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#39: Tom Andrzejewski at NSC 2019
102 Plays6 years ago
Chief Safety Officer and podcast host Jill James, sits down with Tom Andrzejewski, Safety Director at Hunt Electric to talk about Tom’s path into safety, how their paths unknowingly crossed years ago, and the importance of networking and associations.
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Transcript
Meet the Unexpected Guest: Tom Ander Jeske
00:00:10
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro live at the 2019 National Safety Congress and Expo in beautiful San Diego. My name is Jill James, Vivid's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Tom Ander Jeske, who is the Safety Director with Hunt Electric Corporation.
00:00:29
Speaker
Thanks, Joe. So I got past the hardest part was your... Pronouncing my name? Yeah, your name pronunciation. And I thought I had it, but I sort of stumbled. Did I do okay? No, you nailed it. It was great. Andrew Jeske. I got it. Now I'm gonna be like saying it my dreams, probably.
00:00:44
Speaker
Welcome to the podcast Well, thanks. I'm so happy to have you here as a fellow Minnesotan Thanks for coming all the way to San Diego so that you and I could talk to one another Yeah, I don't know if we want to actually discuss how I became the accidental safety pros accidental
00:01:02
Speaker
accidental guest I think we probably should because this is the you were like the last-minute booking well we were at well we were at the gate together and I just said hi and you said hey what are you doing at MSB whatever time it is right now and I said well what do you want to do
00:01:21
Speaker
And here we are. Here we are.
How Accidental Beginnings Led to a Career in Safety
00:01:23
Speaker
So Tom and I know one another a little bit from our shared safety histories. Our paths cross once in a while. And they crossed again this week at the airport. And so I'm like, Tom, I don't have Tom's story. And so I'm so happy to have you here. So thanks for coming all the way on the plane with me to San Diego accidentally. And here we are to share a story.
00:01:45
Speaker
So Tom, as you are familiar with the podcast, the accidental safety pros a pun to talk about how did the safety field find you or how did you find it? So how many years have you been at this gig? I've been doing this for 36 years now. And I think particularly back then,
00:02:03
Speaker
People did find the field accidentally. I mean, I'm really pleased that currently there's some younger folks that work for me now that they specifically went for a degree program to qualify them to do the work. But I'm not sure how much that existed 36 years ago. So what I actually was was a
00:02:25
Speaker
a plant and facilities engineer.
Challenges in Early Safety Career
00:02:28
Speaker
Okay. And I held that job for, got a really great offer. I worked for an aerospace company down in in prairie and got about a year after I joined them, I got caught up in
00:02:43
Speaker
their first layoff ever. I still like to think that that was last in, first out kind of a choosing. And then when I re-entered the job market, it was as a field engineer for American Mutual. And at the time, American Mutual was like the only company that wrote unsupported workers compensation, which only means that
00:03:06
Speaker
they didn't write any other lines. Or maybe they were one of the only companies that would write work comp without anything else in Minnesota. And got some great training by a good group of guys and I would consider one of my safety mentors Mike Hannafin.
00:03:24
Speaker
from there did that for a few years and really got tired of going from doorstep to doorstep to all the customers. The customers just trying to tweak or push them in the right direction and then being disappointed the next time I showed up that they really hadn't accomplished much or changed at all.
00:03:46
Speaker
So you were doing like safety audits and were you maybe doing training with them and like steering them in a direction like this is here's where your gaps are? Is that what the job was with?
00:03:56
Speaker
Well, I think the job at that time was more of the eyes and ears of the underwriting department to assess the risk. I was probably 23 or 4 at the time. So I'm not sure I was the most credible guy to come in and do training for the group. And quite frankly, I didn't do it much. But had enough of a knowledge base to assess whether
00:04:20
Speaker
they were a good risk or not. And it was a pretty heady job for a young kid because you could make a recommendation that would either make them a non-renewal candidate or if they were really awful and that rarely occurred, you could actually cancel their policy. Sure. And you were impacting their premiums, too, based on, I suppose, the assessments that you were doing.
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah, in the long view. Yeah, for sure. So that was kind of your foray into safety, working in workers' compensation. Yeah, and it was excellent. And it was an excellent company. They did a lot of development with us, and it was the basis of all my safety knowledge.
00:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, I bet you learned a lot about hazard recognition skills just having gone, like you said, so many doors that you went through, so many places that you went. You saw a lot. Metal fabricating. Yeah, just a variety of exposures. I mean, it's true now. I'm jumping ahead to my current position, but with a variety of clients that we have, get exposed to a lot of different operations. So that's
Career Transitions and Sector Challenges
00:05:29
Speaker
cool.
00:05:29
Speaker
So after doing that for a couple years and getting frustrated with the inability to impact much of a change, I went to Red Owl food stores and stayed there until they were purchased by Super Value and then spent
00:05:51
Speaker
next segment of my career as safety director for Waldorf Corporation, which was kind of a legacy of the Horner Waldorf organization. And eventually, they still make paper down in the Midway area of St. Paul. Wow. I mean, that's a lot of grocery from a grocery store to a paper mill.
00:06:14
Speaker
That's a lot of different hazards. That's interesting. Well, when you challenge me on that, yeah, you're right. It is. I mean, that's a big, yeah, from a retail space. And grocery does absolutely have legitimate hazards. And paper processing, certainly a different scope of hazards.
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's big, heavy machinery, and the potential for significant losses is pretty great, and live steam, and heavy rotating equipment. Massive lockout-tagout emphasis. But inherited some cool things from the Horner Waldorf legacy.
00:06:55
Speaker
You know, we just did some cool things there and it was a good experience. A lot of printing operations there. And then I tried my hand at consulting for a while. And I won't mention that company's name because, you know, in the end, you know, it was at a period of my life where I thought, hey, I can take on anything. And, you know, part of my role was, you know, I had to remain
00:07:20
Speaker
chargeable, but I also had to recruit enough business and discovered maybe I'm the world's greatest marketing person. I had that same discovery. One of my jobs was with, the shortest job I ever had in safety was working for a customized training department out of a technical college. And I was to sell my safety services and deliver on training.
00:07:47
Speaker
And I thought, well, I love doing training. This is going to be easy. But then when I figured out I had to like draw my own business, I'm quickly like, I don't think the sales life is for me. That's that's that's a talent set that I don't possess.
Joining and Growing with Hunt Electric
00:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, I'm right. I'm right there with you. And then to me, it was almost like two full time jobs.
00:08:05
Speaker
And I wasn't good at one of them, so it wasn't a really good fit. The only job I ever got by answering a newspaper ad was the current one with Hunt. And that's made up, really, if you count years, it's made up the bulk of my safety career now.
00:08:23
Speaker
And I'm really blessed to have fallen in with a company with really all the top management support you'd want. And I think even some of those managers would currently argue that fact. But the truth of the matter is, I hope I have a great reputation in the Twin Cities safety and health community.
00:08:43
Speaker
And while part of that is hopefully my doing, part of it is, you know, I feel bad for professionals who get in situations where they really don't have the support that they need to succeed. And by and large, I have at Hunt and we've accomplished some really cool things.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah, so for people who aren't familiar with with hunt We you know when you hear electrical people maybe think of lots of different things than an electrical corporation would do But what's the kind of the 30,000 foot view of what what hunt does?
00:09:17
Speaker
Well, you know, it's evolving. Oh, OK. But I mean, a large part, large commercial construction. OK. You and I just joked about it. When my friends know that I work for an electrical contractor and they want an outlet installed at their house, they go,
00:09:35
Speaker
hey, could one of your guys come over? And it's not that kind of electrical contractor. And we work on enterprise data centers and hospitals. And we work for our local clients nationally. And we also have a really strong group of national clients that we perform work for.
00:09:57
Speaker
So the bulk of your work is, if we're talking OSHA compliance for a second here, is it primarily construction, the construction safety or do you cross into the general industry with the work your employees do as well?
00:10:13
Speaker
That's also evolving. The bulk of it was construction for years, but our service group has gotten larger and larger. Those are the folks who might go to our customer base as a bunch of fortune.
00:10:28
Speaker
Fortune 500 companies are on the Twin Cities, and the guys will show up in the job truck. And those loan workers present some interesting challenges of their own. Right, right, right. To say nothing of the vehicle hazards, because I think our roads aren't getting any safer. They're getting worse and worse.
00:10:46
Speaker
So the scope of your work is broad by way of exposures that your employees can have.
Mentoring and Team Building in Safety
00:10:52
Speaker
And you said the company keeps evolving, so I'm guessing the safety department has evolved over time as well. So when you started, were you the lone safety person, then you grew a team, or how did that part happen? I was the very first full-time safety person that Hunt had.
00:11:09
Speaker
I was preceded by a project manager who held the role as a part-time title. I was by myself for about nine years.
00:11:22
Speaker
joined by Diana Nelson I think nine or ten years later and she's been an absolute rock star and an awesome partner and we we've added we've added to we've continued to add to staff and we've probably I'm embarrassed to say I don't know the count off the top my head but probably ten or eleven
00:11:45
Speaker
Safety people working for us right now. A good portion of them working on a really large data project that we have going on in Nebraska. And really great young people too. So it's been fun. Yes, you've had an opportunity to mentor people as your career has progressed.
00:12:08
Speaker
Well, we try our best. Well, it sounds like an evolving career all these years, Tom.
00:12:18
Speaker
It's it's it's been super fun. Yeah, you know and it's not over yet. We're doing some really cool things right now You know kind of the buzzword this week for Some of your other guests. Yeah we're acting you know creating an actively caring environment and
00:12:39
Speaker
We have been engaged in working with a local PT firm that's been doing outstanding work for us. PT meaning physical therapy. Physically physical therapy. Yeah. And it was born out of putting solar gardens together. And solar garden work is basically, you know, a farmer gives up his, you know, someone procures a muddy cornfield that's basically unfarmable. Okay. From a farmer and then they put up
00:13:06
Speaker
you know, a 1 to 5 to sometimes even larger Meg.
00:13:12
Speaker
solar installation and it's highly repetitive work. We're really challenged kind of our first season of solar work because we got hit up with a lot of sprain and strain injuries that we didn't anticipate and it was kind of, it was an issue, it was blowing up our TRIR and engaged the services of, I'll give them a little bit of a shout out, Onsite Solutions and they helped us in a number of ways.
00:13:43
Speaker
Another physical therapy group. That's the physical therapy group.
00:13:49
Speaker
We really did three things and I think two of them aren't too avant-garde. They helped us with a stretching program. They helped us with ergonomic risk assessment training for our field leadership. But some of the really cool things that we've done with them are they'll go out and help us lead stretching in the morning, hang out on the job site for a little bit to see if anybody wants an individual consult for any
00:14:18
Speaker
Eggs or pains. Eggs or pains they may be having. And then the super fun part is just walking the job site. And it's so easy to catch somebody who's doing a little bit of a stretch that might indicate they're a little bit sore or something and just diving into that and say, hey, you know, what's going on there? Is there anything we can help? And you can introduce the physical therapist. And it's an early intervention model that's been really
Integrating Physical Therapy into Safety Measures
00:14:42
Speaker
fun. And it's been really grounding for me too because
00:14:45
Speaker
With all the stuff that we get involved in, sometimes you forget that you got involved in safety because you really like to help people. And so it's been really grounding in that way for me. And that's kind of like closing the loop to this whole actively caring theme that you guys have had going on the podcast this week. Yeah, and the partnership with physical therapy and safety, for anyone who's listening who is like, hmm, I hadn't thought about that before, that it could be a partnership, or how would that work?
00:15:14
Speaker
I've done the same thing in previous jobs as well and it can be so powerful not only for you to learn as a safety professional particularly on that ergonomic stuff like you were talking about not only for you but you said you cross trained with your team as well to be able to identify things but they can really be problem solvers and teachers to individuals as well. I know I had contracted with a physical therapist
00:15:36
Speaker
in a previous job that was in the turkey industry, not in a meat packing setting, but in barns where employees were having to lift and handle and carry very large turkeys, repetitively. And they were getting injuries like you might expect from shoulders and wrists and elbows.
00:16:02
Speaker
And because of some of the lifting and the things that they were doing with turkeys with regard to insemination and vaccination, that kind of thing. So brought in a physical therapist to watch the mechanics of how people did work and they were able to say,
00:16:19
Speaker
we can see we've got a shoulder impingement going on here every time you do this move with your with your elbow you know like higher than your shoulder and then explaining to the employees like what does the inside of that structure of the shoulder look like and here's the stress that's happening when we're doing that particular movement and then how could we modify the work and put them in different positions so we're not impinging that shoulder all the time
00:16:42
Speaker
and wrist angles and how can we change some of that stuff and how we're doing things. Their eyes just bring a different set along with their background and training to be able to explain it not only to us so that we can keep explaining it to people going forward but to the employees too to go, oh yeah, I do have that pain in my neck or I do have that pain in my shoulder so that we could move around that not only for them to understand but them to then agree to try something different.
00:17:10
Speaker
I think it's really a powerful partnership with safety. And you know, and I don't want to overstate kind of the, it's important that the safety team was part of that training, but I don't want to overstate that because what was really important is that our field leadership was, we're there. Yeah. Okay. And I hope they're doing as much with that as I had hoped because they're the real process specialists.
00:17:35
Speaker
You know, they've performed the work their whole lives. They've evolved to the point where, you know, they've been elevated in the organization, so they're now supervising the work. And so there are process experts. And to give them that knowledge base hopefully will yield some significant improvements or allow them to consider some of the ergonomic aspects as they engage in new and different work and new and different methods of doing the work.
00:18:05
Speaker
It's what we're getting into now is just process improvement in general, and it's really important for safety to be a part of that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I know that when we've spoken in the past, you've talked about some, if we're going to go theory just for a second on safety, one of the people that you paid attention to is Conklin and some of the theories on
Exploring Safety Theories with Todd Conklin
00:18:26
Speaker
safety with that. Do you want to talk about how you've applied some of that knowledge with your path as it's evolved?
00:18:32
Speaker
Well, and I don't, it's disappointing to admit that I don't know if, you know, it's that I've applied it or that I wish to apply it. Yeah. You know, you know, we talked about kind of engaging with the physical therapists on site and all the great work that they're doing for us and it's had a really significant impact in reducing our TRIR and I feel a lot of us as safety professionals
00:18:58
Speaker
get preoccupied with that all-important lagging indicator. Everyone around here talks at a safety show, everyone's talking about leading indicators, but all the customers on qualifications and prequels and things like that,
00:19:15
Speaker
They want to know what those lucky indicator numbers are. So there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of pressure to reduce those numbers. Our efforts with Onsite have really helped in that regard. But the cautionary tale I have is that you can't lose sight of the serious hazards that
00:19:38
Speaker
that your company faces. And for us, that's always electrical. And in fact, we had a pretty significant grounding incident, which kind of helped us regain that focus this summer. And I can't get into that here.
00:19:56
Speaker
But that's what gets me into, you know, Conklin has some theories about, you know, work is imagined versus work is actually performed. Talk more about that in case somebody listening doesn't know about that. Well, you know, and work is imagined is just, you know, your corporate policy, your, you know, management directives, not necessarily just in safety, but certainly in safety and in all regards.
00:20:20
Speaker
It's how management states that they'd like to work performed and what their expectations are. In one of Todd's books, I can't quote it right now, he just talks about, well, but then there's work is discovered and that infrequently people are performing work as imagined and most often they're
00:20:44
Speaker
There's some variation, there's some adaptation they have to do. And particularly for the electrical work, we have to maintain our corporate standards. But I think what's informative about the concept of work as discovered is to make certain that we're offering
00:21:06
Speaker
We're providing the education that they need to protect themselves as they perform work that isn't as imagined by management and by safety. So that they can continue to keep themselves safe if things aren't following the linear path that we as safety professionals think it's supposed to be like this, because it's discovered as the work happens, is the point.
00:21:34
Speaker
Well, and the theory is fascinating. I think it's a relatively simple theory. But in practice, it touches on culture. It touches, you and I talked about, the integrity of your process and your people. And I got to be careful about how I state that.
00:22:00
Speaker
I think some hot people will be listening to this eventually. Yeah, right. But it's just, does the organization have the integrity so that people can let safety and let management know, I know you guys say do it this way, but this is what's really happening out in the field. Right. Because if we don't know that that's happening in the field, we can't help them.
00:22:28
Speaker
Or add additional education. And it's at all levels. The journeyman performing the work, there's a variety of reasons that they don't want to
00:22:45
Speaker
tell their foreman, hey, this is unsafe, I don't want to do it. Because I think most of them perceive it as a means to the top of the layoff list. And we don't tell them that. We internalize that. And to me, that's a type of integrity. And then foreman to management or to the safety group, letting them know how it really is so that we can really address how things really are. And management, and then just
00:23:12
Speaker
the integrity of management and even safety management that you're not lying to yourself about how great you really are. We've been really fortunate that we've developed a really great reputation and I would safely say that
00:23:26
Speaker
Safety's become part of Hunt's brand, but as a safety director, I always have to caution people that, hey, I'm concerned that we're not as good as our reputation, and we need to keep working that. Yeah, and I think that's an accurate thing for any safety professional to say, right? Because it's not like you work and arrive somewhere, and then you're done. It's not like you've done all this work all these years at Hunt,
00:23:55
Speaker
And now it's like, oh, check, we're good, we're going to hit cruise. It doesn't work that way with safety. And I think that's what you're getting at is that it's evolving just like our professions and our occupation and our job path and everything else and what you've done with the safety department that you have at Hunt.
00:24:16
Speaker
It's not, you haven't arrived and the work is finished. It's never done. And so how does that evolution continue as the company continues to grow and progress and the work changes and humanity changes and we get new employees in and how does that
Evolving Safety Practices at Hunt Electric
00:24:33
Speaker
work? How do you keep your eye on the ball? And you have to appeal to a new younger set of, you know, it's the generational differences.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah, different skill sets and understandings. And so yeah, I get what you're saying. I mean, you're talking, essentially, someone might call it culture, right? We might call it the culture of the safety at a particular company or location or with a group of individuals or with their supervisor or something like that.
00:24:59
Speaker
And so how do you build what you're calling integrity so that people feel safe top to bottom throughout the company to be able to speak their truth, right? And to share with you so that you can be helpful.
00:25:16
Speaker
But it's really part of culture and maybe integrity was the wrong way to look at it and and really Canada's grounding that grounding that I spoke of just has kind of reinvigorated me that I think you got to be really diligent about a way to measure your culture and a willingness to kind of take the steps to remediate your culture and those are So how are you looking at doing that now?
00:25:39
Speaker
Well, I mean, is that what you're trying to discover? That's really our kind of our next, I think it's our next thing. Yeah, yeah. In kind of response to, you know, events this summer. Yeah. That we have to understand where we're at. And, you know, unfortunately, we're moving that direction in terms of kind of engaging employees more and, you know, over not just safety, but throughout the organization, you know, safety, quality, productivity. Yeah.
00:26:09
Speaker
all the way around, so I think moving forward, the organization's gonna be more receptive to it. So that's kind of the next big thing that I want to challenge the organization to do. We'll get back, we'll get together some other later date and I'll let you know. I know, isn't that fabulous? I mean it really is. I mean our work, that is the nature of safety. I mean it is always
00:26:35
Speaker
It's never stagnant, and I think that's what keeps so many of us at this for so many years. You know, and I mean, a lot of people have a lot of jobs and professions for a long time, but I think safety people, when you talk with them, they're always talking about the next thing. They're not like, eh, we're doing the same old, same old thing. You know, if you're interested in taking care of people, which by and large, that's what our profession is, we care about people and humanity, that we're always looking, and we're always looking to improve things.
00:27:05
Speaker
In fact, that's kind of one of the ways that our, you and I, our paths met cross, we didn't know it, but our paths did cross at one point professionally.
Influencing Safety Legislation
00:27:15
Speaker
You can tell our audience a little bit about an unintentional way that our paths cross. Does the Minnesota OSHA mobile earth moving urban standard, you mean? Yes, yes.
00:27:26
Speaker
So I co-authored this law back in, I think it was approved by the legislature in 1999 on the operation of mobile earth moving equipment that I co-authored with my co-worker at the time, Norm. And it was in response to deaths that I was investigating when I was with OSHA of people being ran over by mobile earth moving equipment, not in a roadway, but in other work settings.
00:27:50
Speaker
So co-authored this law, and many years later, Tom, it was many years later, I was looking at the law again because I was writing a presentation about it, and I'm like, wait a minute, there's a new piece to this law. I don't think, I don't remember writing this one little section to this piece. What happened to the law? And then you and I met somewhere, and it turns out,
00:28:21
Speaker
I responded to a comment period and I said, hey, we should address
00:28:27
Speaker
you're going to require high visibility garments, and we should address the fact that electricians, if they're engaged in electrical work, shouldn't be wearing a synthetic garment. They need to be fire rated. Basically, it was language associated with, well, NFPA 70E wasn't such a big thing back then, but it basically addressed the non
00:28:55
Speaker
FR nature of a high visibility vest and that there should be an exception carved out for electricians. And that got included in the law. I'm not sure I even knew that it was included in the law. I think I might have been as surprised as you were that I was reading the OSHA rules one day and I was like,
00:29:13
Speaker
Hey, I wrote that. You did, yeah. It's like maybe a sentence and a half long or something, but it's there and it's yours. So for anyone who's listening who's like, wait a minute, you can write safety laws? The answer is yes, you can. Yes, you can. And you can amend them.
00:29:31
Speaker
as Tom did and it was a great amendment so thank you for that addition. Yeah and you were well and you and I were talking earlier about you know other and you enjoyed that that that's part of our shared legacy but you know another kind of geeky like you know safety guy legacy that I'm
00:29:51
Speaker
that actually I'm kind of proud of. In fact, at the end of the week, we're going to be getting together with a federated electrical contractor group. It's basically an industry association of our own choosing. Here in San Diego. Here in San Diego. We're going to get together a couple times a year for a few days just to benchmark on safety.
00:30:14
Speaker
You know, years ago, early in my years at Hunt, I had written this live work authorization form. And we were just benchmarking on, hey, what do your forms look like today? And could everyone bring it? It was one of the agenda items. Hey, bring a copy of your live work authorization so that we can just see what everybody's doing with this and how you're collecting the information you need to do the proper risk assessment for authorized live work.
00:30:42
Speaker
Energized work and as they started passing everybody's every service passing their forms around and a majority of the majority of the Companies had basically a variant of the form that I had written So that's a really weird legacy of mine that in the way back Yeah that a lot of the large electrical contractors around the country are using some variant of a live work authorization Form that that I wrote that's a cool legacy
00:31:10
Speaker
Yeah, kind of. Kind of geeky, too.
Industry-Specific Safety Groups and Benchmarking
00:31:14
Speaker
Well, hello. We are in the nerd dome. It's for sure. So you mentioned, so you're part of this federated electrical group. And that's a good thing to mention for other safety professionals who are maybe starting out and listening. You know, many of us belong to organizations like, you know, we're here at NSC or we belong to ASSP or we're part of BCSP, something like that.
00:31:37
Speaker
But then within industry groups there's safety things as well. So this is one of them for you. Are there others that you're part of too? That crossover in industry for you? No, this is the main one for electrical and it's a really amazing group. We joke that it's benchmarking but it's part therapy because we all deal with the same challenges.
00:32:03
Speaker
So, part therapy, commiseration, and then benchmarking, shared practices within the group. It's large electrical contractors from all over the country.
00:32:21
Speaker
We're by and large the safety leaders and so you know if something happens or if a new process is developed That's shared at those meetings. Yeah, we can all benefit from it, right, right? And you know this is just a group of people that we would partner with as we perform work around the country and Generally wouldn't compete with yeah, right. So like I said, it was a it's an industry that
00:32:47
Speaker
It's an industry association of our own choosing, but its genesis wasn't based on safety. In fact, safety came a little bit later. Actually, I was a handful of safety professionals that made a pitch to the ownership group.
00:33:05
Speaker
You know, the safety people should be getting together a couple times a year. And it's important for us to be benchmarking in this area. Yeah, so for our listeners who are maybe starting out in their careers, they can be searching for those things and asking those questions. Or creating them. Exactly. Or creating them or asking if an organization exists.
00:33:27
Speaker
that safety should have a seat at that table, like you said. I know that I was part of a U.S. poultry and egg, which sounds kind of funny, but safety committee for the nation. And that was really specific to the group as well. I have another friend who I know is part of one for the Zune Aquarium industry that's specific to that. I have another friend who's part of an organization just for sugar beets.
00:33:52
Speaker
And so they're there. And so think about, you know, what is it that my company does? And, you know, is there a place that I can find like minded people in safety specific to my industry? I think that's a good tip for people. Well, and I hope it still exists. But back in my, you know, pulp paper days, there was a Minnesota pulp and paper safety association.
00:34:11
Speaker
And it was just all the safety directors for all the mills around Minnesota, primarily in northern Minnesota. I think I was the only one in the metro area. And we visit each other's mills periodically. And we take turns hosting meetings and benchmark.
00:34:27
Speaker
Yeah, so Tom, since you've been at this a while, when you need to do your own research, where are the places that you normally go for people who are listening who are maybe like, you know, when you're trying to do your own continuing education or when you get stumped on something? Obviously, you can go to this group that you're talking about now with your cohorts, but are there other sources that you routinely go to?
00:34:54
Speaker
I'll be honest and I'll have to say I lean on some of the young geniuses that work in our safety department at Hunt.
00:35:08
Speaker
I mean, two things happen, and I'm always interested in how people solve problems. Networking is really important. It's important to understand how different organizations meet certain either compliance or safety issues.
00:35:25
Speaker
But I always want there to be a basis in the standard to make certain that we're meeting those requirements. Most of what we do, we just make certain that we have a sound basis and we're covering all the necessary
00:35:48
Speaker
requirements, but for a large part, we've got a pretty talented group and we chart our own course. I mean, we check in with others and we network among other safety professionals, not just among electrical contractors, but even in the Twin Cities safety and health community, which I happen to think in the Twin Cities construction safety and health community is special. And I could name a number of people and a number of really outstanding
00:36:18
Speaker
firms general contractors and and other trade partners that you know, it's you know They we keep each other sharp, you know, it's not that you know, we're infallible but I think we have something special going Right up in the upper Midwest, right? Yeah, so it's you're talking about this you've been talking about an evolution of career and an evolution of
00:36:43
Speaker
the way that you practice safety.
Networking and Community Learning in Safety
00:36:46
Speaker
And I think you said it really well, like you use the standards as that baseline, because as we all know, that's the minimum. And so then you take it to your team and we're like, okay, if we've met the minimum now, how do we evolve this to be better than, to be, yeah, right? And more protective and what do, what's everybody else doing in industry and how can we share and learn together? Yeah, it's so important, it's so important.
Closing Thoughts and Community Encouragement
00:37:13
Speaker
Yeah, so before we wrap up our time today, is there anything that you would like to share with 36 years into it? Do you have any sage pieces of advice? Did I offer that or did you come up with that? I came up with that. Because I'm still learning too.
00:37:33
Speaker
No, the only thing about having done safety work for 36 years is I am particularly energized by actually everybody I work with and Diana would be really disappointed that I don't include her in the group of young people that work for us anymore and I'll probably hear about this for saying it but I'm particularly energized by working with those guys but occasionally
00:37:56
Speaker
I take a step back and I said, wow, I've been doing safety work for longer than any of you have been alive. And that's, yeah, I don't know. Even my mother, my mother's 94 years old.
00:38:11
Speaker
and cantankerous as ever and you know and when we talk about age we both you know um our our our fall back is i don't know how this happened you know speaking of age yeah i don't know how this happened to me i don't feel like an old person um and and and like my mother says she just feels like she's a
00:38:34
Speaker
18 year old trapped in this 94 year old body. And she behaves that way too. So that's cool. So that's where you get it. Yeah, let's hope. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome.
00:38:49
Speaker
Well, Tom, thank you so much for sharing your career and your story and wise words with the audience today. I really appreciate it. And really, thank you for evolving the way you have to help Hunt be a leader as they are and continue to be in safety. Okay, and appreciate the invite to do this. This has been fun. Yeah, wonderful. Thank you so much.
00:39:12
Speaker
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00:39:30
Speaker
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00:39:54
Speaker
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