And it’s a tie!
Congratulations to Premium Pellet’s Buddy (William) Berg and Cody Braun, the first Safety Heroes to be recognized by the Wood Pellet Association of Canada (WPAC) for their significant contributions making the workplace safer and better for others.
Both Buddy and Cody are members of the safety-centered team at Premium Pellet who consistently step-up to help the wood pellet industry and other frontline workers to ensure leading safety practices are implemented and embraced.
Buddy, plant operator, walks the talk and his can-do attitude led to a leading role in WPAC’s safety video, The Power of Pellets: Innovating Our Way to a Safer Better Product, while he was working as the plant’s interim production supervisor. Buddy also served as a key member of the bow tie analysis workshop team for WPAC’s critical control management project. His extensive expertise and valuable insights from the plant operator perspective helped develop a clear picture of potential risks and the safeguards in place to prevent an unwanted event or incident.
“Along with being one of our senior plant operators, Buddy has been a great asset to Premium Pellet’s safety program. He has led our Joint Health and Safety Committee for many years with great diligence,” said Frank Wall, operations superintendent.
Leading safety practices is clearly a team effort at Premium. Buddy’s co-worker Cody Braun, plant operator, played a key role in providing input into WPAC’s and BC Forest Safety Council’s e-learning platform. In order to have a smooth rollout of the program, operators were needed to review the modules and identify any gaps in content and subject matter that needed clarification. Along with operators from facilities across Canada, including Buddy, Cody completed the review of four important plant operator modules and recommended several key improvements.
Afterwards, Cody spoke at WPAC’s monthly Safety Committee meeting to share his insights on the program, highlighting how the program will improve operations, which helped set the stage for the roll out of the program.
“Cody has become a very safe and diligent Plant Operator,” said Wall. “Cody makes great efforts to run the plant to design protocols and manages his crew well in the safety and cleanliness programs, along with the operational functions.”
Let’s keep recognizing the efforts of our colleagues who ensure we all go home safely every day. By acknowledging this work, we are reconfirming our commitment to safety and raising awareness of the actions we can all take—big or small —every day to make our sector safer.
Do you know a safety hero? Nominate someone today here.
Gordon Murray is the Executive Director of the Wood Pellet Association of Canada.