35
July/August 2021
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THE DAVEY BULLETIN
FROM THE ARCHIVES
HEAD PROTECTION BECAME MANDATORY IN 1958 AT DAVEY
For over 60 years, head protection has
been mandatory for Davey employees.
In 1958, then President Martin L.
Davey, Jr., made it official when he
decreed hard hats and caps were
compulsory protective equipment
that must be worn on all tree trimming
operations, whether for utility or
residential services.
Ross McCafferty, then the employment
manager in the corporate office,
explained the reasoning for the
Right: A Davey employee models an early
hard hat in this undated image from the
Davey archives.
Below: A Davey line clearance crew in
the 1960s, shortly after hard hats became
mandatory personal protective equipment
companywide.
mandatory safety order in a letter
to a Canadian colleague.
"Just after receiving word that we
had a man's life saved because he was
wearing a hard hat, Mr. Davey told me
that he thought the time had come
to make the wearing of hard hats
and caps compulsory on all trimming
operations," McCafferty wrote.
Prior to President Davey's order,
whether or not employees wore hard
hats depended on the region. In some
cases, utility clients requested Davey
employees working on their lines
wear hard hats. In other cases, states
required protective headwear as part
of their safety codes.
Hard hats themselves had been
introduced in a commercial application
in 1919, when the San Francisco-based
Bullard company introduced the
"Hard Boiled
®
Hat." Made of steamed
canvas, glue and leather, the Bullard
hard hat became the first commercially
available head-protective device.
