The 91ÊÓÆ” Hard Hat Safety Awards began in 2019 on the simple idea that safety is the most important part of your business. It’s a mantra I’m well aware of as a third-generation member of the building industry. I can still here my grandpa telling me the importance of a life jacket in our canoe as he reminds me again that he fell off the Astoria-Megler Bridge while building it. It’s the reason we still call my dad, now retired for over a decade, the “safety tyrant” as he cuts up pool noodles to secure hard corners in our house for the grandkids.

The 91ÊÓÆ” understands that construction is dangerous, and while prevention is always the aim, it’s not always the result.

This awards program isn’t about companies with the best safety record. It’s about telling the compelling stories of how individuals changed a safety culture or a contractor saved a life due to their safety plan, or about how an entire project team risked their lives to keep our communities safe. Our hope is these profiles provide you and your company some actionable inspiration and information to bring back and institute into your safety plans.
As you’ll soon learn, this is a great group of honorees. While the pandemic is no doubt a theme in many of these stories, there are several that don’t even mention it because safety is what you do every day. These stories are about preparedness, decisiveness, integrity, commitment and sincerity. If you walk away with one thing, let it be that good safety cultures are created by good people.
Let’s raise a toast to this class of honorees.

Nick Bjork
Publisher
91ÊÓÆ” Oregon

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Kim Lowry, director of member services for Associated Builders and Contractors Pacific Northwest chapter, recalls how impressed she was to learn in the spring of 2020 that Willamette Construction Services already had a Pandemic Response Plan as part of its company safety program.

“While many companies were struggling to make jobsite safety adjustments, communicate with their staff and were searching for more PPE, Willamette Construction Services was able to roll out the pandemic plan they had and keep moving forward,” she said.

Safety Manager David Culwell was the driving force behind the company’s prompt response to the pandemic as well as its overall safety culture. Its safety- and environment-first philosophy ensure that Willamette Construction Services exceeds all asbestos, lead and mold abatement industry regulatory standards and best practices. Its in-house experts are certified and licensed in abatement for not only asbestos, lead and mold, but also polychlorinated biphenyls and other toxic and hazardous materials.

In addition, Willamette Construction Services provides site preparation services that include demolition, selective deconstruction and concrete cutting. The company also does excavation and underground site utilities work, and its North Portland facility accepts scrap drywall for recycling.
As it provides these services, safety is always at the forefront in protecting employees and the public. Lowry noted that Culwell is involved in ABC’s Safety Committee as well as several other organizations.

“David is one of those people who lives and breathes safety. He has a way about him that makes you buy in and want to be part of his team,” she said. “He is so great about sharing his knowledge for the greater good.”

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Charlotte Hintz is a transplant from Texas who was in the oil field for 13 years and combined an expertise in human resources with a strong safety background. Whether working in oil or construction, her safety philosophy is the same: “We could put the best plan in place but if the people executing it don’t believe in it, it’s just words on a piece of paper.”

That buy-in became even more crucial as the pandemic spread to Oregon. Hintz quickly organized the effort to regularly clean locations, keep people distant from each other, install handwashing stations at jobsites, and provide PPE for all employees, visitors and subcontractors.

Prior to the state giving Ausland Group risk assessments in December, the company did individual site risk assessments last March for both field and office locations and put in administrative and engineering controls.

Hintz also has made sure to focus on employees’ mental health and safety during the pandemic. She led check-ins with those who were at home because of family or personal health risk, organized virtual happy hours to keep morale up, and continued with modified versions of monthly events that stimulate the mind, body and connection to the community.

Among other safety achievements in 2020, Ausland Group created a risk assessment and safety program for the Oregon Cave Chateau that includes protocols for fires, mudslides, earthquakes and emergency transport. It also completed four seismic upgrades on schools, three bank remodels and two warehouses with no lost-time injuries or need for first aid.

Hintz said the key to safety success is listening.

“Everyone has an opinion, and if you listen and they are fearful, you can be assertive about the guidelines that are in place, like cleaning schedules and PPE, to help them feel more comfortable in the workplace.”

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In September 2020, as the world faced the challenges of COVID-19, wildfires and hazardous air quality from the smoke presented a new level of safety concerns. Safety Manager Raymon Brison was charged with figuring out how to run the fabrication shop at General Sheet Metal Works Inc. safely.

The company quickly implemented a Respiratory Protection Program and had a stock of 3M 6500 series half-face respirators stored away. The leadership team reviewed all safety options, including closing outside air dampers, adding air cleaning HEPA portable units and using respirators.

“Working our plan and planning our work as a team was the key to ensuring everyone’s safety,” Brison said. “Special thanks to Respexam for getting all the medical evaluations complete in record time to allow the next step of fit-testing on over 30 employees. That was a critical step in our Respiratory Protection Program that allowed us to safely operate, keeping our clients satisfied.”

General Sheet Metal Works’ safety culture is imbedded from the first day of employment and starts with “See Something Say Something.” It gauges its safety culture through feedback from anonymous employee surveys.

“We make it easy for every voice to be heard with our open-door policy. No employee is above safety and we take it very seriously, leading by example. If it cannot be done safe then we simply won’t do it,” Brison said. “The right tool for the right job is only the start. We care not only about doing things safe but also about the mental first aid of everyone.”

Noting that 2020 was a year that will always be remembered for its challenges, he added that the strategic planning and innovative solutions developed last year have led General Sheet Metal Works to adapt to new norms and improved safety protocols for the future

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Chris McInroe joined Perlo Construction in 2005 as a project manager and advanced to senior project manager before being named project director in September. During that time, he has been instrumental in improving the company’s safety culture.

The initiatives he has championed include building safety into Perlo’s “Mock Project” training platform for newly hired project managers and engineers, and improving Perlo’s pre-construction meetings by adding several safety-related questions and considerations.

McInroe represents the company’s Project Manager Group as a Safety Committee Team member; spearheads the implementation of its Construction Athlete Program, a daily mobility, flexibility and strength regimen for field employees; and leads companywide training in the importance of “soft skills,” such as communication and body language, in the construction arena.

“Chris’ actions lend to having safety be part of the everyday conversation. These actions break down barriers, or the ‘old school’ mindset of ‘we’re too cool to talk about safety,’” Dennis Bonin, Perlo’s safety manager, wrote in his nomination. “By placing the emphasis on safety during the pre-construction phase, many hazards are identified and an engineered solution is implemented prior to construction even beginning.”

Bonin noted that McInroe’s projects are among the more complex that Perlo performs. As an example, the client for Project BaT placed a high expectation on safety performance, leading McInroe to implement a formal “Safety Moment” at owner’s meetings.

“The Safety Moment is the first agenda item, which goes a long way with owners, contractors and all teams involved on the project,” Bonin said. “Thanks to Chris, we now require all owner’s meetings to start off with a Safety Moment. Putting emphasis on safety from the get-go forces safety to always be a part of the conversation and sets the tone that if we can’t do it safely, we won’t do it at all.”

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JH Kelly is a fourth-generation, family-owned firm that has been in business nearly 100 years. During that time, its leaders have strived to weave the company’s safety culture into every aspect of its operations.

Every new JH Kelly employee receives an orientation to its safety program as part of their onboarding. That orientation is introduced by the company’s president and delivered by its senior leadership team, who are all involved in JH Kelly’s Craft Safety Committee. Their goal is to make sure that, from day one, every employee understands that the company’s investment in their safety starts at the top.

Each day on a JH Kelly jobsite starts with a safety talk and stretch and flex session. Every meeting, regardless of the subject, starts with a safety agenda item. In addition, the homepage on its internal website opens with statistics about its current safety performance.

“We make sure that no matter what you do at JH Kelly, the first thing you think about when you do it is safety,” said Safety Manager Grant Eby.
JH Kelly makes a point of celebrating safety. Its senior leaders nominate and award “All-Star Employees” at the apprentice and field leadership levels for their dedication toward safety, quality and production. It recognizes innovations in the field that allow team members to complete work more safely and efficiently.

“We also build safety into our reviews for all of our personnel as a key performance metric, incentivizing it wherever we can,” Eby said.

Safety goes beyond the jobsite, and JH Kelly works to provide mental health and counseling resources to employees and their families. Additionally, the company uses “Pass the Hat” initiatives to provide additional support to employees and their families enduring health or economic hardship, the proceeds of which are matched by JH Kelly’s president.

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Portland residents have a new source of fresh water this year thanks to the $200 million Washington Park reservoir project. Hoffman Construction Co. built the 12.4-million-gallon project for the Portland Water Bureau.

Washington Park’s water infrastructure was built more than 120 years ago. The need for better safety and security, as well as seismic resilience, led the city to make the improvements. The new enclosed, concrete box is anchored to bedrock with dozens of reinforced pilings up to 5-feet thick. The reservoir is engineered to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake.

Cary Bubenik, Hoffman’s operations manager, said communication with the water bureau and neighbors allowed the project team to run more than 5,000 trucks of concrete through the neighborhood with few incidents, no safety issues and few complaints.

“Having a giant construction project in my backyard was really not something I was looking forward to,” said Richard Turner, an Arlington Heights Neighborhood Association board member. “Then we had a meeting with (the Portland) Water (Bureau), Hoffman, PBOT. And to everybody, the explanation – the plan was presented to us – was superb. And it’s followed the plan, the presentation, everything.”

Bubenik noted that resilience does not apply only to the reservoir, but the men and women who built it. They worked through the onset of the pandemic and finished the last pour in December.

Planning for the project began in 2010 and construction began in September 2016. Two historic gatehouse structures fronting the old reservoirs were refurbished to house control valves for the new reservoir.

Future plans call for reflective pools resembling the original, open-air reservoirs to be constructed atop both the new reservoir and the decommissioned one to the south. In addition, crews will construct a grand staircase and other public amenities. Work on those elements is expected sometime in 2024.

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Through its proactive measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Skanska achieved an average of 2 percent positive cases across its jobsites compared to the overall positive rate of 10.1 percent reported by the UCLA School of Public Health for construction companies as a whole.

Along with mandatory face coverings, temperature scans, hand-sanitizing stations and physical distancing, Skanska utilized Triax trackers to monitor social distancing requirements and QR codes to conduct employee health checks at the beginning of their shifts. The success of these measures and the company’s ability to track employees’ health was validated when local teams were adopted on additional Skanska projects across the nation.

Other measures to protect employees include a zero-tolerance policy for people working while sick and requiring those who exhibit COVID-19 symptoms to leave the workplace immediately. The company installed COVID-19 safety signage and outfitted its main office with ionization and MERV 13 filters.

Skanska collected and reviewed each of its subcontractors’ safety policies, and distributed policy documents to all team members for reference. It limited domestic travel to business-critical cases and banned all international travel until it is safe to do so.

Skanska allows only business-critical visitors for project-specific deliveries. Deliveries are completed while maintaining a distance of 10 feet by using cell phone communication or hand signals to back up trucks. Onsite personnel are limited to those who cannot work from home, and visitors are banned from jobsites.

“As the pandemic goes on and guidelines evolve, Skanska is continuing to lead the construction industry in our collective and individual response to COVID-19,” said Safety Manager Joaquin Diaz. “We are continually investing in new processes and technologies to allow for safer social distancing practices at our jobsite and in our offices, while still maintaining the same levels of collaboration necessary to complete a successful project.”

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Wyatt Fulkerson enlisted in the Marine Corps right out of high school and thrived, so he was naturally drawn to the construction industry’s culture. “The construction industry possesses many similarities to that ethos, which is a good fit for me.”

He has worked indirectly with the industry for the past decade and directly for the past six years. During that time, he worked on project sites in seven states and was happy to find a more stationary home when he joined PMC two years ago.

Since then, PMC has increased the number of safety meetings it holds and includes everyone from senior leadership and department managers to technicians and any other employees who would like to attend. Last year, safety discussions began centering around COVID-19 precautions and the equipment and procedures needed to protect people on jobsites.

PMC implemented a Stretch & Flex program to eliminate the number of and reduce the severity of workplace injuries in addition to enhancing the overall health and welfare of employees. New hires participate in a safety orientation, and all employees receive the weekly “Safety Flashes” newsletter.

As a result of these and several other safety measures, PMC finished 2020 with no recordable injuries and one vehicle accident.

“I have seen firsthand the pain and emotional suffering of families who have either lost loved ones or whose loved ones will never be the same because of personal injury,” Fulkerson said. “To have a profession where your effort, commitment and dedication solely goes to prevent those situations is very satisfying to me.”

He noted that the teams at PMC appreciate the revamped safety program, training, new equipment, PPE and all the effort that was put into protecting them and their families’ quality of life, adding the result is a more knowledgeable, effective and safe workforce.

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Oregon OSHA is charged with protecting the state’s roughly 2 million workers from workplace injuries and, with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, took on the role of enforcing rules about masking, sanitation and social distancing that were implemented to slow the virus’ spread in workplaces.

“In a sense, it’s simply another hazard that we need to address in the workplace to keep workers safe,” Michael Wood, Oregon OSHA’s administrator, told the Salem Reporter in January. “We think our job is addressing hazards in the workplace and COVID-19 is certainly a hazard in the workplace as well as elsewhere.”

Oregon OSHA has a budget of $28.6 million and a staff of 206, including 49 safety compliance officers and 27 health compliance officers. Typically, Oregon OSHA focuses on manufacturers, construction sites and agricultural operations where workers are at the greatest risk of an accident.

The agency’s inspectors and staff have been overloaded with an unprecedented caseload, as the pandemic rules mean agency inspectors also must focus on retailers, restaurants, salons and other businesses. In an average year, the agency processes about 2,000 complaints alleging unsafe working conditions. Last year, the agency received 10 times that number.

The inspectors have faced their share of pushback during the pandemic, encountering protesters who do not support the shutdowns of businesses. Despite the challenges, Wood said he and his team are committed to carrying out their jobs because it means workers will end up going home healthier and because their work saves lives.

In early February, Oregon OSHA proposed a permanent rule that largely maintains, with some improvements, the risk-reducing measures required by the current emergency rule that protects workers from coronavirus. It would replace the temporary rule, which expires on May 4.

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