There are numerous government entities and nonprofit organizations dedicated to safety in the construction industry, for good reason. These groups work to educate and regulate these companies whose jobs are inherently risky. We’ve made it a priority to build relationships – we’d even call them friendships! – with many such organizations. We even counted this as one of the top four ways we prioritize safety at Gray & Son.
Below, we’re highlighting a few of these relationships and outlining the many benefits we’ve seen from working closely with these organizations.
Maryland Office of Safety and Health (MOSH)
Our safety department and MOSH have been partnering on safety initiatives for years. They are hugely supportive of safety education and directly provide great training opportunities, even opening their own facility to us for training. We work together to hold a training session at their state-of-the-art facility at least once a year, and they also send their team members to our locations for education sessions (even at 5:30am, before our crews head into the field!).
For example, when a new standard is instituted, MOSH employees will introduce new legislation firsthand to our foremen and management teams. This results in a better understanding of such changes and an open dialogue between us.
Miss Utility
Before every project, it’s important to contact Miss Utility to identify and label all public utilities on a job site. In addition to doing this, we’ve also worked with Miss Utility in a variety of other ways. We join their monthly damage prevention committee meetings, which is a great opportunity to discuss safe digging with others in our industry as well as the utility companies. Gray & Son has also volunteered with Miss Utility, attending events and helping to market their campaigns.
Thanks to these partnerships, we have a strong relationship – so if there are ever any issues, the Miss Utility team is quick to assist. We’ve also won their Dig Smart awards a few times, which recognizes our safe digging habits!
National Safety Council
The National Safety Council is a nonprofit, public service organization promoting health and safety in the U.S., and their insight into a wide variety of safety issues is tremendous. We work with the Chesapeake Region Safety Council in particular to help with our ongoing safety training. They are a wonderful resource for both construction industry and general workplace safety topics.
Their team visits at least once a year for training sessions, but they also offer ongoing training year-round that focus on special topics. All of these opportunities have been extremely helpful, and we’ve been honored to win a number of safety awards from this organization.
Gray & Son also works with a number of other smaller safety engineering companies and organizations, and we always welcome new perspectives and safety ideas. We’ll continue to focus on all of these relationships as we strive to be the safest we can possibly be!