As Deep South Crane & Rigging celebrates its 50th anniversary, the company looks back on its strides toward creating a robust safety culture after receiving several industry safety honors in 2018. In 2017, the company saw a 62-percent reduction in its total recordable incidents rate as compared to the average of the previous three years.
In 2017, the company launched a safety culture campaign called "What's Your Why?" to build on policies, procedures and internal training programs and to focus on personalizing the concept of safety for everyone at Deep South. Presentations are built to go beyond the red tape many workers associate with safety to inspire each worker -- through real life examples -- to make a personal investment in his or her own safety and the safety of others.
"We believe safety is the foundation of every great company and understand that our safety culture and training programs are an integral part of our success," said Deep South President Mitch Landry. "We know that when we look out for each other, it strengthens our bond, honors our legacy and allows for future growth."
Deep South recently took first place in the Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance's (GBRIA's) 2018 Contractor Safety Excellence Awards for Crane & Rigging. Deep South was nominated by Axiall/ Westlake Chemical for this year's award.
"Being nominated for this award is an achievement in itself," said Deep South Director of Safety Jody Hammett. "To us, it shows that our customers recognize the value we place on safety, and we thank Axiall/Westlake Chemical for recognizing the work our team does each day to keep our projects safe."
Deep South also recently earned the Industrial Safety Training Council (ISTC) Beaumont's Safety Achievement Award -- Recordable Incidence Rate for achieving a 62-percent reduction in its total recordable incidents rate during 2017. At the May awards banquet, ISTC also recognized Deep South with both the Safety Achievement Award -- Years Worked and the Safety Achievement Award -- Hours Worked for working a year and more than 1 million hours without any OSHA lost-workday incidents.
The company was a finalist for the ISTC 2018 Roy Comeaux Safety Excellence Through Training Award and most recently was recognized by the Houston Area Safety Council and Houston Business Roundtable at the 31st Houston Safety Excellence Awards. There, Deep South took home the Best of the Best award in the Crane & Rigging division, becoming the only company that has received this award in back-to-back years of eligibility.
Other recent awards and recognitions include the Louisiana Workers' Compensation Corp.'s (LWCC's) Safest 70 award and the Crane Operator Safety Award by the Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association (SC&RA). Deep South employees who earned SC&RA's operator award were James Anderson, Robert Jones, Kurt Reeves and Bruce White, who exhibited exemplary work while recording zero safety accidents and incidents in 10,000 consecutive man-hours.
From the top down, employees of Deep South believe everyone is part of the safety effort, and it's the most important part of what they do every single day, both at work and off the job. Being safe isn't about meeting safety goals or bettering statistics in meetings; there is much more.
For more information, visit www. deepsouthcrane.com or call (877) 490-4371.
