The JJ White team at Wood River Refinery celebrated a successful end to 2023 by bringing home the first ever Safety Contractor of the Year award from the facility. The award recently received is a culmination of several factors, all of which start with viewing safety as not just what you do at work, but an overall behavioral mindset to do the right thing all the time.
Our Wood River team, led by Mike Christie and Brian James, helped to transform the culture into a “Safety First” mindset that is the key to our success. The safety team is dedicated to working together to ensure new employees are given quality training at our center upon arrival at the site. Pertinent quality safety meetings are given daily to discuss issues while also incorporating a stretch and flex to assist with overall employee health.
The phrase, “coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success,” became a rallying cry for the entire team.
Our Good Catch program also helps the jobsite culture by allowing employees to track behaviors, site conditions, and life saving rules by noting deficiencies and ensuring hazards are mitigated before work continues.
Our auditing process for daily site safety reviews and daily foreman safety reviews allows us to verify compliance in the field, communicate when hazards need to be mitigated, and ensure issues have been resolved. These audits are emailed to superintendents and general foremen daily. Communication between the safety team, management, general foreman, foreman, and field employees is another key to making sure safety is always first and foremost every single day.
Support from the JJ White Corporate Headquarters in regards to safety, training, manuals, and more is also paramount, as “safety starts at the top, and trickles down, plain and simple,” said Brian James.
Congratulations to our entire team at Wood River and thank you for the safe, hard work you put in day in and day out.