Gateway to the Final Frontier
Cape Canaveral Chapter of the
American Society of Safety Engineers
American Society of Safety Engineers
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Vice President - Tony Zeak: |
May 2010
Greetings to all my fellow Safety Professionals,
If you haven’t already devoured your Professional Safety Journal, there are three really
great articles that I found particularly interesting. On page 30 the article “Acceptable Risk”
brings back to mind the already well accepted concept of “as low as Reasonable”. My first
week in my 1977 start in nuclear power plant construction had me going through a 40-hour
radiation worker safety class and (as low as reasonably achievable) A.L.A.R.A was
drummed into our heads. A year or two later I was lucky enough to attend a conference
where Dr. Edward Teller spoke and in the question & answer portion he was asked if he
thought that 1,250 mrem per quarter, not to exceed 5,000 mrem whole body exposure for
the year was low enough and safe. His response, much to the chagrin of the NRC officials in
attendance was, “I will stick to my original philosophy that any dose is an over-dose.” After
over three decades for all industries to adopt ALARP is definitely a step in the right
direction.
The article on page 47 “Positive Safety Culture” is very good and shows the light at the end
of the tunnel for some. I have had the displeasure of seeing way too many at the beginning
level of a Forced Safety Culture, where safety is done to the employees with no feed back
or interaction. Seeing a few companies evolve into the “Involved Safety Culture” with great
employee participation was very refreshing because you could see that their next step
would be the “Leadership Safety Culture” which is the most positive I have seen, with
employees and management leading the way to safe production. And believe it or not, safe
production is not an oxymoron.
The last article I wanted to mention is by far not the least. On page 56, “Selling Safety
Softly” was great. Some years ago after a training class with a very obstinate group an
assistant asked me how I was able to get through it maintaining a positive attitude. I told him
that I was thinking of writing a book and its title would be “Everything I Know about Training
People, I Learned from Training Dogs”. With a piece of cheese or dry baked liver and you
can get a dog to do just about anything. A few months back while walking the job I watched
a couple of Ironworkers get off the top of a structure into an elevated aerial lift. They did it
perfectly, tying off to an approved anchor and then climbing into the lift and hooking onto its
anchor point before unhooking from the structure. I stayed just out of the way below them
as they brought the basket down and I could hear them grumbling about what they were
probably going to get chewed out about. You should have seen their faces when I
congratulated them on a perfect dismount and they beamed with pride when I asked them
to pass their knowledge on to any new employees. One should never underestimate the
power of positive reinforcement.
Tony Zeak
Greetings to all my fellow Safety Professionals,
If you haven’t already devoured your Professional Safety Journal, there are three really
great articles that I found particularly interesting. On page 30 the article “Acceptable Risk”
brings back to mind the already well accepted concept of “as low as Reasonable”. My first
week in my 1977 start in nuclear power plant construction had me going through a 40-hour
radiation worker safety class and (as low as reasonably achievable) A.L.A.R.A was
drummed into our heads. A year or two later I was lucky enough to attend a conference
where Dr. Edward Teller spoke and in the question & answer portion he was asked if he
thought that 1,250 mrem per quarter, not to exceed 5,000 mrem whole body exposure for
the year was low enough and safe. His response, much to the chagrin of the NRC officials in
attendance was, “I will stick to my original philosophy that any dose is an over-dose.” After
over three decades for all industries to adopt ALARP is definitely a step in the right
direction.
The article on page 47 “Positive Safety Culture” is very good and shows the light at the end
of the tunnel for some. I have had the displeasure of seeing way too many at the beginning
level of a Forced Safety Culture, where safety is done to the employees with no feed back
or interaction. Seeing a few companies evolve into the “Involved Safety Culture” with great
employee participation was very refreshing because you could see that their next step
would be the “Leadership Safety Culture” which is the most positive I have seen, with
employees and management leading the way to safe production. And believe it or not, safe
production is not an oxymoron.
The last article I wanted to mention is by far not the least. On page 56, “Selling Safety
Softly” was great. Some years ago after a training class with a very obstinate group an
assistant asked me how I was able to get through it maintaining a positive attitude. I told him
that I was thinking of writing a book and its title would be “Everything I Know about Training
People, I Learned from Training Dogs”. With a piece of cheese or dry baked liver and you
can get a dog to do just about anything. A few months back while walking the job I watched
a couple of Ironworkers get off the top of a structure into an elevated aerial lift. They did it
perfectly, tying off to an approved anchor and then climbing into the lift and hooking onto its
anchor point before unhooking from the structure. I stayed just out of the way below them
as they brought the basket down and I could hear them grumbling about what they were
probably going to get chewed out about. You should have seen their faces when I
congratulated them on a perfect dismount and they beamed with pride when I asked them
to pass their knowledge on to any new employees. One should never underestimate the
power of positive reinforcement.
Tony Zeak