Rosendin Electric
Electrical construction
San Jose, CA
7,000 employees | 17 sites | 107 EHS professionals
As an employee-owned company for the past 29 years, and with a history of 102 years in business, Rosendin Electric clearly understands its mission. At the beginning of the new hire onboarding process, through a video, CEO Mike Greenawalt tells the story of how he had been involved in an arc flash. His story is about the impact this injury had on him and his family. He shares the experience of being in a burn unit.
Greenawalt’s story of how an arc flash changed his life and his family’s life is told in order to get employees to think of safety as a value in their life—a value they are not willing to compromise for anyone or anything.
This personal commitment to safety extends to empowering employees to take safety into their own hands. All Rosendin employees receive a STOP Work Card that gives any employee who identifies an unsafe condition or does not feel safe about a task the right to stop work to ensure the safest work environment possible.
The voice of the employee is extended throughout the company in a variety of ways. One particular program, the Craft Empowerment Program (CEP), provides a mechanism to build project communication between the field and project management. Every two weeks, members of the CEP meet with the project manager to review what they have seen and heard from craft employees. They follow an agenda with questions such as: What are we doing well? What do we need to improve on? What bothers our employees?
These and other programs have contributed to the company earning the National Electrical Contractors 2021 Recognition of Achievement of Zero Injury award.
However, the company is not one to rest on its laurels and says it understands that safety is a never-ending struggle. Rosendin operates under the philosophy, “We know we can always be better and have an obligation as owners of our own company to do so. Our strengths lie in the quality of our safety programs, our training, and understanding the seriousness of electrical work and the commitment of each individual at Rosendin to keep each other safe. This commitment is to each other and our employees’ families, our clients, the public, and our industry. We lead, instill and empower them to keep the safety culture of Rosendin alive for the years to come.”
To be considered for an America's Safest Companies award, organizations must demonstrate excellence in several areas: support from leadership and management for EHS efforts; employee involvement in the EHS process; innovative solutions to safety challenges; injury and illness rates lower than the average for their industries; comprehensive training programs; evidence that prevention of incidents is the cornerstone of the safety process; good communication about the value of safety; and a way to substantiate the benefits of the safety process.
The 2021 ASC awards will be presented during a ceremony at EHS Today’s Safety Leadership Conference 2021, in Cleveland, Ohio. For a detailed look at this year's program and to register, go to www.safetyleadershipconference.com for all the details.