Davey Tree Flipbooks

16 THE DAVEY BULLETIN | March/April 2020 From backyards to mountaintops, it's the strong personal connections that have created an unrelenting safety bond between crew members and managers on the PG&E De Anza account. A total 42 employees, equaling 18 crews, serve the PG&E De Anza account, which provides electric power to more than 400,000 residents in western Santa Clara County, California. Ben Johnson, area supervisor, said the crews' safety commitment is forged in open communication. "We talk every morning about safety, whether the subject is fire prevention because it's fire season or whatever topics may arise," Johnson said. "We try to keep it on a personal level with our employees. We feel that lets them know they are a value to the company. And really, they are the people who make the company successful. We spend more time with our coworkers during the workday than we do with our families at home, so we try also to keep it a family atmosphere. We say we want everyone to go home the same way they showed up to work." Davey has worked on the PG&E De Anza account since January 2019. For the entirety of the contract, through February 2020, the crews have maintained an OSHA Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) of 0.0. James Francovich, account manager, said the work is strictly line clearance. The variety comes in the locations, which can vary from an urban backyard in densely developed Mountain View, California, to a mountaintop in the Golden State's Southern Coast Ranges. And variety comes in the tree species. "You have basically every tree under the sun," Francovich said. "You name it, we have it." The crews on this account also benefit from dedicated work planners who assist the two general foremen, Steve Gordon and Devan Doherty, in routing crews and other logistics. That allows the general foremen to spend their time working with the crews on the ground, conducting job observations or holding training sessions instead of being glued to their phone or laptop. Francovich said working safely, consistently is part of the Davey Tree Surgery Company's holistic approach to safety. "Our No. 1 goal is safety, which we preach every day," he said. "Our No. 2 goal is retention, and No. 3 is production. That can be a hard philosophy to get through to people because for so long the focus was on production. But by instilling the value of safety into people, retaining good quality employees and training our new employees to be good crew members, we find that we can meet production without sacrificing quality." Crew members on the PG&E De Anza account include Marcos Alvarado, Christopher Bettencourt, Matthew Bettencourt, Christopher Carter, Efren Castro, Kyle Constantin, Rene De Anda Campos, Nelson Chavez-Ramirez, Devan Doherty, Michael Doherty, Jake Dutra, Edward Espinoza, John Frutos, Jose Galindo-Varela, Anthony Gammercone, Arnulfo Gonzalez, Steve Gordon, Jordan Hunter, David Irmini, David Irmini, Jeffery Johnson, Gareth Jones, David Kapellas, Fabio Lopez, Alberto Martinez, Rutilo Martinez Hernandez, Ramon Marquez Cabrera, Horacio Miramontes, Joseph Newby, Daniel Paniagua, Abel Pena Rosales, Dominick Perez, Nathaniel Perez, Nelson Quijada, Juan Ramirez, Sebastian Rengifo, Nathen Reyna, Jose Rocha, Jose Sandoval, David Tomasini, Alfonso Tellez Gomez, Christopher Torres, Enrique Torres and Luis Vazquez Sanchez. SAFETY FOCUS STEMS FROM FAMILY ATMOSPHERE SAFETY

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