Safety

Caring for the safety and wellbeing of our employees, clients, and communities through the work we do – and the way we do it

Our passion as people, our commitment as a company

Safety is the foundation of our business and our culture. Rooted in caring for each other, our clients, and our communities, our safety program is a part of every employee’s daily experience, and every project we partner on. Our Incident and Injury-Free® (IIF®) commitment challenges each of us to lead with safety and caring in our mindset and our actions, and to dedicate ourselves to everyone going home safe, every day.

We choose continuous improvement

With safety, complacency isn’t an option. We constantly work to innovate and improve our processes, procedures, and equipment to keep our employees and those around us safer on project sites, in our laboratories and offices, and while driving. Our ongoing safety journey is supported by strong information technology tools, which help us monitor and measure activity to make the right decisions to help our employees work safely.

Bringing best-in-class safety performance to every project

Terracon has been on a journey to fundamentally alter how we think about safety and how it is woven into the culture of our firm.

We work closely with our employees to instill and maintain a safety mindset, track key indicators, and measure our outcomes. Our daily drive to improve is reflected in our company’s Total Recordable Injury Rate (TRIR), which has steadily improved over the past decade even as we have doubled our staff.

0.42

TRIR

in 2023

17,795

Safety Check-Ins
(behavioral-based safety observations/conversations)
in 2024

0.16

DART

in 2024

Michael O’Grady, P.E.,
Executive Vice President, Chief Growth Officer Terracon

For everyone to go home safely every day, we must maintain an attitude that ‘We are our brother’s keeper’ and take responsibility of our own safety as well as everyone around us.

Living and working safely, for everyone

Terracon is committed to workplace safety, and we’ve worked hard to establish and implement effective safety policies and procedures.

Why? On a practical level, of course, it’s good business. We want to help our clients achieve their goals, meet their expectations, and inspire confidence at every step. This includes following strict safety practices while on their projects, supporting smooth project delivery and an improved Experience Modification Ratio (EMR).

But at its core, safety isn’t about statistics – it’s about people: our employees, our clients, and everyone affected by the work we do together. We challenge ourselves to continually improve our workplace safety, and will do whatever it takes to achieve and sustain outstanding performance.

Terracon’s Safety Culture and Being an Industry Leader in Safety

Safety Week 2024

Empowering employees with the skills to work safely

Multiple safety initiatives and programs help our employees better serve our clients, safely, from Day 1. Safety training is ongoing, consistent, and documented. All Terracon employees, regardless of role, participate in the same core safety and driving training. Those with specialized jobs receive specific training to ensure they have the skills and expertise to perform the required tasks safely and effectively.

Our safety programs include:

Regular safety coaching.
Safety spot bonuses for employee-owners who demonstrate a commitment to safety.
Near miss mobile app and library to cultivate situational awareness and proactive hazard identification.
Local safety coordinators at all Terracon office locations.
On-staff radiation safety officers.
Medical Surveillance Program to provide protection to employees exposed to hazardous materials on the job.
Client and job-specific safety and health plans.

Development of award-winning tools to make work safer, such as:
- TerraCart, a safe and effective means of lifting and transporting heavy or bulky materials to reduce ergonomic injuries.
- YankMeister (YM) 3000, a device that eliminates the need to bend, twist, and stoop to extract the nuclear density gauge pin during soil testing.
The Smith5Keys driver training system, required for all employees.
Personalized Protective Equipment (PPE) Program, which supplies all employees with field PPE kits.
Safety training appropriate for every task performed by our employees.

Our Safety Rules to Live By

As part of our safety commitment, our IIF Leadership Team regularly reviews and refines our Core Safety Rules and Practices to reduce redundancy, add clarity, and make it easier for employees to adopt these foundational behaviors.

Click here to view our Core Rules and Practices.

In 2023, Terracon proactively began to require Leica electrical detection wand scanning immediately before any mechanical groundbreaking activities. Learn more in this message from Safety Director Jim Wright.