Safety Week 2024: Safety starts with YOU — and includes everyone

I visited an engineering firm with two people from McCarthy's Marine Business Unit in Texas. As soon we walked in, the first people we met started talking to us about safety.  

They pointed out the emergency exits, then began our meeting by talking about potential emergency drills and other important safety reminders. 

When we left, I asked both of our employee-partners, “What is the one thing you will remember about that meeting?” It was that those people care about safety. 

Our goal is to show everyone who visits a McCarthy jobsite or office that our No. 1 responsibility and priority is safety. 

It’s a huge part of what drives our culture. It starts by beginning every day, every meeting, every task with safety, and it runs through everyone from our CEO to the person welcoming visitors in the jobsite trailer or at the main office reception desk. 

Let’s empower the first person someone meets when they walk into our office or onto our jobsite to talk about safety.  

You can say safety is everyone’s job, but it can’t be everyone’s job if you don’t empower them to do it.  

What does Safety Week mean to me? 

Safety Week is a celebration of our Take Pride in Safety culture. This is a commitment every day, but during this week we’re celebrating it as an industry. This is our week to talk about the Safety Week annual theme (Value Every Voice: Encourage, Listen Empower) but also an opportunity to celebrate the other 51 weeks of the year when we take pride in safety across McCarthy. 

If you haven’t been completely involved, or are nervous to ask a question, figure out a way to challenge yourself. Ask yourself how can you show how you take pride in safety? Don’t be afraid to ask questions or challenge other people. This is much more than putting a sticker on your helmet.  

How did safety become my career choice? 

My father worked in the petrochemical industry, so every summer I worked as a scaffold builder, insulator and laborer. 

My mentor said he needed some help filling out paperwork knowing that would pull me out of the field twice a week. 

Before long, that evolved to where I began doing safety orientations and field audits at the refinery while still at a college in Louisiana. 

My university had no safety program, but it did have a construction management program that offered some industry-driven safety classes. Most of my professors were people who worked in the refinery; they weren’t professional teachers. 

After school I accepted a full-time position, which was half craft professional and half safety professional. After about three years, that turned into a full-time safety position. 

I developed this passion for safety and it just kept evolving. 

I still carry a $2 bill in my wallet given to me by my mentor in 1993 because I did something good in safety. It was such an impactful moment in my life, that I had the ability to care about everyone’s safety and apply it to what I do for a living. 

Another life-changing moment came when I was 24, still young in my career, and an incident happened on a project I was working on. From that moment on, my perspective on safety completely changed. I realized how much of an impact I could make - no matter how new in my career. I also learned discipline, accountability, fairness, positive recognition and consistency must be the foundations of safety.   

Journey to McCarthy 

After 11 years in that job, I was looking for something different and drove to Las Vegas to work for a general contractor. Hurricane Katrina happened and I felt the need to return home to help my family, but I eventually decided to go back to Las Vegas. 

I eventually interviewed with McCarthy for an open position as safety coordinator. 

Ray Sedey, current McCarthy Holdings, Inc. chairman and CEO, was a project director at the time. He interviewed me, and we formed a good relationship that continues to this day. 

I was always being taught leadership, but that passion for safety – combined with leadership – is what really got me loving what I do. 

We are in the construction business. We do dangerous things and the second you disrespect it, the consequences are real. That pretty much drives who I am. 

Most people who know me know I’m a huge LSU fan and sports fan in general. I originally wanted to be a coach and think I would have been pretty good at it. It was that love I had for teamwork and wanting to make someone better, teaching people how to collectively work as a team … and safety gives me that opportunity. 

My most impactful day at McCarthy 

This was earlier in my career, but I will never forget it. We were at the end of a project and a gentleman walked up and said, “Today is my last day. I just want to say thank you.” 

When I asked him why, he said, “I lost my wife a year ago, and you corrected me on the job a couple times. If something happens to me, who takes care of our three kids? You made sure I took care of myself so I could go home and take care of those children.” 

That was it! This is exactly why I do what I do and what drives our safety commitment at McCarthy. I’m very thankful for that and stay committed each day to making sure everyone goes home safely.