ISHNpresented its first annual "Safety that Soars" Company Site-Specific Safety Awards at ASSE's Safety 2007 on Monday evening.

The First Place award went to Atlantic Marine Alabama, Mobile, Ala., for turning an old, dilapidated 400-acre shipyard into a clean, tidy workplace that is a shining example of safety. The shipyard, which experienced its heyday in the ’40s during World War II, embarked on a major safety effort in early 2006, and in a year’s time lowered its total injury/illness case rate from 11.7 to 6.5 in one of the most dangerous industries. Its lost-time injury/illness rate was reduced to 0.9.

The shipyard utilized a unique safety initiative program that emphasized employee ownership, responsibility and accountability to turn the site’s safety culture around.

“We trained every employee and contractor that every injury is avoidable, loss control is recognizing and controlling hazards, and every employee, contractor and customer has the authority and responsibility to ensure a safe workplace,” Teresa O. “Terry” Preston, director, safety, environmental & quality, toldISHN.

Honorable Mention awards were given to Gilbane Building Co., Providence, R.I., and Southern Ohio Medical Center, Portsmouth, Ohio.

Gilbane completed a demanding construction project using many small, residential construction subcontractors over 450 days and 124,000 hours without a recordable injury. The construction company achieved its safety goals through the coaching of contractor foremen, safety motivational programs and aggressive oversight and monitoring.

Southern Ohio Medical Center was able to instill a culture of safety and maintain an extremely low recordable injury rate using extensive training, tracking and rewards to create an enterprise-wide, participation-centric safety program.

ISHN’s"Safety that Soars" Company Site-Specific Safety Awards recognize single-site facility locations that use innovative and unique methods to achieve safety performance that soars above the average.