Lattice Materials (Lattice), a Bozeman-based custom infrared optics and materials manufacturer and a part of The Partner Companies (TPC), has been honored with the Governor's Safety Achievement Award, recognizing Montana employers and individuals who demonstrate exceptional commitment to safety in the workplace.  

The Governor's Safety Achievement Award recognizes Lattice’s dedication to creating a safe work environment and establishing the company as a leader in the manufacturing sector. The award recognizes Montana's small, medium and large employers across the public and private sectors who go above and beyond in workplace safety commitment. 

"In the past two years, we've completely re-invented our safety culture, making it our number one company core value," said Travis Wood, president of Lattice. "This recognition validates our commitment to protecting our employees and demonstrates that safety excellence and business success go hand in hand. We are proud to say that we’ve achieved 1,000 days without a single lost-time incident." 

This achievement is particularly noteworthy in the advanced manufacturing industry, where precision machining, crystal growth operations and handling of specialized materials require distinct safety procedures. Safety is paramount to ensuring Lattice’s operations run smoothly, especially as the company supports critical industries including defense and security, medical imaging, industrial lasers and commercial thermal vision systems that help keep people safer and healthier. 

To earn the Governor's Safety Achievement Award, Lattice demonstrated excellence across comprehensive safety management system criteria, including: 

• Maintained written safety and health policies 
• Provided job and task-specific training programs 
• Offered regular refresher training to employees 
• Assigned safety and health responsibilities to designated personnel 
• Conducted periodic self-inspections for workplace hazards 
• Fostered strong employee participation in safety and health programs 
• Implemented an effective hazard reporting system 

The company also demonstrated a superior safety record with better-than-average Experience Modification (Emod) rates and incident rates maintained over the past four years, outperforming industry standards. 

Lattice's safety transformation began with restructuring its safety committee. The company also launched an anonymous Voice of Employee (VOE) survey and brought in multiple third-party consultants to assess and improve their safety programs. 

As a part of these assessments, Lattice launched an online training portal for comprehensive employee safety education, implemented a near-miss reporting system, facilitated all-employee first aid, CPR and AED training, and made significant investments across all departments to improve safety measures. These investments included installing Lone Worker devices with incapacitation alerts, structural engineering improvements to its custom crystal growth operations and a new software system for hazardous chemical management. 

Lattice was formally recognized for its safety excellence at the Governor’s Conference Awards Luncheon on September 4, where The Montana Department of Labor & Industry presented the Governor’s Safety Achievement Award, honoring the company’s outstanding dedication to workplace safety. 

Lattice remains committed to continuously advancing its safety programs to protect employees and set new standards for the future of manufacturing safety.