Page 64 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

By holding each other accountable and responsible for our safety, it helps enforce our overall safety culture, which all boils down to this: Safety begins with me.
– Jeff Goggin, chief operating officer, Peterson-Cat
Well, there was a red tag on the tractor that I hadn’t seen. It was hanging off the key in the ignition, and all I saw was the key and didn’t think anything about it. But that machine had been red tagged for a reason, and to this day, I don’t know what it was. I could have done some serious damage to that en- gine. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
“As I was walking back into the shop, a young technician from the Brand Ambassador class said, ‘Hey, that’s a violation. The door’s only part way up. We have a policy on roll-up doors now, if you didn’t know. They have to be either all the way up, or all the way down. We can’t stop them halfway because they can fail and fall.’
“I got to thinking about all that, and the next morning during our JumpStart meeting, I got up there and addressed it. “I have to apologize to the group because I violated one of our policies,” and I was looking right at that tech, and then I acknowl- edged and thanked, and appreciated him as we do in JumpStart. “And I’m going to have to report myself. But I also have to report another incident.”
Top to bottom: Roll-up door partially raised, a violation of company safety policy; Machine with lockout tag
And then I told them about the D5 outside with the blade up and no blocking to support it. “You’ll know I actually did report it because your manag- ers will see the violation in their weekly report.”
“I remember seeing Vicki’s [Taylor, vice president of HR] jaw drop and some people laughed and might have thought I was joking, but it was the right thing to do. Everyone has to take responsibility
62 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG