The EHS Daily Advisor Safety Standout Awards highlight companies and safety professionals who excel in making their workplaces safer. Help us recognize these outstanding professionals and companies who are runners-up for our first round of awards!
Talaj / iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty Images
These awards are sponsored by SafeStart, the most successful safety training process in the world for developing personal, 24/7 safety skills—proven to reduce injuries on average 50%. SafeStart has trained over 3 million people at more than 3,000 companies and 10,000 sites in over 60 countries and is available in 32 languages.
The below runners-up in four categories will be recognized alongside our Safety Standout Award winners during a ceremony at the end of Day 1 of the 5th Annual Safety Summit in Orlando, Florida, on April 17, 2018!
Best Overall Safety Program/Culture Award
 Greenberry Industrial is a full service industrial contractor and fabricator. Serving power and process industry customers in the Northwest, Gulf Coast, Atlantic Coast, and California, Greenberry has been recognized nationally for its safety and quality performance.
Greenberry is a full ASME Code shop fabricator, with U&S stamps, a national board R stamp, NQA-1 certification, AISC Major Bridge certification with fracture critical endorsement, and ISO 9001:2008 Certification. For over 44 years, GBI has fabricated complex vessels, pipe spools, tanks, structural steel, and modules for timely shipment to projects driven by cost, quality, and schedule. Greenberry’s field services division offers customer the option of fab/install as a value-added service. Our field crews self-perform civil, mechanical, and structural work as prime contractor on major capital projects or small cap needs. Greenberry’s maintenance division has become a go-to contractor for turnarounds and shutdowns. All services are performed with an outstanding safety record. Greenberry is a member of the NAES family of companies. Learn more at www.greenberry.com. |
 Gypsum Management & Supply, Inc. (GMS) is a leading North American distributor of wallboard and suspended ceilings systems. Our product offering of wallboard, ceilings, and complementary interior construction products is designed to provide a comprehensive solution for our core customer, the interior contractor who installs these products in commercial and residential buildings. Founded in 1971, GMS operates a national network of more than 200 distribution centers across the United States. With a full line of product offerings, GMS provides a one-stop-shop experience for all of our customers.
Learn more at www.gms.com. |
BLR’s Lifetime Achievement in Safety Award
 Ron Day is the National Environmental & Safety Compliance Administrator, Health Services Division, for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In 1991, Mr. Day began his career as a Correctional Officer at FCI Ashland, Kentucky. He then worked various positions within the environmental and safety compliance field at other federal prisons to include the Administrative Maximum Facility (Super Max) in Florence, Colorado and the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. He then served as the Regional Environmental & Safety Compliance Administrator in Kansas City, Kansas from 2001 to 2005. In 2005, he began serving as the National Environmental & Safety Compliance Administrator, in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Day has achieved a great deal in his career, including the development and implementation of an Environmental and Safety Compliance Administrator training program for selected individuals that provides resources, knowledge, and skills to manage an effective environmental/safety program through course work and practical proficiencies. He also developed 240 lead training instructors to teach National Incident Management System (NIMS) and Incident Command System (ICS) courses throughout the Bureau of Prisons to thousands of employees. Mr. Day obtained five-year training contracts with universities and private industry leaders to ensure competencies were enhanced among Environmental and Safety Compliance professionals, and he advocated for inmate re-entry safety training, encouraging all locations to provide at least a basic safety introduction course following the OSHA 10-hour outreach-training curriculum. |
 Jitu C. Patel, CPEA is an international HSE consultant who has a BS in Chemistry and an M.Phil in Fuel Science. For 21 years, Mr. Patel has provided health and safety professional services to Aramco, an oil and gas producing and processing corporation with a value of over $12 trillion. He also has provided technical training and conducted research for 15 years on fires, explosions, and health, safety and environment issues at a heavy chemicals manufacturing company in the U.K. Mr. Patel has developed and conducted fire and safety seminars for Safety & Fire Prevention engineers and line management of industry operations. He has presented many technical and safety presentations, which are published in international publications.
Mr. Patel’s work has taken him throughout the world serving on boards and committees internationally in addition to U.S. national and state level organizations. He is a membership chair of the ASSE International Professional Specialty Executive Board and a member of the BEAC Training & Education Board. He is a Senior Board Advisor to the ASSE Arizona Chapter (AZASSE) and a founder of many international ASSE Chapters in the Middle East, southeast Asia, and India. The AZASSE honored Mr. Patel with a Howard Hiedeman Award of Safety Professional of the Year 2006-2007. He is a member of the ASSE Technical Professional Recognition Committee. Mr. Patel was honored in 2011 in Chicago with the highest and most prestigious award of a “Fellow of the ASSE.” Mr. Patel is also a recipient of the ASSE’s Diversity Award of 2012, an ASSE Global Ambassador and BCSP Advocate, and is an executive advisor to the boards of directors of many corporations. |
Innovations in Safety Training Award
 Northwell Health is New York state’s largest health care provider and private employer, with a mission to improve the health of local communities. Their focus is on prevention, wellness, and providing the full continuum of diagnosis, treatment, and after-care services to all those they serve.
The mission of Northwell’s Workforce Safety Team is to create a culture of safety and employee advocacy, with the first and foremost important value of ensuring a safe environment for employees and acting as advocates when an incident does occur. The Safety team focuses on creating a safe work environment and culture of safety; the Workers’ Compensation team focuses on advocating for employees injured on the job while carrying out the Northwell Health mission; and the Return to Work Division focuses on returning the employee to their position but also assists in identifying alternative options when necessary. Learn more at www.northwell.edu. |
 Hope Healthcare is a not-for-profit health care organization dedicated to providing care and comfort to every individual and their loved ones as they fulfill life’s journey. Samira K. Beckwith has served as President and CEO of Hope Healthcare for more than 25 years. With her leadership, the organization grew from a hospice caring for fewer than 100 patients a day, to a comprehensive health care system. Today, Hope cares for more than 4,000 individuals a day through a variety of innovative programs and community services.
Visit HopeHCS.org or call (239) 482-4673 to learn more about our unique model of care. |
Young Safety Professional Excellence Award
 Rob Nelson began his career as an ironworker and studied his way into safety management. Rob is an OSHA authorized construction 500 / 510 instructor, a MSHA authorized instructor and a Safety Trained Supervisor through the Board of Certified Safety Professionals. Before joining ESI, Rob was responsible for instructing new and seasoned construction workers on OSHA/MSHA safety standards for multiple ironworker subcontractors across 15 states. Rob is also fluent in Spanish and has conducted numerous safety classes in Spanish.
As an EHS Compliance Manager, Rob’s primary focus is to continually maintain a heightened level of awareness, knowledge, and preparedness on project sites to ensure a culture that prioritizes effective safety and balances overall associated costs. He provides leadership, guidance, and expertise in administration and support of health and safety processes and field employee safety training and development. |
 Andrew Varenytsia has over 17 years of various manufacturing experience to date. Currently, he is a Safety Coordinator at Romeo RIM, Inc., an innovator in reaction injection molding composite product manufacturing based in Romeo, Michigan. During Andrew’s employment with Romeo RIM, he has overseen and implemented various safety programs resulting in an overall safety culture change that boosted employee engagement and achieved the lowest recordable incident rate in the company’s history.
Before his role at Romeo RIM, Andrew spent many years with Unique Fabricating, Inc. in a leadership and a safety role where he managed the company’s safety program. He assisted with the successful implementation of 5S and Continuous Flow Production (CFM) resulting in low ergonomic repetitive recordable injuries. Andrew holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Health Administration from Baker College, and in his spare time he enjoys video and music production, camping, skiing, and spending time with family. |
Congratulations!
Please join us in congratulating all of our Safety Standout Award runners-up on their well-deserved recognition as leaders in the safety field!
There’s still a little bit of time left to register for Safety Summit 2018 to help us celebrate the accomplishments of these organizations and professionals in person—but there’s only 10 days left until the event kicks off! In addition to our awards ceremony, there will be a wide variety of educational sessions, speakers, and events tailored to assisting your development as an EHS professional. Register today!
