Pam Tomkins
Electric co-op safety supervisors recently completed part two of a six-part, three-year training series offered by the Michigan Electric Cooperative Association (MECA). Sixty participants from Alger Delta, Cherryland, Cloverland, Great Lakes Energy, HomeWorks Tri-County, Ontonagon and Thumb Electric co-ops are participating, which requires a commitment to the full three-year training period.
“This second course in the series is designed to provide supervisors with details concerning their responsibility in the safety process,” says Joe McElroy, MECA safety & loss control director. Specific topics in this session included:
• Dynamics of an “Organizational Safety Culture”
• Roles, responsibility and accountability in the safety process
• Safety performance measurements
• Proactive vs. reactive safety
• Hazard identification methods and abatement strategies
• Tools for compliance, excellence and employee involvement.
The courses are being taught by Pam Tompkins, president/CEO of SET Solutions, who is one of the leading safety training instructors in the U.S. She has worked in the electric utility industry for over 33 years, including 13 as a leading industry consultant, and is an authorized OSHA Training Institute instructor and regular contributor for Incident Prevention magazine.
“The goal of this series of training is to support supervisors in their role with regard to the safety of all co-op employees and members,” McElroy adds. “It is aimed at operations personnel with specific supervisory duties that involve proper recordkeeping and safe working practices within the electric utility industry.”
The first part of the series was held in March 2014 and focused on proper accident investigation. Subsequent sessions on other topics will held in 2015 and 2016.
This training is part of a new series of in-state opportunities MECA is offering to co-op employees and directors, and are taught by industry professionals. “Our goal was to bring high quality training into the state at a lower cost and give all co-op employees and directors easier access to these opportunities,” explains Craig Borr, MECA CEO.
