What brought you to the construction industry, and what made you stay? I started out working for a construction manager just doing paperwork because I had a background in administrative work. It was really a fluke that I got into the safety side of construction. And then I really enjoyed the safety side of it, so much so that I started to neglecting my administrative duties and wanted to do more safety.

What is your favorite aspect of your job? My favorite aspect of my job is definitely interaction with the field, and upholding OCP’s values of being able to get the field home safe to their families. Family is most important. So that truly is my favorite part of the job, is being able to work with them and keep them safe. Sometimes it’s not easy. You have to be able to talk to people and call them out, and they don’t always like that, but in the end it’s better because it keeps them safe. They get to go home and see their kids and their wives and their significant others. Home safe every night, that’s what’s most important.

What development, thus far, brought you the furthest in your career? Definitely when I earned my CHST (Construction Health and Safety Technician) Certification through the Bureau of Certified Safety Professionals. It’s actually a big deal to be able to have those initials after your name; it’s more important than having a degree. It’s very difficult to get that certification. The testing that you go through is very difficult, not everyone can pass it. Here at OCP the certification is a standard, and was a condition of my job. I think that really shows the commitment that OCP has to safety.

How did your career in construction begin? Well, I kinda touched on it before. I started as administrative, just doing paperwork and things like that and decided I wanted to learn more about how things were done on the actual construction side. I’d get paperwork submittals on piping and things like that, and be curious about how it was integrated into a project. Most of the time people who do paperwork do the paperwork and are done, but I wanted to learn more. I wanted to learn about production and materials, and then I was randomly asked if I wanted to do safety. After gaining some experience and leaving that company, I took on a role that was just geared towards safety. I felt that was where I needed to be so that was the path that I chose, and I love doing it. There’s nothing like working with people to keep them safe. It’s always going to be positive. And safety has developed so much in the last 10 years, and it’s developing more everyday. There’s always new things coming out that you have to keep up on. I enjoy it. It’s a huge challenge everyday.

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? My favorite projects was the 17-story Nationwide Children’s Patient Towers. I worked as the safety director for a mechanical contractor at the time. There were two different sides of that job, it was sheet metal and it was piping too. I worked with someone from Turner who took me under his wing, he was the safety director for the region and was on-site all the time. He actually wrote me letters of recommendation for the next job I was able to get. I loved that project because it was so many different trades interacting. I was able to work closely with hospital personnel and we also utilized a lot of new technologies. We had BIM that we used, and I went to a lot of the BIM meetings to learn how it worked. It was just really a comprehensive project in all aspects. I think that project is the one project that allowed me to see safety the way it needed to be seen and move forward. After that project I was really able to say this is what I want to do.