Safety engineers say they get little respect

By Alexandra Berzon

Monday, July 21, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Put a bunch of safety professionals in a room together, and you’re likely to hear the same complaint: “We’re undervalued!”

Anyone in any profession likely feels that way, but safety people have a pretty strong case: “We’re saving lives.”

As a brand, safety seems to need a makeover.

That’s the conclusion of the American Society of Safety Engineers, a professional association with 32,000 members who oversee and consult on safety for companies and other organizations.

The group began in 1911 in New York City after fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory killed 146 female workers and became a wake-up call for workplace safety.

Now, the safety society has concluded that the profession and its mission are still not sufficiently ingrained in public consciousness.

The group recently completed a draft of a plan to elevate the profession. The idea took root after the society surveyed senior managers not involved in safety at their businesses and found they did not sufficiently value safety engineers.

When it comes to doing good works at companies, why should environmentalists get all the attention? the society says.

“With concepts such as the carbon footprint, the environmentalists have moved their issues into the public domain, widely engaging individuals with notions of personal responsibility,” the draft states. “The success of the environmental movement does not necessarily come at the expense of safety but it does illustrate that safety still lingers in the background and its importance is not clearly understood by corporate America.”

It’s an issue of some importance in Las Vegas, where public concern for workplace safety has grown after more than a dozen deaths at Strip construction sites and at the Orleans.

Those active in the Las Vegas chapter of the society have started to discuss how they might help.

Safety professionals often see themselves as “the conscience of the company” said Jerry Ray, a former president of society who works at the Nevada Test Site. The companies overseeing Strip construction are good companies, but “once they lose sight of the fact that you can’t hurt and kill people to get the project done on time, then it’s time for safety folks to step in and say we can’t do that anymore,” Ray said.

Some safety engineers working on fast-paced construction say the problem is that their efforts aren’t always valued by their bosses. Many safety experts are working for construction companies “because it’s mandated to have safety people, not because we have any clout,” said one construction safety engineer who spoke to the Sun recently on the condition that he would not be identified. “I’m constantly telling the project managers we need to slow the pace down, but they say the owners won’t let us do that.”

In the past, safety professionals have promoted safety as good for business. In the long view, saving lives saves money, they say.

Now the safety society is trying to add to that argument, telling businesses that caring about safety is an element of corporate social responsibility that elevates the image of a company.

That view was boosted by a Goldman Sachs report last year that found a link between stock performance and workplace health and safety records. It’s also a position currently in favor with federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration chief Ed Foulke, who spoke at the society’s national conference in June in Las Vegas. Foulke mentioned OSHA’s mandate to enforce safety just once in his one-hour talk. Instead, he emphasized that caring about safety is good business that can help companies compete globally.

“It’s a repositioning of safety,” said Dennis Hudson, who is leading the project for the society. “It’s social responsibility. It’s not just good business but something you must do.”

The society recommends a variety of methods to better market safety to corporate America, including promoting it in business journals and at conferences, conducting research and running workshops. The report also recommends better defining the profession and promoting safety professionals as versatile and strategic thinkers and leaders with important technical skills.

“Corporate America will say, ‘Our people are the most important thing. Safety is number one,’ ” Hudson said. “But it becomes such a trite notion. No one pays attention. No one gives it real meaning.”

Local safety professionals welcome the society’s objectives, but some are skeptical they will be enough here without strong safety enforcement efforts by government. They were particularly disturbed by events following the death of one of their own. Michael Taylor, a longtime safety engineer at the Test Site, worked for Perini Building Co. to inspect and correct safety at the Cosmopolitan. In January, he fell off the side of a building after a post holding up a safety cable collapsed.

The state’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration found subcontractors had not properly welded the posts and fined one of the companies, Reliable Steel, $2,850 for the alleged fatal error.

“Taylor dies and they pay more for Gatorade every day than they did for his death,” said safety consultant Tom McManus, who knew Taylor.

The Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration “doesn’t seem that important because of their fines and what they do,” said Teddi Penewell, president of the consulting firm OSHA Safety Experts. “It doesn’t get anyone’s attention.”

Within some companies, it sometimes seems the best a safety engineer can do is be mediocre, said McManus, a vice president for SCS Engineers.

“If they’re mediocre at their job, they don’t get in the way of progress, but they keep the employer out of the big problems,” McManus said. “If you are very very diligent and extremely aggressive with regards to safety and health, you’re just bringing the employer headaches every day.”

Safety consultant Bill DiTrapani said he tells employers saving lives and preventing lost time due to injuries is a way to improve production. But a lot of businesses in Las Vegas don’t want to invest the money it would cost upfront, he says.

Lately, DiTrapani has had to go out of state to find work.

“If you work at safety too hard, a lot of the money people get involved because you’re taking too much time from production,” said DiTrapani, who used to work for the Water District. “Everything is about production.”