Facing Safety Head-On During National Safety Month

The day often begins before the sun is fully up for the men and women who work in the precast concrete industry.

There are goals to meet, projects to complete, and hands to get dirty.

Evercast has seven branches stretching just shy of the nation’s capital and just north of Disney World. But no matter which plant you work at, each day begins the same: steel-toed boots fastened, reflective vest zipped and safety glasses and hard hat on.

“We start out every meeting, every morning, covering safety,” said Eastern Vault Quality Control Manager Kyle Bowling. “We go over our weekly safety topic. We talk about where we are for the month with our key performance indicators, recordables and first aids. This month we haven’t had any injuries, so I’ve been praising everybody for that.”

Bowling has worked for the Evercast branch in southern West Virginia for the last eight years and became the safety lead at the site nearly three years ago. In his role, he’s dedicated to helping provide a prominent safety culture at the plant. It’s a goal all the safety leads have.

“The safety leads from all the different sites meet once a month on a video call to discuss what’s going on at each facility and share resources with one another,” said Bowling.

On the Teams call that happens on the last Wednesday of every month sits Parker Wyatt, the quality control and safety lead at the Winchester branch, just outside of D.C.

“My favorite thing about my job is seeing everybody leave at the end of the day healthy and with the same number of parts they came in with,” said Wyatt. “We’re here to do our jobs and take care of our families, which means we also have to take care of ourselves.”

Just a few months into the role, he’s been trying to drive home the idea to the other employees that safety is everyone’s responsibility and not to take any shortcuts.

“I wish that everyone could realize how preventable most accidents really are,” said Wyatt. “Nearly all accidents are preventable if you’re safety conscious and you really think about what you’re doing. Just take that little bit of extra time to consider the consequences of what you’re doing.”

Every safety lead has safety as their main priority. It’s the first guiding principle at Evercast. You can see the words on flyers and signs throughout the site.

SAFETY: Our primary focus. Keeps safety as an overarching mindset for our employees and their families. Empower our employees to Stop, Think, & Ask. We are accountable for our own health and safety and encourage the same from those around us.

Eddie Odom, the quality control manager and safety lead at Dellinger in Denver, North Carolina, has been in the construction industry for nearly 40 years.

“The plant I worked at before Evercast went 10 years without a lost time injury,” said Odom. “So, when I came to Dellinger, they knew I had a strong commitment for safety culture.”   

As the site safety lead, Odom prioritizes reporting any near misses, an event that did not result in an injury, but it had the potential to. Taking the time to report near misses helps identify hazards before an accident happens.

“Just because you’ve done something a thousand times, doesn’t mean you won’t get hurt this time,” said Odom.

But it doesn’t take decades in the construction industry to know that ignoring safety protocols may not only result in injury, but in death.

“I worked as a property manager for over 10 years which isn’t necessarily specific to safety, however it is a very safety-oriented field,” said EHS coordinator Ashley Hoover. “There were things like making sure that my maintenance men were thinking about safety all the time, even down to riding with their foot out of a golf cart.”

Hoover is now well over a year into her role as the Environmental, Health and Safety Coordinator at Evercast where her responsibilities range from notifying all necessary parties if there has been an incident to brainstorming ideas to keep employees safer. It’s a role that’s changed her entire perspective on safety and life.

“Even when I’m looking at someone handling a crate or small forklift at a grocery store, that might make me think about how someone at Evercast could do their job safer," said Hoover. "The role honestly helps me see the world differently. I love learning new things about safety. It even helps me with my kids and keeping them safe.”

According to the Occupation Safety and Health administration, 4,764 workers died on the job in 2020. Workers in transportation and material moving occupations and construction and extraction occupations accounted for nearly half of all fatal occupational injuries.

Those numbers are always on the back of EHS Manager Philip Nicholas’ mind as he looks to ensure that all 400+ Evercast employees make it home safely each day.

“What people don’t realize is safety affects everything,” said Nicholas. “It affects our bottom line. In our 2022 fiscal year, we have reduced our recordables by half, so in January, we had a worker’s comp review, and we didn’t have to pay a portion of our premium because our incident rate had gone down. Having a safe environment also impacts employee morale so safety affects everything. It has a direct impact on business.”

With an ultimate goal of zero injuries at the end of every fiscal year, Nicholas makes frequent trips to the different sites and spends the day out on the floor to build relationships with employees. He believes communication, education and trust helps everyone have a safety mindset and reach their goals.

As it gets to be the time of year where production ramps up, Nicholas urges everyone to continue to keep safety at the forefront of their mind every day and to finish the fiscal year without any more injuries.

“Everyone thinks there is a big magic equation to safety, but there’s not. It’s simple. We’re all responsible for our own safety. Safety starts as soon as we wake up. It’s not just at work, but at home. A lot of our guys leave early to get to work, and it starts right then and there, walking out that front door.”

Article by Corinne McGrath