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Steel Safety Challenge
Met By Local Company He calls his guys the "Posse," and puts them in charge of making sure every worker on the job is paying attention to safety. When he gets a call saying that someone’s not playing by the rules, everyone know there’s trouble brewing. They better head for the hills, or mend their ways in a hurry... The Sheriff is coming to town. Richard Timmins is Safety Director for Alpine Steel, Inc., a commercial contractor with anywhere from 50 to 150 workers in the field at any one time. It’s a company proud of the fine work they do, and just as proud at the tremendous gains made in their safety program. As the "Sheriff" of his company’s safety posse, it’s Timmins job to make sure things stay that way.
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Timmins has overseen the creation and implementation of a
safety program that has dramatically turned Alpine Steel’s accident rate
around. In the company’s second year in business, they suffered six major
accidents. Today, that number has been cut to zero major accidents and not even
a lost time day for months... and recently he saw the company’s workers’
compensation modification factor reduced by double-digits.
Timmins credits a serious commitment to safety on the part of both management and employees. "We put the power back with the men," Timmins said. "We gave them the power to stop work if they found unsafe conditions." |
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Timmins "deputized" a number of workers to help
him maintain safety among multiple job sites. Unlike most safety programs which
designate the foreman or supervisor as the company’s responsible party,
Timmins went in a different direction.
"I made the assistant foreman the safety guy because the foreman is concentrating on getting the building built," he said. "The Posse (all his assistant foremen) are out there doing the work." Timmins gives his Posse members a "Posse Book" to maintain. The book has all the tailgate safety meeting material and inspection sheets, and from this Timmins said he creates a history of every job. Although he spends his days in the field as general project manager for Alpine Steel as well as their safety director, Timmins said he’ll drop everything to respond to a call from a Posse member. Although such a call usually means one thing. "If the Sheriff comes into town, you’re in trouble," Timmins said In addition to giving his Posse authority on the job, he calls all of them into the office at least once a month for specific training. They’ll also talk through near-misses. That kind of training is essential, according to Timmins. Although he has been in the construction trade since high school, he credits Nevada Contractors Insurance with teaching him a lot of what he’s learned about safety practices in general. He recently earned his Construction Safety Manager certification through the company. The certification is earned by completing a number of required training classes that comprise the core knowledge required of a safety professional. |
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| Rounding Up The Posse
One of Richard Timmins’ innovative approaches to handling safety for a large company performing dangerous work at multiple job sites is to "deputize" assistant foremen. Considering himself the "Sheriff," his "Posse" becomes responsible for maintaining safety at their respective sites, and are fully authorized to stop work if conditions are unsafe. "When a foreman elects an assistant, we bring them in and make them a Posse member," Timmins said. "They get a pay raise, but if they don’t do the job, we vote them out and they go back to being a hand." |
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| One of the requirements for a Posse
member is training. Timmins brings them into the office once a month after
work for safety training. On a Thursday afternoon, 10 Posse members went
over the requirements for OSHA Subpart "R," the regulations on
safety while erecting steel structures.
Alpine Steel owner Randy Bulloch attended the meeting. He urged the Posse members to be vigilant and pay attention to the requirements of Subpart R. "These are the rules they’ve implemented for our industry," he said. "I don’t know if you know much about the history of Subpart R, but if you read the engineering news record and trade publications, this was debated between different industry groups; contractors, unions, the owners, and OSHA. It was kind of a landmark law because it was the first time in the history of OSHA that industry wrote the law." Bulloch invested thousands of dollars in safety equipment since a rough year in which six workers were seriously injured. He told the Posse that covering holes is crucial when working with steel erection. "If you cut a hole, cover it and label it, ‘hole,’ so no one walks on it," he said. He told a story about a worker building the Monte Carlo who sat down to have lunch and fell 30 stories because someone forgot to label a hole. Timmins walked his Posse through the Subpart R requirements, and they left feeling more confident about the regulations. Timmins said that in a company with 50 employees, a single safety director can handle it. But when he’s running multiple crews and has 150 workers on the steel at various locations, he had to come with a way to have enforcement on site and creating the Posse was the answer. "You’re my sounding board," Timmins said to them. "You’re the future of Alpine Steel." |
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Call (702) 615-7644 |
