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NSC Live: "I always tell people it's a sales job. You're really essentially a salesman."
91 Plays7 years ago
Jill James, Chief Safety Officer and show host, talks with Justin, a VP of Safety, with an oil and gas company in Texas–live from the Expo floor of the NSC Congress.
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Transcript
Introduction: Jill James and Justin from Wildcat Tours
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome to the Accidental Safety Pro podcast. I'm Jill James, the podcast host. And I am today at the National Safety Council Congress and Expo here live on the Expo floor. And with me today, my next podcast guest is Justin in the oil and gas industry here in Texas, specifically with Wildcat Tours. Justin, thank you for being on the podcast.
Justin's Journey into Oil and Gas Industry
00:00:33
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:00:34
Speaker
This is so fun. So oil and gas industry, that's probably not where you started in safety, I'm guessing. It is actually. So we'd love to hear your story of how you accidentally came into this practice. What does it look like for you and how long has it been?
00:00:50
Speaker
I've been in the profession around 20 years, a little over 20 years. Started in Midland, Texas. I don't know if anybody knows where that is that listens, but far west Texas, it's oil and gas country. So everyone out there is in oil and gas. My dad owned a service business that did service, provide service work for oil and gas companies. And growing up, watched that my whole life and then went to work for him. And my job,
00:01:18
Speaker
several jobs but you know 20 years ago safety was you know here's a video and watch that and take this test and you know don't put your hand there kind of a thing and yeah and so really for me it was
00:01:30
Speaker
just doing that and the record keeping aspects of it for his company as well as running a team that would do like instrumentation diagrams and those types of things. So it was safety and also.
Transition to Safety and Training Role
00:01:42
Speaker
And then from there it just kind of kept going. I had a friend of mine that started a safety and training business and
00:01:49
Speaker
hired me to go get work and also train and I kind of deviated away from the go get work side of it more to learning and training and then into where we are now, building complete programs and those kinds of things. So when you're working with your dad's company way back, you literally grew up in the oil and gas industry. Absolutely. Yeah, that's wonderful. So school and education, what happened with that? Which way did that take you?
00:02:18
Speaker
So interestingly enough, I went to graduate high school, went to Texas Tech, I was there for a period of time and then my dad's company was doing great things and he'd ask if I could come back and help him with a few things and the understanding was I would always go back and then I never went back. But I was really fortunate in that I had a lot of people that would
00:02:41
Speaker
supplement that lack of college degree with, here is specific training relevant for what you're working in. And I was always one to seek out those types of opportunities also. So I was able to overcome any perceived deficiency as a result of not having a degree.
Paths into the Safety Industry: Experience vs. Education
00:02:59
Speaker
Not an uncommon situation with safety professionals. I mean, your experience is very similar to many.
00:03:06
Speaker
Often I'm asked, like, profile safety person for me, like, what do they have in common? Where do they go to school? There isn't. There really isn't a single profile. We all came into it by some sort of accident, and we learned the craft in various ways from various people, which is really kind of the beauty of this practice. I always say, we learn the moves.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Learn what to do, what not to do, and all that's trial and error mostly. So what's a normal day look like for you now in this industry?
Strategic Role in Wildcat's Growth
00:03:38
Speaker
Well, in this industry now, a normal day for me is, you know, when I started, it was, hey, today I have 30 fire extinguishers I've got to fill, and they're in the most remote locations you can imagine, and good luck finding them. What I'm doing today is, you know, hey, where are we going in 2019 and 2020 and beyond as a company? And then from a corporate perspective,
00:04:04
Speaker
You know, where do we look to expand? We're looking international, we're looking offshore as well. And doing all of those things and then preparing our culture first and then the programs to support that culture second. That's how I generally tackle each day. And so how are you tackling culture? I mean, that's kind of in the mind's eye of all safety professionals right now and everybody's coming at it at different ways. What's working for you?
00:04:29
Speaker
So I was very, very fortunate at Wildcat because when the company grew, it grew by bringing together most of our management structure from major oil companies. So they brought a certain culture with them that they had always done a certain way. So let's take observation cards, for example. If I say, OK, we're going to do observations, they say, oh, finally. And it just kind of starts happening. Oh, they already knew. Yeah. They know what to do, why it's important. Yeah.
00:04:56
Speaker
They've seen it be beneficial where they were before, so it's not so much of an uphill battle. And because of that, then I don't really have to push on the front line guys as much because their management structure supports it already.
Building Safety Credibility
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah, you don't have to do all that. Right. Now, that's not always been the case.
00:05:17
Speaker
I always tell people it's a sales job. You're really essentially a salesman. I say that very often. You're not selling a product. You're selling a concept or an idea. A way to be. And I've got to convince a mechanic that's probably been doing it that way. His perception is longer than I've been alive and tell him that, hey, I've got a better way to do that thing I've never done before. And I need you to listen to me about it. So that's 100% sales.
00:05:44
Speaker
It is 100% sales and it's also building street cred with the people that you're working with. I often ask people like what's sort of the craziest thing you've done to build street cred that we got home at night and went, I never thought I would. Man.
00:06:00
Speaker
Never thought I'd do that. Is it just unlimited to one answer? No, no, no, absolutely not. The thing that jumps to mind the most is probably climbing to the top of a derrick 100 plus feet in the air with all the proper fall protection and stuff on it.
00:06:19
Speaker
getting comfortable, trying to look comfortable doing that when you're just not that comfortable doing that, but you know that in order to drive that point home, you have to show them you're willing to do it and that you trust the equipment that you're asking them to trust. And using the methods that you might get a pushback on that it's a congruence. That's right. And showing them that, hey, you can use this. And at the same time going, man, I really hope this stuff works.
00:06:50
Speaker
Heights have always kind of gotten me. Heights are something. I can do it, but I don't like it. Heights I've gotten more comfortable with obviously, but electricity is that way for me. I get it enough that I don't want to mess with it. I was in a sugar beet processing plant a week ago, multiple stories with the expanded metal
00:07:10
Speaker
flooring where you can see all the way down. I trained myself many years ago to have a focal point be some sort of horizon line, so I'm not looking ahead of where I'm walking. I'm looking far enough ahead not to trip on anything, but I kind of want to eliminate that whole falling thing. Yeah, the great floors, those are...
00:07:28
Speaker
They'll mess with you. Yeah. So that's a pretty big climb. I bet that felt like a great workout by the time. It was a good workout. I've done it climbing it and also being hoisted up by a mechanical line. So a couple of different things. Wow. Have you ever ridden a man lift? Yeah, for sure. Me too. Driven man lifts.
00:07:51
Speaker
The endless belt man lift that you kind of have to jump on and it passes through or... Oh, that's a different thing. So what you're calling a man lift is different than what we call a man lift. What you call a man lift? You were talking about a mechanical device. Yeah, I was talking about a scissor lift or something like that. Yes, yes, yes. I was thinking about... No, I've not ever ridden one of those. I was thinking about heights and what you do for street cred. I had to when I was with OSHA.
00:08:11
Speaker
ride one of these things called an endless belt man lift to the top of a grain elevator. High structure in the community. And I'm looking at this thing, I'm like, I know there's a regulation on it, there's not much safety stuff on it. And I'm like, I gotta get to the roof to respond to the accident I was investigating.
00:08:28
Speaker
And the team that was with me, I'm like, I'm sending a couple people up first to make sure they make it and then instructed them to pull me off of it physically because you have to step backwards over this and shoot.
00:08:44
Speaker
And so they said, you're coming through, you're coming through. I'm like, pull me off. And they pulled me off. And I'm like, da, da, da, da, trying to collect yourself as a professional to do your job and not lose your credibility with your audience. And act like you weren't scared of that at all. Exactly. I got home and broke out in hives. Oh, no. Head to toe. For six weeks, I had hives. I thought it was because I was so scared. My dermatologist said I was allergic to grain dust, but I'll still say it. It was because I was scared.
Encouraging Frontline Safety Contributions
00:09:20
Speaker
If you don't recognize that, you're going to really struggle to develop any type of rapport with the people that you're trying to influence, and you won't be able to be successful. How do you work as a safety professional? You had mentioned some people that have a good idea. When they bring ideas to you, how do you get them to bring ideas to you? Because the people that work closest to things often have the best solution.
00:09:35
Speaker
They didn't see me sweat. That's all the crazy things we do in our industry.
00:09:46
Speaker
So my constant message to anyone I ever talk to, I'll end most conversations with, let me know how I can help. But generally speaking, I just am constantly on message about, I'm an internal consultant for you. I'm an internal consultant for you. I work as a consultant for you. These tools are for you.
00:10:06
Speaker
We can do safety a couple different ways. I can hire coordinators and put them all over the country if you want. That won't make us any safer and you guys won't own the process or I can build tools. I just stay on message with that. This is for you. I'm building these for you. If they work, let's talk about what's working.
00:10:24
Speaker
and magnify that. And if they aren't working, let's talk about what's not working and make those changes. So for me, it's just staying on message and letting those guys. Being an internal advocate. Is that what you said? That's the framing? Yeah. Internal consultant. Internal consultant. Right. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Internal consultant. People can go and watch it. But you've got to stay on message, though. Yeah, right. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. What do you find to be the biggest challenge for our practice right now?
Evolving Safety Roles and Mentorship
00:10:52
Speaker
I think, so going back to something I said earlier where you have the beginning, my beginning career in safety was here's a video and here's a test. And then make sure your records are in order so that if you get reviewed by OSHA or whomever, you're in order to then a real focus on behavioral things and why is behavior a certain way. And then now a shift I've noticed more into
00:11:20
Speaker
You know, a reduction in HSE staff in lieu of management owning it, which is I think absolutely the direction you should go. I don't have a large safety staff by design because I always say if you have a safety guy, a safety guy is going to safety guy, you're going to let him do safety meetings, you're going to let him do facility inspections, you're going to let him do all those things. Rather than teaching people to... Rather than either you do them, which
00:11:48
Speaker
If I'm a manager and I've got to do a safety inspection on my facility, and the first one I find 100 things, the next time I'm not going to want to find 100 things. Exactly, because it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And so it's shifting more into that. And I think that is awesome. But I think, to answer your question about the challenge, is I came up in safety like I would suspect you did. Like I said, today I have 30 fire extinguishers to fill.
00:12:14
Speaker
And then you learn that. And then you learn some regulation. And then you learn how to teach. And then you learn how to, you know, on and on and on. And then 20 years down the road, you're like, okay, I get it. I work for some major companies. I work for some startup-sized companies. I understand somewhere in between is where we need to fall.
00:12:33
Speaker
I think in the future, given the aspect that you're phasing out that coordinator type role, or at least in my estimation, you're going to lose some of that kind of on the job type training where people spend a good amount of time seeing a bunch of different, being exposed to a bunch of different things, and they're going to end up
00:12:50
Speaker
You're going to end up, one of two things, you're going to get the guy that got hurt gets to be safety guy now, or you're going to get the fresh-faced kid straight out of college that has never seen anything at all in the real world. And they need to. And that's where mentoring comes along.
00:13:10
Speaker
Right. With you and I who've been at this for a while to try to bring some of those new leaders up by mentoring. And I never really thought of myself as a mentor until maybe a couple of years ago, because we've been at this a while now. Yes. And I think, oh, I have to be like, when people are asking me for help, I need to really pay attention to that. Pay attention to your answer. Yeah, right. That too, like, am I qualified to do this? How can I? Yeah, anyways, but it's been fun to, it's been fundamental. But I also think it's a responsibility of our practice right now is to mentor the next generation.
00:13:46
Speaker
You've been at this for, you said, 20 about
Career Achievements and Fulfillment
00:13:49
Speaker
years, something. 20 years, yeah. Yeah, yeah, me too. Are there accomplishments that you're particularly proud of, something that kind of sticks in your head as a win, a good day? Yeah, I mean, several. I was able to build a high angle rescue program for Derek workers at a company I worked for and trained over 800 employees. And how do you get a guy that's fallen and now he's suspended below a certain working surface? Yeah.
00:14:06
Speaker
I don't disagree. I think that any way we can get that message out is great.
00:14:16
Speaker
I was able to, same company, build a well control program. So how do you control a well that's out of control? That ended up getting American Petroleum Institute accredited, which was a lot of fun. Congratulations. Thank you. That's huge.
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, those are all great. And they're things that you can really kind of hang your hat on and say, man, that was fun to do. I've been overseeing the voluntary protection program efforts for multiple facilities that all receive star status. So again, congratulations. That's fabulous. All that stuff's great. And then at the end of the day, that's as rewarding as when you get Dwight the welder to put a guard on his grinder. I mean, how do you quantify one against the other? I don't think you can. You don't.
00:15:00
Speaker
You know, what gets you on a bed to keep at this? I just really enjoy doing it and I don't know if that makes me a sadist or I don't know what that makes me, but I do enjoy just coming to work and knowing that
00:15:15
Speaker
what we do ultimately, you're doing for almost a higher purpose. And even though sometimes that gets lost on me, I get bogged down a lot of times, and I can't believe that guy did that, you know, that kind of a concept. But at the end of the day. You get yourself out of that pretty quickly. You have to, or you'll have to find something else to do. But for me, it's just knowing that what you're doing is really making a difference in someone's life.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, I sometimes think about it as really impacting the heart and soul of working America. You know, we're all laying our hands on this arc and we're changing, we're changing it one little bit at a time. Right? Yeah, yeah. So what brought you to the conference?
Conference Goals and Closing Remarks
00:15:58
Speaker
I live here in Houston and when I saw the conference was here, I thought it would be a great opportunity to come out, see some of the newer technologies that are out there, take in some sessions, which I have done, which they've been great. But more than anything, Wildcat, the company I work for, we're in growth mode. So I know that we're a 200 person company now and we're looking to
00:16:21
Speaker
Add locations and people. So for me, when I look at that, I'm like, okay, we need something, we need processes in place that are scalable. And so to come to speak to vendors, such as yourself, how do we look at training? How do we look at SDS? How do we look at all of those types of things and grow those things? Yeah, because you're one human being and you can't do all of that. Right, so how do we find the...
00:16:46
Speaker
How do we find partnerships, and more importantly, the proper partnerships, so you can almost set that on autopilot and focus on... The people, and the culture, and the things that make the biggest difference so you know how people are going to perform when no one is looking. That's exactly right. There's some really cool stuff here I've seen that you're like, wow, that's awesome.
00:17:11
Speaker
I don't think it's a fit, but it's really cool. It's interesting, you know? Yeah, a lot of new stuff, a lot of new technology. Yeah, I love it myself. Thank you so much for taking time to speak with us today. I'm happy to do it. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Come to hear your story. Thank you for joining me. Thank you.
00:17:27
Speaker
And thank you to everyone who's listening to the Accidental Safety Pro podcast. If you'd like to listen to more of our episodes, you can find us in the podcast player of your choosing. And if you'd like to send us a question or comment, you can reach out to us at social at vividlearningsystems.com. Until next time, thank you.