering message. And it's so difficult, right? It's so difficult in a society where I'm afraid that I'm going to shut down production and mess with the finances of the company. And instead, I'm going to put my body in harm's way.
00:47:46
Speaker
Well, and that that's that underlying pressure that exists on people. Right. That if you switched immediately to blame, you don't address those problems that still exist.
Addressing Root Causes in Safety
00:47:55
Speaker
That's right. I could have fired that employee that day, but the hazard would have still been there.
00:48:01
Speaker
The pressure would have still been there. Yep. And eventually it would have happened again. Yeah. And hopefully not has been as been as severe, but who knows. Right. Right. But instead, by focusing on those human factors that lead us into danger, we found that to actually fix it, the underlying problem that they needed to fix every single day cost maybe $100 isn't that all I mean, and it's i've I've seen this story play out you know in my 32 years many, many times. And yep, that's usually it.
00:48:35
Speaker
Oh, of course. and But you don't get there if you don't ask those questions. right And so that's why you know retraining is not a corrective action. If we had stopped with just retraining the operators, they still would have had the same root cause, the same problem solved.
00:48:50
Speaker
Every day they would have had to find their own solutions for. But by stopping talking to those people and in the end, that employee who was injured, we didn't write her up. We didn't fire her. um We issued no punishment at all because we said what happened here was a failure on a human level.
00:49:06
Speaker
um Here are the factors that contributed to it. You've all done this. She's just the one who got hurt. Here's how we're going to fix it. We fixed that underlying problem. You know, the hundred dollars that cost us a hundred thousand in medical bills, we fixed and um we implemented some new safety. So, hey, now there's a lockout sensor on that door. If you open it, it locks out automatically.
00:49:27
Speaker
Fantastic. um Which a lot of newer machines come with anyways, but that was older. It didn't. But we made those changes. We were able to fix those problems based on asking those questions and investigating past blaming the employee for doing, you know, as the superintendent, the supervisor said, that was just a dumb mistake.
00:49:47
Speaker
And looking past that mistake, looking past it and looking into the reasons why. Right. um That's been such a fun passion of mine is getting people to flip that switch and really dig deeper and look at that human cause.
Finding Purpose in Safety
00:50:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. ah Holistically. Holistically. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, um, treating people like people, I think is another phrase that you use, huh? isn't Absolutely.
00:50:14
Speaker
And you, people get the hand up sometimes. And the idea that, you know, I didn't fire her. So hop must, obviously, um, it disables you from being able to punish your people. And that's not true.
00:50:25
Speaker
Um, if people, if, if there are times that write-ups terminations and things are appropriate, but that incident, When we returned that employee back to her job with no write-ups, no term know no adverse action, and instead we just fixed the problem, the communication with that team was transformed.
00:50:46
Speaker
The conversations, the near misses they brought to us, well, hey, if it's that easy to fix this problem, can we tell you about this problem we're having on this machine as well? I was just going to ask about that. Fantastic. What a great outcome.
00:50:57
Speaker
Right. is When all of a sudden you move away from that blame into that focusing on solutions, that culture started changing almost immediately. you know it you know It takes a lot of support from the management, but that one major incident that had high potential, when you stop and address it appropriately, it does wonders for your culture, which is, I guess, why one of the hot principles is response matters.
00:51:21
Speaker
Right. yeah But I got to see it live. And especially after that incident, I was really hooked on it. That's beautiful. Beautiful. And I bet word spreads to other areas as well. And you have more and more people who are like, hey, heard you did something over here. Guess what's happening over here?
00:51:40
Speaker
because you become yeah go ahead you know You become a partner in solutions instead of the safety cop. Right, right, right. Yeah. I mean, because our eyes, you know, as well trained as they are, we don't get to see or know everything in a facility.
00:51:57
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. yeah Hmm. That's beautiful. Hey, the, the hosts of the hot podcast, Andy and Matt. Yes. Is that who you're thinking of? Absolutely. Matt Florio.
00:52:08
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah. Good. Good. Looks like. Thank you for that. You're welcome. You're welcome. That's what, that's what Google's for. That's beautiful.
00:52:20
Speaker
Yeah. um Ryan, other things that you'd like to share with our audience today? Really just, you know, the safety career is a good one.
00:52:32
Speaker
um If you're passionate about people, if you're good at speaking to people, that's really the start of it. You know just taking the time to care about people, taking the time to care about them going home is the first steps into this career path.
00:52:46
Speaker
Because that's what it was for me, was a firefighter, gone construction worker, and I saw that potential of people being injured. um Obviously, I experienced it firsthand, but what you know, being able, you or being passionate about helping people is really the bare minimum to get into this career.
00:53:06
Speaker
Everything else you can add in just like I did, you know, reading a manual, taking a class, eventually going back to school 10 years after I got into the trade. Yeah. You can catch everything else up, but, um you know, if you if you find yourself caring about If caring about the employees, caring about safety, know, you might be the next accidental safety pro and you'll get to enjoy ah beautiful, fulfilling career just like I have.
00:53:34
Speaker
Love it. What a, and what a great way to end our time today. Ryan, this has been an absolute pleasure. And I'm so happy that your career turned out as well as it did and the ways in which you've been able to give back all of these years from, from Florida to Wisconsin.
00:53:55
Speaker
It's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you having me here. It's been, I've always enjoyed getting to listen to these stories on your podcast. So, um you know, I can't really believe that I get to be among those stories here. where I can't you how much I appreciate getting to be a part of this with you.
00:54:11
Speaker
Oh, I'm happy to be the archivist of all of these fantastic stories. Yeah, thank you. And thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good.
00:54:22
Speaker
May our employees and those we influence know that our profession cares deeply about human well-being, which is the core of our practice. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player you'd like. Or if you'd prefer, you can read the transcript and listen at hsi.com.
00:54:43
Speaker
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 professionals like Ryan and I. Special thanks to Emily Gould, our podcast producer.
00:54:54
Speaker
And until next time, thanks for listening.