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13 July/August 2022 | THE DAVEY BULLETIN 2021 R/C TRIR Award Recipients The following U.S. R/C operations earned 2021 0.0 Total Recordable Incident Rate Awards. Akron Atlanta Charlotte Chippers Meredith Cincinnati Utility/Municipal Concord Crystal Lake Lombard Wood Products Long Island North Austin North Houston Nashville North East Cleveland North East Detroit North American Tree Service Wood Products North Cincinnati North Denver North West Seattle Omaha Portland (Maine) Quad Cities Richmond South Austin South Baltimore South Chicago Santa Clara Santa Cruz South East Nashville St. Louis West South West Milwaukee Toledo Twin Cities Wood Products Employees in the North Austin R/C office earned a 2021 0.0 Total Recordable Incident Rate Award. TOOLS AND INTANGIBLES BOTH SUPPORT SAFETY CULTURE Leveraging Davey safety and training resources can go a long way in building and maintaining a strong safety culture in your operation. Just ask Mike Presta and Ben Wasielewski. Both their Residential/Commercial services offices earned 2021 0.0 Total Recordable Incident Rate Awards. "Every morning we do our warmup stretches and then we talk about reports from Davey's e-Close Call Communicator and go over 'good catches' from there," Presta, district manager, North Austin office, said. "And then when I end that and dispatch the crews, I ask all of them what the most important thing is, and they all reply in unison: 'Safety.' That's something we do every morning, so as soon as they hit the road and get on the job site safety is on their mind. Chuck Shouse started that in our San Antonio office when he was manager there, and we thought it was a good practice to continue." For Wasielewski, he takes a similar approach by combining Davey safety programs with a personal touch. "We hold a weekly safety meeting," Wasielewski, district manager, Orlando office, said. "And each morning we have close-call discussions during morning stretches. We talk about each other's families, what we did this weekend or what we're going to do next weekend, and I think that builds a safety culture of learning to watch out for each other. Because we all care for each other." A total 33 Davey R/C operations earned a 2021 award for having achieved a Total OSHA Recordable Incident Rate of 0.0 for the year. The award is bestowed by executive leadership in R/C services and recognizes operations for achieving an incident-free safety record for the calendar year. When it comes to technical resources, both the Orlando and North Austin offices rely on the Davey Career Development Booklets, scheduling training sessions with regional arborist skills trainers, and learning from visits by their regional safety specialists. Wasielewski had scheduled a training session in June with Bradley Turner, arborist skills trainer, for a one-on-one session with his office's climbers. In addition, Max Hackney, senior regional safety specialist, and Robert Ellis, manager, field safety support, were also scheduled to visit the office. "What is helpful is I have a Commercial Landscape Services (CLS) territory working in my office as well, so sometimes when safety team members come to visit the CLS crews they also stop and see our R/C crews," he said. "I like when they pop in and do spot-checks as well." Presta said one aspect of maintaining the safety culture in their office is ensuring crews are qualified to do a job before they are sent out to see the client. He also takes the time to work with crews on-site when a job offers an opportunity for training. "If I've sold a job and see an aspect of that job site that would be good for training for a number of my employees, I'll modify crews and move things around so I can go out to a job site and show them how to properly rig out a limb over a roof or some other technical element," Presta said. "It's beneficial because I can mold them, show them how to do things the right way, and they haven't developed bad habits from somewhere else." Ultimately, Wasielewski said his office doesn't do anything uncommon to any other R/C office when it comes to building and maintaining a successful safety culture. "Most of what we make use of here are a lot of the practices that the Davey culture instills around the company," he said. SAFETY

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