​President’s Message, May 2021
 
The last twelve months has been strange and difficult for all of us. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to list all of the struggles our region has experienced. Because of the uncertainty around what in-person events will look like in October, we made the decision to hold a virtual safety conference this fall. Normally, we need to make financial commitments in February and March for in-person venues. With the conditions being so uncertain, it simply did not warrant the risk. For those of you that remember our Safety Committee University last fall, we will include it as a track for our safety conference in October. We are planning on holding an awards ceremony, keynotes, and pre-conference PDCs. Our conference chair, Mike Hill, is leading the charge on getting the details put together. Please mark your calendars for this event, which will be held on October 19, 20,& 21. We hope to release more details about the event soon.
 
Another event that is coming up very quickly is the May 12 Total Worker Health 101 Professional Development Workshop. At the time I write this letter, we have about 20 seats remaining. This is a great opportunity. After not holding a PDC last fall because of the unique challenges that 2020 offered, we are glad to offer this event.
 
Also, don’t forget that the Safety Committee University content on our website is still free for the time being. Please take advantage of these resources that our chapter offers you and your organization. Please stay safe and have a great 2021!
 
 
Stay safe!

​David Hanson, CSP
President, ASSP – Southern Oregon Chapter
Senior Safety Management Consultant, SAIF Corporation
 
David has an expertise building dynamic safety teams and developing high-performing safety cultures. He spent 18 years at Timber Products Company as a Supervisor and Safety Coordinator and facilitated continued certification into Oregon OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP).

​David Hanson
Southern Oregon Chapter President
 
I wasn’t always in the safety profession. When I was a teenager, I remember working for a sub-contractor during a summer job. One of the sites we were working for was addressing some serious injuries that they had recently. They began to put up signs and a large traffic light that announced how they were doing at safety. I remember a mannequin that had bandages representing the injuries their employees had suffered recently. I think many of their awareness efforts had limited effectiveness, but they had some new rules that I think were potentially very effective. One of these was a new rule requiring eye protection in the aircraft hangars as a condition of employment. I remember thinking this was a wise and practical measure, and even us contractors were given adequate safety glasses that we could use to comply with the new prudent rules. I had no problems wearing them, as required, and appreciated management’s effort to protect my eyes. I bought into the new safety initiatives. You might say, I was an early adopter. So far so good.
 
Generally, in the break room we removed the safety glasses, and they were not required there. There was a long hallway between the breakroom and the hangar. This hallway was basically an office-type hallway and did not contain any acute eye hazards that I could tell. My understanding was that I did not need to wear the glasses until I got to the hangar. I was on my way back to work, heading down this hallway to the hangar. I was wearing my safety glasses on my forehead and fully intended to place them back over my eyes before I entered the hangar. Walking the opposite direction was a manager that had never spoken to me before. He immediately pointed his finger and yelled at me to “get your safety glasses on now!”  I complied with the demand, but this event also signaled the end of my support for his safety program.
 
One big lesson I learned was this: how we present our safety initiatives to employees is just as important as what the initiatives are. To this day, I wonder if that manager ever found out why his approach to managing safety was not as successful as it could’ve been. His intention to make sure employees were using the best practices to stay safe on the job was admirable. His approach was to gain robotic compliance from his workforce by shouting at them and humiliating them in front of others.
 
Our efforts can be so much more effective if we work harder to include front line employees in making these safety initiatives a positive effort. Often, we think about a safety program as being the program implemented by management, and certainly that is true. It always helps to remember that employees are the #1 beneficiary of the safety program. The true owners (stakeholders) of the safety program are the workers that make safety happen every day, every hour, and every second on the front line where work is happening. If we lose cooperation from those key stakeholders… no amount of yelling and pointing will make anyone safer in the long run.
 
David Hanson, CSP

​David Hanson CSP
Southern Oregon Chapter President
 
President’s April Message
 
There are some good things happening in our chapter this spring. On May 12, we are holding a special free three-hour Professional Development Workshop event in conjunction with the Cascade ASSP chapter and the Oregon TWH Alliance. This course is targeted especially to occupational safety and health professionals, although occupational health nurses, physicians, and wellness and human resource professionals will also benefit from attending. Our instructors for this event are Dede Montgomery from OHSU and Liz Hill with SAIF Corporation. Look at the information about this event on our website under the conference tab. Seating for this event is limited, and we expect interest in this event from all over the Pacific Northwest. We are promoting the event to the Southern Oregon region first. After not being able to do our PDC last October, I am delighted that we are able to offer this professional development workshop this spring. Please join us!
 
I would like to thank our local sponsors that help us provide great programming. This includes our annual safety conference, safety committee university and other events throughout the year. Our sponsors are Boise Cascade, Timber Products Company, Asante, Knife River, Redwood Safety Association, Oregon SHARP Alliance, Oregon Columbia Chapter of AGC, D2000 Safety, Oregon OSHA, Light Symphony, EHS Maven, SAIF Corporation, Sweed Machinery, Duro-Last Roofing, Rogue Valley SHRM, Concepts in Advertising, First Response CPR Training, Mallory Safety Supply,& Providence Medical Group. Without contributions and support from these sponsors, our efforts would be severely hampered. If you know anyone with these organizations, take a little time to thank them again from all of us at Southern Oregon ASSP.

To Register for the Free Total Worker Health Professional Development Workshop, click below:
Total Worker Health Workshop Registration
 
To download the flyer for the event, click below:
Total Worker Health Marketing Flyer

Sincerely,
David Hanson
 
 
Stay safe!
 
David Hanson, CSP
President, ASSP – Southern Oregon Chapter
Senior Safety Management Consultant, SAIF Corporation
 
David has an expertise building dynamic safety teams and developing high-performing safety cultures. He spent 18 years at Timber Products Company as a Supervisor and Safety Coordinator and facilitated continued certification into Oregon OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP).

​  As we do each year, the chapter holds an election to place volunteers into positions that help the chapter run according to the ASSP guidelines.  We are very grateful for these volunteers because many hands make light work and, quite frankly, our chapter has a lot of resourceful members who bring great ideas to the direction of our chapter.  The slate as posted in this month’s newsletter is put together by a committee of volunteers and is submitted for your review.  The committee nominates candidates for the open positions on the board and it includes movement of persons already on the board.   In the month of May, at the chapter meeting, the membership will be asked to vote on the slate.  If the slate is confirmed by the members, it becomes final and the candidates assume the slated positions on the first of July.  If you have any questions about the slate, please contact Chris Lawrence via the chapter website or directly. 

​A healthy organization does a better job of solving and preventing problems. One of the best ways to measure the health of an organization is to look at how it responds to failure. When a strain is placed on an organization, its ability to be proactive, flexible, and achieve better solutions says everything about how successful the organization will be. Consider some concepts that I think are key attributes of a healthy organization.
 
An organization that fails well:
 

• Understands that human error is normal and predictable.
• Understands that the organization shares the responsibility for failures.
• Succeeds as a team and fails as a team.
• Seeks to understand the mistakes and learn from failures before trying to fix them.
• Looks at the organizational context surrounding a failure for opportunities to understand what happened and how to improve.
• Does not allow one person or department to shoulder the entire responsibility for a failure or mistake.
• Does not ignore problems out of fear of making people feel bad.
• Encourages and thanks team members who speak up when there is a problem.
• Does not hesitate to support employees that need more help to be successful.
• Is introspective about the messages that are sent to employees and supervisors and how they will be interpreted.
• Looks for ways to be resilient to human error.
• Does not blame and punish individuals that make mistakes.
• Does not use inadequate policies and documentation as an excuse for failure.
• Provides positive feedback to employees and supervisors when things go well.
• Does not wait for a failure to provide constructive feedback and is not afraid of tough conversations.

 
 
I hope there are some things here that can help you and your organizations. Some of these things take a lifetime to keep working on. It’s hard work, but it is worth it.
 
David Hanson, CSP

​David Hanson CSP
Southern Oregon Chapter President
 
Our next chapter meeting will be a special treat. Because of our virtual meeting platform, we are able to invite speakers from farther outside of our chapter area. Jose Perez will join our chapter meeting and provide a presentation for us. Jose Perez was a speaker at the ASSP National Leadership Conference a couple years ago on resiliency and being tenacious. He is providing a special program just for our chapter on leadership and being adaptable. I am really looking forward to this. I hope you are as well.
 
In April, our very own Mark Hurliman will provide information for those of you thinking of pursuing a SHARP or VPP certification for your site. Even if you are not, this presentation will have valuable information about building a world-class safety program and what it takes.
 
Watch for updates and information about a new professional development course we are working on offering in May. This will be a 3-hour morning PDC on Total Worker Health topics with Dede Montgomery from OSHU and Liz Hill from SAIF. This PDC will offer .3 CEU credits. Currently, we are looking closely at holding this event during the second week of May. Keep watching our website for updates on this event as we get closer.
 

Stay safe!
 
David Hanson, CSP
President, ASSP – Southern Oregon Chapter
Senior Safety Management Consultant, SAIF Corporation
 
David has an expertise building dynamic safety teams and developing high-performing safety cultures. He spent 18 years at Timber Products Company as a Supervisor and Safety Coordinator and facilitated continued certification into Oregon OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP).

​One day, maybe very soon, our world will be turned upside down. In the last thirty years we have learned that there is a major fault beneath the ocean floor to our east that can cause earthquakes that can be catastrophically destructive for the entire Pacific Northwest. The fault extends from Northern California, all the way to British Columbia. The fault could generate an earthquake of 8+ on the Richter scale. Coastal communities would be hardest hit as they would be closer to the potential epicenter. This could cause soil liquification and landslides. The tsunami would also be a major consideration as the shockwave moves inland. The sea level could rise to levels unseen for nearly 500 years.
 
In 2010, geologists predicted a 37% chance of a magnitude 8.2+ event within 50 years.[i] Kenneth Murphy, director of  FEMA’s Region X (Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska), was quoted in 2015 saying,  “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”[ii] Between the landslides, tsunamis, downed powerlines, damaged bridges, blocked roadways, broken gas mains, broken waterlines, and fires, the Pacific Northwest will be reeling. Concrete structures could be severely compromised structurally. Because the anticipated destruction is expected to stretch from Canada to Northern California, it could take quite some time before our Southern Oregon region will see much help. As bad as it may seem for us, the locations of greatest need are expected to be the larger population centers to the north. Because of this, we may be on our own for up to three months.
 
What you need before the earthquake:

• Water and water treatment capabilities
• Food that is easy to prepare and ways to prepare it (you might need months-worth)
• First aid kits
• Batteries and charging devices
• Communication devices, radios, and phones.
• Tents or makeshift shelters
• Lights, lanterns, and flashlights
• Tools that are easy to get to; crowbars, chainsaws, and demolition tools will be needed to help others
• A gas main wrench located at your gas main
• Full fuel tanks in your vehicles
• Bicycles may be a necessary means of travel for some time due to hazards, obstacles, and fuel shortages.
• Easily transportable kits containing supplies you might need for 72 hours
• Hardhats, dust masks, work gloves, and safety glasses or goggles
• A supply of any pharmaceuticals that you need
• Anchor any household items that could tip or fall
• You may need to decide ahead of time how much you will be able to help your neighbors in the event of an emergency

 
What you need during an earthquake:

• A place where you will not be injured by falling objects
• Be ready for jarring aftershocks

 
 
What you need to do after an earthquake:

• You may need to dig yourself or others out of a mess
• Make sure people are okay and treat any injured
• Be aware that buildings that may appear to be structurally sound may not be
• Evaluate communication options you still have: radio, phone, satellite, etc.
• Turn off any gas to your property
• You may need to find out which roadways remain open. Many roadways will have fallen trees and powerlines. Some bridges may also be severely damaged
• Monitor emergency radio information
• Be prepared to evacuate your area for any number of reasons

 
If 2020 has taught us anything, it has shown us that our safety is, first and foremost, our own responsibility. Preparation in advance can help ensure survival for you and those you care about in the event of a natural disaster.
 
 
David Hanson, CSP


[i] “Odds are 1-in-3 that a huge quake will hit Northwest in next 50 years.” Oregon State University. 24 May 2010
[ii] Schulz, Kathryn (20 July 2015). “The Really Big One.” The New Yorker.

In hindsight, I should’ve known that our January meeting was going to have a large attendance. The timeliness of the topic and our excellent speaker Matt Kaiser made it one of the largest monthly meetings ever. If you missed the meeting, the PDF of the presentation is still available on our website. There was some great new information.

The next couple months we have a great line-up of presenters. February 2nd, we will be joined by Craig Hamelund to speak on “Keys to Effective Safety Supervision.” This is always a popular topic and speaker for our region. This will be a great reminder as to how important good supervision is to implement a successful safety program.

March 2nd will be a special treat as we invite Jose Perez, who was a speaker at the national ASSP leadership conference in 2019. His presentation was on never giving up and being tenacious. The last year has proven that these have been valuable attributes. These will be valuable skills in 2021 as well. He has a custom presentation specifically for our chapter and our region this March.
We are glad to be able to provide quality programing, even when we can’t meet in person.
 
Stay safe!
 
David Hanson, CSP
President, ASSP – Southern Oregon Chapter
Senior Safety Management Consultant, SAIF Corporation
 
David has an expertise building dynamic safety teams and developing high-performing safety cultures. He spent 18 years at Timber Products Company as a Supervisor and Safety Coordinator and facilitated continued certification into Oregon OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP).

​David Hanson, CSP
 
Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) approaches seem to be getting a bad reputation these days. The Human Operations and Learning Teams approaches to safety seem to be very popular, and the concepts in these safety approaches have loads of applicability to the workplace and making improvements at an organizational level. The success of these newer approaches has led many to think that newer is necessarily better. I think conversations about these systems help us distill what is worthwhile for safety managers today.
 
Training is a great example of how BBS is still relevant. Training is a foundational concept in the behavior-based safety model. The truth of the matter is that in the real-world work environment there is still solid case for managing the decisions and behaviors of employees. If this were not true, would our employees need training at all? Most employees want to do good work and want the training they need to do a good job. Training is a management and supervisory approach to help employees make decisions that are better for the organization. Every organization depends on employee involvement to have safe operations.
 
BBS concepts have been around for a while now, and we have had many more opportunities to implement them improperly. Somewhere along the line, the wrong message was received. That unintended message said, “My workers’ decisions are the reason for my problems. If I fix my workers so that they make better decisions, I will have fewer problems.”  This previous sentence is not consistent with Behavior-Based Safety because it uses blame as a foundational function. Blame disrupts the communication cycle that a BBS program depends on.
 
We should be looking for ways to understand the behaviors of everyone within an organization. I believe that the foundational concepts of BBS are still solid:
•Most incidents/injuries are triggered by unsafe behaviors.
•Behaviors are leading indicators that predict performance.
•Behaviors are measurable; attitudes are not easily measurable.
•Addressing behavior change can solve real-world problems.
•Safety partnership between management and employees that focuses attention on processes and systems creates a framework for safety success as behaviors are updated and improved.
•Understanding how work is accomplished.
•Preventing errors reduces the chances for injuries and other problems.
•Discovering root causes can help identify ways to prevent incidents from happening again.
 
If we implement a solid BBS program, we will have:

• An organized system for solving problems that arise.
• An engaged workforce that participates in the safety program.
• A process for continuous improvement.

 
Behavior-based safety—it can still work when implemented in a focused, deliberate way.
 
David Hanson

David Hanson
Southern Oregon Chapter President
 
 
I want to make sure you know about a FREE opportunity that is being offered to our membership. ASSP members Jon Sowers and Jim Nusser are offering the leadership training series classes to our chapter. This class begins on January 6th at 1:00 pm and occurs every other Wednesday for seven classes. This is a great opportunity. There is a limited seating. Normally a class like this would cost hundreds of dollars.
 
If you are an ASSP member, please consider serving on our executive committee. There are two vacancies on the committee, and we are already looking for volunteers to serve on our executive committee for the 2021-2022 term. We need help filling executive committee positions. Our chapter depends on these volunteer positions in order to provide the quality services to our Southern Oregon community. When you join the executive committee, you will join ten other local safety professionals that are amazing to work with.
 
It probably goes without saying, but the COVID-19 pandemic has not made anyone’s job easier, which is just one more reason I am so grateful for the outstanding service that your executive committee members provide. If you get a chance, please thank them for all they do to help our chapter.
 
Don’t forget that Safety Committee University content is still available on our website. You are welcome use this free online content to support your safety committee operations and hear from local safety leaders.
 
On January 5th, we have Matt Kaiser joining us for our chapter meeting to discuss the new OR-OSHA COVID-19 rule. While this may seem late, the timing may actually be good for those of us that have questions following implementation of the required elements.
 
I look forward to 2021 being a good year for our chapter, and I want to thank all of you that participated in the survey we sent out last month. Your input helps your executive committee provide the best programs possible.
 
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
 
Sincerely,
 
David Hanson
President, ASSP – Southern Oregon Chapter
Senior Safety Management Consultant, SAIF Corporation
 
David has an expertise building dynamic safety teams and developing high-performing safety cultures. He spent 18 years at Timber Products Company as a Supervisor and Safety Coordinator and facilitated continued certification into Oregon OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP).