Keeping Safe

What Distributors, Installers and Contractors are doing.

Every day, safety is at the forefront of every job in this industry, but every once in a while, it's a good idea to take a step back and look over our shoulders. The PEI Journal surveyed almost 100 Distributor members in January to discover what their biggest worry is concerning safety...and what they're doing about it.

Two things became clear. First, the dangers facing you every day are many: handling hazardous materials, driving the roads with heavy equipment, constructing and installing in confined spaces all take a toll on an owner's peace of mind, not to mention his or her insurance costs. Second, PEI members are dogged in their pursuit of safe working environments for their employees, and stop at nothing to make sure their employees do it right.

Driving While Cell-Intoxicated
Staying safe on the road ranks at the top of the list of Safety Concerns, and at the top of that list is what some term the “necessary evil” of driving while talking on a cell phone. Doesn't matter if you are a sales rep, service tech or company management—a lot of business gets conducted in vehicles, and sometimes you do find yourself steering with your knees! To address this issue, several companies have purchased headsets for every employee vehicle, and insist that drivers use them. However, a study conducted by the University of Utah and published in the Summer 2006 issue of the journal Human Factors reported that drivers on cell phones were five times more likely to get into an accident, regardless of whether they were holding a cell phone or using a hands-free device. Researchers also compared drivers on a cell phone to drivers with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent, the legal limit in most states. The cell phone users fared worse than the inebriated.

Over the course of Callis-Thompson's (Harrington, DE) 55-year history, the majority of workplace accidents have involved vehicles. While mandatory training always occurs after an accident, Bill Thompson, president, acknowledges that employees don't always see the value of safe driver courses if they've never had an accident. “I think we've become numb to the risk of automobile accidents, regardless of the high number that occur each day. Employees want to be educated about the hazards of handling gasoline, but special training on how to drive safely is another story.” He adds that such a course “is sometimes perceived by the employee as an insult to his manhood.”

Atlanta Petroleum Equipment Co. (Tucker, GA) President Bobby Dutcher has no intention of insulting his drivers, but he is taking no prisoners. The company recently installed GPS on its fleet, and each month the “Non-Safe Driver of the Month,” including actual speeds driven, is posted for all to see. Says Dutcher, “We're not trying to pick on any one individual, we're just trying to slow everybody down and make them more cautious and aware of how they are driving. People don't realize that their driving habits affect not only their personal safety, but legal fees, Workers' Comp fees, health insurance costs, lost productivity, plus damage to the company's equipment. Those expenses can be cut down simply by driving more safely.” Since the Non-Safe Driver of the Month award began, driving speeds have dropped significantly.

Background driving checks are done on all new hires at JMP Solutions (Fort Myers, FL). CEO Maurice J. Hubbard explains that while they are not mandatory, they still are done. “People who take a lot of risks usually don't make good employees.”

Pay Attention!
The second highest safety concern for PEI members is making sure that employees know the risks they face on the job, and how to minimize them.

In all his years at Oil Equipment Sales & Service Co. (Chesapeake, VA), starting with digging ditches and putting in piping, Charles Hubbard, president, has never gotten hurt on the job. “Now I have guys who work one month and get hurt.” Hubbard notes a distinct change in the work ethic of employees over the last ten years. “They just don't pay attention.”

Brent Kimbriel, general manager at T-PEC, Inc. (Tucson, AZ), calls his workers “a motley crew that wants to look cool.” Kimbriel is grateful to manufacturers that are creating a fashionable, modern look to safety glasses and other protective equipment, as employees are more prone to want to wear it all the time.

Broyles Inc. (Humboldt, KS) President David Broyles points to workers who say, “This'll just take a second and I can get by without putting on safety glasses!” He responds, “No, you can't! Always you have to be thinking, thinking, thinking safety.” After reading the PEI SafetyLetter on Personal Protective Equipment, Broyles purchased proper safety boots and gave them as a Christmas present to everyone in his company. “I wanted to make sure they had the right equipment to do their jobs safely.”

More Than Meets the Eye
Other safety concerns cited include making sure subcontractors follow safe procedures, breathing in gasoline fumes in confined spaces, lockout/tagout issues, tank hole cave-ins, waste cleanup, warehouse safety and working long hours. “When you get busy, you start working longer hours; and when people get tired, they start to make mistakes,” says Ken Hayden, president, Northeast Petroleum Technologies (Schenectady, NY), who acknowledges that some workers have to be forced to take a day off.

At Rocky Mountain Pump Service (Cheyenne, WY), President Bradley Nelson worries about general site safety. “No one wants to shut down a site; they'd rather maintain operations and phase the work in. As we phase in the work, we have to deal with people coming in and out of the construction zone, increasing the risk of accidents.”

John Conarro, president of Mid-Indiana Service Company (Indianapolis, IN), wants individual retail locations to perform their own monitoring and stop relying on a service company to be the one to find the problem. “In too many situations, we are the front line of defense, and it shouldn't be that way because we're not there doing day-to-day monitoring of their primary leak detection and gasoline releases and spills.”

James Enewold, technician at B&T Sales & Service (Sparks, NV), is always amazed when he gets to a job and there is no safe access to the top of the customer's tanks. “There are so many building regulations nowadays that you'd think they'd want the tank to be safely serviceable.”

Speaking of regulations... “There is a lot of grey area in what is and is not safe,” says Stephen Klesic, president, United Environmental Group (Sewickley, PA). “Things aren't always black and white, and you end up spending a ton of money defending yourself when it wasn't a problem in the first place.” As examples, Klesic cites tank hole excavations that are open 72 hours or less vs. those open for 30 or more days, and working on top of a fuel station canopy. “The most risk-sensitive time is when you are getting on or off the ladder on top of a canopy. At that point, you can't have a safety harness on. So it becomes a situation of 'How do I do this?'” Klesic says he educates his employees to identify the potential dangers that may or may not be involved with the activity they are doing so they can recognize a potential hazard before it becomes an accident.

“Safety Is a Complex Issue”
“Every employee must understand the environment they currently are deployed in, and they must understand their abilities and limitations to the specific task at hand and be able to step back and look at the bigger picture,” says Eric Scott, president of The Southern Co. (Memphis, TN). “The employee needs to understand what the ramifications are going to be, not only for the small picture, but for the big picture, the company itself.” Scott makes sure employees understand the seriousness of the company's Workers' Compensation Modification Rate, how insurance affects the bottom line, and how it all affects their profit-sharing program. “The only way to win that battle, that us vs. them mentality, is to be a group of people working together toward a common goal. That goal is making the customer satisfied while returning equity to the bottom line.” He adds that one person can negatively impact that mission.

To help employees understand, safety training occurs throughout the industry in a variety of ways. Some companies send employees to manufacturers' safety schools and seminars. Technicians also attend programs mandated by the oil companies to meet their established safety protocol.

Every company conducts safety meetings, whether monthly, weekly, even daily. Many companies show a PEI Safety Video and use the SafetyLetter and Safe Practices as resources.

“Selling safety is by far the hardest thing we have to sell to our employees,” says Craig Smith, president of Francis Smith & Sons (Chinchilla, PA), “and we keep reminding them that safety is their number one priority.” Last summer, Smith brought in his insurance provider to conduct a safety seminar, which have become regular quarterly programs. In the last six months, there have been no accidents.

Michael Shelby, CEO of The Southern Co. of North Little Rock (North Little Rock, AR), hired a certified OSHA instructor two years ago to train employees. Since then, accidents have decreased by 30 percent.

“We hit really hard on not getting hurt,” says John Moore, president, Banks & Co. (Fresno, CA), who focuses safety meetings on answering the question: “Can we take care of this with first aid.” Potential on-the-job hazards are dissected and intently discussed. “We also stay on top of customers in regard to safety,” he adds. When Moore purchased the company in 2003, the company's Workers' Compensation Modification Rate was 1.56. Today it's down to .89.

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE The convenience of calling from the road can bring headaches for business owners. Learn how to Develop or Revise Your Cell-Phone Policy to Protect Your Assets.

ANS Distributing (Tucson, AZ) has an extensive safety manual, a safety team and safety team leaders at each branch. Online safety meetings are conducted every other month. President Bill Tegethoff says, “It sends the right message to the people who work for us and with us that we are concerned about their well-being.”

“It's always what you don't know that comes back to you, so we try to be aware of things that have not affected us, but have affected other companies, even in other industries.” In addition to reading all of PEI's publications on safety, David Chrien, president of SSECO Air & Fluid Equipment (Cleveland, OH), subscribes to a lot of trade magazines in order to stay abreast of safety issues in other industries and their possible influence on the petroleum equipment industry. “I look like a librarian,” he says, “but it's helpful and worthwhile reading!”

Vigilance
There is complete agreement among PEI members that safety requires constant attention. Yet United Environmental Group's Stephen Klesic is realistic when he says, “No matter what you do, there are some people who are just clumsy and are going to have accidents, no matter how much you teach them and how much you point things out to them. I don't know where you put those people, but we can't afford to have them in our business.”

And no matter what you do, how hard you train, how responsible you are, there remains one last concern pointed out by The Southern Co.'s Eric Scott, “Our biggest safety issue is the one thing that we can't control, and that is the fatal mistake.”

Stay Safe.

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The PEI Journal • First Quarter 2007 • Volume 1, No. 1 • Contents are Copyright © Data Key Communications, Inc.
All rights reserved. • Nothing may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission of the publisher.