Swope Construction fund aimed at keeping workers safe
The construction industry is an important part of West Virginia’s economy, employing more than 51,000 workers, but it comes with a too often lethal price tag.
Chandler Swope, president of Swope Construction Co. in Bluefield says he is “righteous” about offering quality safety programs to state contractors and their employees. With proper safety training, he hopes to change a West Virginia industry plagued with one of the highest rates of injuries and fatalities in the nation.
“It’s my job to send every one of my employees home alive every single night with all of their fingers and toes,” said Swope, who started his company in 1984. “The alternative is not acceptable.”
Swope has committed $30,000 over the next two years to WVU Safety & Health Extension to create the West Virginia Safety Alliance, modeled after the Associated General Contractors of Virginia Safety Alliance. This model creates a program that will assist companies to work with one another to improve their safety programs. Working together, companies will be able to improve their safety performance by sharing ideas, experiences, and resources at a fraction of the cost of professional consultants.
WVUS&HE will facilitate the program. The West Virginia Safety Alliance will bring all types and sizes of contractors together to share best safety practices and suggest ways that smaller companies can efficiently and effectively develop safety programs.
The program can come none too soon to the state’s construction industry, Swope said. The number of fatalities in construction has increased in the state in every year except one for the last four years for which the Bureau of Labor Studies has data. West Virginia was one of only 12 states to report an increase of 20 percent or more in its workplace fatality rate.
“A lot of things can happen when you start a safety program, and all of them are good,” Swope said. “What else can you do that can be all good?”
Swope became a safety evangelist after just a few years of owning his construction company. He’d been in business five years and had 30 employees when he hired a field engineer to be his part-time safety director.
The employee had kept handwritten notes on field inspections for about a year. Swope decided to type the notes into his computer so that he could provide them to Occupational Safety & Health Administration inspectors to show them what a great job the company was doing when it came to safety compliance.
“I found that I typed the same violations over and over so many times I memorized many of the OSHA paragraph numbers. Nobody ever fixed anything; the safety director just kept recording the same violations every week” he said. “Instead of showing what a good program I had, my own records simply proved I had a lousy program. I had a director, a book—everything but performance.”
So he became the safety director. He wrote his own database that would keep track of who was trained on what topics and when. Then he hired a full-time safety director.
“I realized at the time that you can’t just get a book and hire somebody and have a safety program,” he said. “The CEO of every company has to be either in spirit or in person the safety director. The company’s CEO has to be righteous about safety.”
The changes paid off. In the late 90s, Swope compared the workers compensation rates he was paying 10 years after implementing a safety program to what he had been paying prior to creating the program. His rates fell from 17 percent to 7 percent. The bottom line: he had paid $1,050,000 less in premiums over a five-year period and the safety program had only cost him $250,000 during the same time. He had made an $800,000 profit from safety.
“My total profits for the whole company could be assessed, in a way, to safety,” he said.
“Nobody will ever convince me that safety doesn’t pay.”
The West Virginia Safety Alliance is aimed at spreading that gospel. WVUS&HE will host open forums to discuss current construction industry safety topics, helping to obtain group rates for training, assisting with jobsite safety audits, and encouraging companies to share resources.
WVUS&HE has designated a faculty member to coordinate the program. Within the first two years, the program will facilitate the creation of three safety alliances and establish relationships with key contractors. These regional alliances – in North Central West Virginia, the Eastern Panhandle, and the Kanawha Valley—will hold quarterly meetings, bringing contractors and their employees together to share the safety message.
“We’re excited about the opportunities this program creates for sharing safety best practices and having a real impact on construction safety throughout West Virginia,” said Mark Fullen, WVUS&HE director and Extension professor.
WVUS&HE has received national recognition and substantial grant and contract support for its safety and health expertise. Specialty research projects have included the nationally recognized Fall Safe Program, which reduced the number of fall hazards on West Virginia construction sites. WVUS&HE also participated in the West Virginia Small Business Initiatives grant, which allowed the organization to provide free safety and health consultation services to all small businesses in West Virginia, including construction companies.
“A part of WVU Extension Service since 1989, WVUS&HE serves a public service mission seeking to decrease occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities among West Virginia workers,” Fullen said. “So the West Virginia Safety Alliance is a perfect fit.”
Swope is also excited about the prospects of working with WVUS&HE.
“I think the program has the ability to reach way more people than OSHA does and do it in a proactive way that is not threatening, not expensive, not intimidating,” he said. He is hopeful that the program will make other construction companies “righteous” about safety.
“The technology of safety isn’t difficult,” he said. “Being committed and tenacious about it is the most important part.”