Better Than We’ve Been
Written by: Been Reince, Certified Arborist W-0610A/Certified Tree Safety Professional #0271
1 Our passion for safety goes beyond our work lives We often take lessons we learn at work and utilize them at home. For example, using hearing protection; I will find myself putting in hearing protection when I vacuum my home. Actions like this proves to me that safety is more than just following rules here at Wachtel, it is our culture.
In the spirit of always being better Kyle Babicky, Holly Zart, Allison Rodefer, Johanna Smith, Brent Kahn, Ryan Rodefer and Paul Scharfenberger took steps to improve our safety here at Wachtel Tree Science.
Kyle put focus on the severity of our incidents and reviewing the events leading up to an incident – focusing on error precursors or factors leading up to an incident – tunes us into those error precursors to help prevent incidents.
Holly, Allison and Johanna put together a timeline for new Wachtelians (what we call ourselves) once they work full time in our Tree and Landscape Department. Now we have a new tool with this timeline to help focus the efforts of safety and training for new employees.
Brent, Ryan and Paul put together a tree removal flowchart. This was spurred by the increasing number and unpredictable nature of dying ash trees due to Emerald Ash Borer. The flowchart assists our Arborists in determining the best way to remove a tree on your property and safely assess factors that are involved when doing a removal.
We were proud of their achievements and submitted each of them for safety awards through the Tree Care Industry Association, an industry partner. For their efforts, each group received recognition for Outstanding Safety Performance amongst our industry leaders. As if recognition from our industry isn’t enough, we have had other companies from all over the country asking questions on how they can do what we are doing. Asking about precursors, the context of the timeline and a draft of the tree removal flowchart. With the efforts of my peers, we are not only changing the safety standards here at Wachtel, we are changing safety standards in the industry that we love.
We here at Wachtel Tree Science will always live our culture of safety, add to, and improve upon being as good as we can be and better than we’ve been.