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In Part 1: An Increasingly Distracted World, you were asked to confront your ‘familiarity’ with your environments. A familiarity may cause any one of us to relax and lower our defenses while working with or around heavy-duty machinery. Reflecting on these three questions can help peel back the layers:

Millennials are now the largest generation in the American workforce, and with the Boomer population aging into retirement, they will quickly be taking over positions of management and leadership in all trades. This handoff between generations can often be a shaky one, simply because of the difference in life-experience—it’s not uncommon for the older generation to write-off or displace the younger generation as lazy, rebellious, or entitled. However, Millennials are quickly proving themselves to be not only ready to take charge, but to do it in safer, more efficient ways than past generations.

What is an apprenticeship?

When most think of an advanced post-high school education, they think of attendance at an academic college or vocational school. What many don’t realize is there is another form of education that has been relied on for thousands of years. Apprenticeships have been providing relationships between the master and his student since the beginning of time.

Now a formalized process, often registered with the U.S. Department of Labor for the sake of credentials and legitimacy, an apprenticeship is composed of two distinct educational components:

We get it. Safety isn’t sexy.

While safety technology saves hundreds of lives every year, it doesn’t parade around in a spandex suit and cape. Safety is more subtle in its approach to saving lives. Its approach is preventative: Keep people safe by alerting workers of dangerous situations. Superheroes are a bit more reckless about saving lives. They allow people to walk right into a dangerous situation just to heighten the dramatic effect of the last-minute save. Safety technology may not wear a cape but it is far more effective at saving lives than any superhero.

Creating a culture of safety doesn't happen overnight. But for one Health and Safety supervisor, it was a challenge worthy of tackling.

George Van Hemert oversees safety in what could otherwise be a very unsafe place. As Health & Safety Supervisor for the City of Oxnard, California’s Environmental Resources Division, Van Hemert is responsible for worker safety at Del Norte Regional Recycling & Transfer Station. This Materials Recovery facility (MRF) serves as the central hub of the City’s overall solid waste management system and as a regional resource for other adjacent cities as well.

Normally, PRECO customers use our technology to warn heavy equipment operators of impending danger; an obstacle, a pedestrian, another vehicle. Occasionally, some companies come to us with a completely different set of requirements in mind, such as UK-based Equipe Geosolutions.

Equipe Geosolutions develops new technologies for the global drilling industry. Among its products are portable drilling rigs used by the construction industry to probe the subsoil on which new buildings will be built.

To counter the rise of injuries and deaths that stretch across heavy-duty industries, both on-road and off-road, initiatives that aim to promote workforce health and safety are being adopted countrywide.

 By May 2018, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will require rear visibility technology in all new vehicles under 10,000 pounds, including buses and over the road trucks. This field of view must include a 10-foot by 20-foot zone directly behind the vehicle. Let’s take a look at what prompted this forward thinking change in safety regulation.

Once an accident has occurred, you can’t go back. The simple act of backing up a vehicle can turn tragic in a matter of seconds. But these common accidents can be avoided by utilizing a combination of safety technologies available today.

The National Waste & Recycling Association launched the Safety Stand Down initiative this week in an effort to further draw attention to the dangers that come with working in the waste and recycling industry.

During the week-long campaign, participating waste and recycling companies will conduct risk assessments at job sites and review safety policies and procedures for backing; review company policies, procedures, consider enhancements and then train employees on any changes.

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

A good friend of mine shared this famous John Wooden quote on the first day of school for his two teen-age girls. How does this apply to PRECO and more specifically to the safety industry? Character is what is represented in every product that is developed and shipped out of PRECO’s door to help companies save lives and improve the worksite. At PRECO Electronics, a company that boasts an average employee tenure of almost 18 years, the effect of employee character is exemplified by PRECO’s willingness to challenge the status quo and push the industry to reevaluate technology and apply best practices that in turn saves lives.