Gary E. Bird Horizon Award
2001 Winner—TJ Lyons (Adoption of the OSHA Voluntary Protection Plan)
Mr. TJ Lyons of Rifenburg Construction, Inc. was honored today with the Construction
Risk Management Best Practices Award for adapting the OSHA Voluntary Protection
Plan (VPP) Accreditation for use in the road construction industry. TJ modified
and then implemented the VPP program on a 28 million dollar highway reconstruction
and expansion project in western New York State. The project has now passed
the three-year mark without a single lost workday accident.
This award was created by International Risk Management Institute, Inc. (IRMI),
to recognize individuals and companies who have demonstrated a commitment to
improving construction risk management and is presented each year at the IRMI
Construction Risk Conference. See below for information on previous winners.
A panel of industry experts, selected by IRMI, judged the award submissions.
Judges' comments about the winning submission included:
"Reached for the stars—did not settle on standard. Good message."
"The program cost was cited as $14,000 with a return cited of at least $225,000.
This is quite cost effective."
"It is hard to beat the results of no lost workdays in three years of a $28
million heavy construction project."
"While the concept of working with OSHA is not unique, the inclusion of various
officials, clients and vendors on the safety committee is innovative."
"This type of safety attitude should be adopted throughout the industry—the
desire to pursue excellence."
"There is a need for industry participants to collaborate; owner, contractors,
subs, OSHA, vendors, and field employees. This approach fosters partnering rather
than confrontation. Involvement of all stakeholders to improve project costs
and efficiency is the key to this program."
The other two finalists for the 2001 award were Sue Caldwell of Southern
Constructors, Inc, who was nominated for her development of a safety program
that revitalized the safety initiative in her organization and Daniel Karpelenia
of KHS&S Contractors who was nominated for developing a comprehensive, results-oriented
safety program that combined an analysis of accident data with feedback and
communication from the field crews.