{"id":13459,"date":"2016-08-01T07:28:01","date_gmt":"2016-08-01T13:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=13459"},"modified":"2016-08-01T07:28:01","modified_gmt":"2016-08-01T13:28:01","slug":"montana-ethic-project-creating-safe-workplaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/08\/montana-ethic-project-creating-safe-workplaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana Ethic Project: Creating safe workplaces"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Safety\"<\/a>

Joey and Libby Early<\/p>

Larry Simkins, president of the Washington Companies, talks about how a real commitment to workplace safety can have dramatic results.<\/p><\/div>\n

This is the 22nd chapter of the 32-part video series \u201cThe Montana Ethic Project.\u201d This chapter features Larry Simkins, president and CEO of Missoula-based Washington Companies, discussing the subject, “The Culture of Safety.” You can watch the whole video below. Here is how it begins:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“My name is Larry Simkins. I\u2019m president and CEO of the Washington Companies, based in Missoula.\u00a0The Washington Companies are a group of companies founded and owned by Dennis\u00a0Washington that employ over 4,000 people all over the world. The companies that we have do business\u00a0in the mining industry, marine and rail transportation, shipyards, environmental construction, heavy\u00a0equipment distribution and aviation products.<\/p>\n

“It is those industries that I\u2019m going to talk about today that will provide a basis for my talk: industries\u00a0with typically high-risk employment.”<\/p>\n

Here is another, edited excerpt from Simkins’\u00a0presentation<\/em>:<\/p>\n

“So what I want to discuss is our experience in just the last 10 years regarding safety. I\u2019m going to tell you\u00a0some stories about things we are doing and what is interesting is that during these last 10\u00a0years, it has\u00a0been a period where we were not sitting still: we have reopened the copper mine in Butte, we have\u00a0started a shipping container company called C-Span Corp that is now the largest supplier of container\u00a0ships to China, and Modern Machinery based in Missoula has now expanded its service to Russia in an\u00a0area that is one third of the land mass of the United States. So it has not been a stagnant period where\u00a0we have had this improvement in our safety; it has been a very dynamic growth period.<\/p>\n

“I talked earlier about our private companies, excluding C-Span Corp. They generate about 7\u00a0million\u00a0hours annually with some years in excess of 9\u00a0million. In those same 10 years our reportable injuries\u00a0have declined 69 percent. Let me repeat, our reportable injuries have declined 69 percent in companies\u00a0that were already performing better than industry average, in a state that supposedly has historically\u00a0hazardous jobs, and expanded the footprint of the companies all at the same time.<\/p>\n

“As I speak, Montana\u00a0Resources, our mine in Butte, is approaching 1.5 million man hours without a reportable accident. That\u00a0is in an operation that mines copper around the clock.”<\/p>\n