Pura Vida – Your safety legacy

Recently, I was in the Central American country of Costa Rica. While there I kept hearing the phrase Pura Vida as people greeted one another. As I discussed this with our host he gave me two translations; the word by word meaning is the pure life. However, to the local people the real meaning being expressed is akin to “we are living the good life.” And thus the greeting was really conveying a national belief that these times in our lives in our country are really the good life we are being blessed to experience daily. I was being treated to their national pride face-to-face as individuals from all walks of life gave me this greeting accompanied by an infectious smile.

And then it struck me that Pura Vida is really core to the safety profession.

What we do on a daily basis is to help our employees, family, customers and guests live a personal careful culture that is always about eliminating the possibility of incidents which can destroy the good life. However, unlike a catchy happy phrase, our Pura Vida goes deeper into each of us (employees, family, customers, friends, guests) having a personal set of safety accountabilities that when practiced helps deliver a personal Pura Vida.

As safety pros we have a responsibility to use our professional knowledge, skills and experiences to help ourselves and others live a personal safety culture of correct in all that they do on and off the job.

Pura Vida

The Doc

“The Doc” Mike Williamsen is a nationally recognized workplace safety consultant with more than 25 years of safety and business change management experience. His background includes serving in Engineering, Operations, and Safety Manager positions for companies such as Frito-Lay, Inc., and General Dynamics. Mike has applied high-impact safety principles to Fortune 500 companies such as General Dynamics, Baxter Healthcare, ATCO Electric, Rohm and Haas Co., and BASF. He received his academic degrees from the University of California, Berkeley (B.S.), California State University, Hayward (MBA) and Columbia Southern University, Orange Coast, Alabama (Ph.D., Business).