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Safety Director of the Month "We have to make safety something of value," said Paul Adamo, safety director for Tradewinds Construction. "Not a priority, because priorities can change. Safety must have a value, just like you put a value on a building or a company." Adamo joined Tradewinds two and half years ago, bringing with him a comprehensive background in industrial safety. He started his construction career in Ohio in 1980 working for a boiler manufacturer, and had extensive training in asbestos and lead safety issues. He’s taken the OSHA 10-hour and 40-hour courses, as well as training in scaffold safety, accident investigation and others offered through Tradewinds’ insurance carrier, Nevada Contractors Insurance. From the day he started, Adamo knew that Tradewinds’ business plan called for a sound approach to safety. "The company realized that they were going to grow fast in a short period," Adamo said. "They knew they needed a devoted safety person." Jeff Vilkin, president of Tradewinds, understands the significance of accident rates on his company’s worker’s compensation premium. "Improvements in safety have a direct effect on the bottom line when it comes to premiums," he said. "It is huge. If we can save $100,000 a year, that makes a difference in our bids." Partially through their safety efforts, Tradewinds Construction met the goals outlined in their business plan. Today, the company has three divisions: A general contracting division, a wood framing division, and a metal stud, drywall and painting division. The company employs as many as 270 workers at a time, making it one of the largest subcontractors in the state. Adamo is credited with lowering the company’s accident rate. Using data from OSHA 200 logs and the Bureau of Labor Statistics , OSHA records accidents as "incidents" and produces an accident-rate figure based on 200,000 man-hours of work. Tradewinds’ accident rate was at 8.5 in 1999. That meant that for every 200,000 man-hours, they suffered 8.5 recordable accidents. In year 2000, that rate fell to 6.0. "We did exceptionally well in 2000," Adamo said. "We probably had 350 to 400 workers on the payroll throughout the year. We still have a ways to go, but we’ve turned the company around. We’ve got the supervisors and foremen in pro-active mode." Pro-active mode is when the supervisors and foremen, "Have their eyeballs on safety," according to Adamo. It’s a mind set in which everyone on the job takes the time and makes the effort to work safer. To Adamo, all that is a no-brainer. For him, the biggest hurdle was getting everyone into the safety mind-set. "I’m not here to reinvent the wheel," he said. "I’m here to make sure we’re working safely within OSHA regs." He said that when he first joined Tradewinds, his cell phone never rang. Now, his phone goes off all the time. As safety director, Adamo has his hands full with a job list some four and a half pages long. He does the company newsletter, and uses it to promote and communicate safety ideas and concerns to the workforce. "We hired a foreman at a job and put him through training, but he just didn’t jell with the program," Adamo said. "I found bad cords, bad tools, guys in tennis shoes. I said, ‘We’re shutting this job down.’" Ken Klein, superintendent for the framing division, took the matter seriously enough to immediately hire a foreman with a better attitude. Adamo said he had complete support from President of Tradewinds Construction, Jeff Vilkin, and that such upper management support is crucial to doing his job well. Adamo takes pride in the fact that he has been instrumental in creating and maintaining the correct mind-set at Tradewinds Construction. "A safety program is only as good as the employees," he said. You only accomplish so much when you, "Go on a job site and wag your finger and say you’re doing something wrong. When you give him a solution, stay with the worker, get with the foreman and help him learn, now you’ve done something. The mentality means quite a bit." Tradewinds Construction’s Safety Incentive Program: Tradewinds wants all their foreman to do weekly, onsite toolbox safety meetings. To create that, he gives them a topic to talk about and provides a dollar incentive of $4.00 for every worker that attends. The money goes into the foreman’s "bank account," and each quarter the foreman gets a check. Money is deducted from his account if Adamo goes out and finds safety violations. When they complain about that, Adamo says, "It’s not me, it’s your guys taking it away." In a short time, Tradewinds has created an atmosphere where every foreman is safety conscious and safety minded. It pays for them to do so. |
From The Construction Zone