NSSGA Podcast

It's always a good time to focus on focusing, especially with June being National Safety Month, so today's episode is all about the serious consequences that can occur when we become distracted at work. And there are few, if any, people who are more qualified to discuss this than today's guest, Bill Doran, an Occupational Safety and Health lawyer with Ogletree Deakins. Bill shares one of his many...

Today, Libby is joined by Madalynn Habron, NSSGA's Digital Communications Manager. Madalynn is the tech guru behind the scenes of these safety shorts, and without her none of these episodes would happen. In this episode, she shares a story about safety that she learned from her husband and father-in-law regarding the importance of taking the time to work safely. Episode Highlights: Madalynn's fath...

Safety Consultant, speaker, writer, and facilitator Ronn Lehmann joins Libby on the podcast today. A student of the human elements in work, Ronn has worked for over 40 years with  organizations of all sizes in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, helping organizations and individuals acquire the mindsets, skill sets and tool sets necessary to achieve success. He has accumulated a number of...

Today, Libby is joined by Dave Cress, a safety consultant who has worked in the safety field for decades. His experience includes being a safety officer for the US Army Corps of Engineers and an inspector for the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy for 28 years, after which he has provided safety training for over 15 years. In this episode, Dave discusses hosting safety training and...

Senior Environmental Director for the Central West region of CRH, Ericka Baxter, joins Libby for today's episode. Ericka takes this opportunity to talk about environmental safety and health, and share a story about an oil spill at one of CRH's locations that was handled extremely well.   Episode Highlights: There are a lot of safety concerns when it comes to environmental matters, especially when...

Libby is joined today by Chris May, Vice President of Safety and Environmental Operations at CRH in Atlanta, Georgia. Chris shares a powerful story with listeners today about taking action and doing the right thing, even when it's not easy – a story from which we can all learn a valuable lesson.   Episode Highlights     Chris' story begins when she was fairly new to her job and noticed a 30 year v...

Libby Pritchard, Director of Construction Materials Safety Policy at NSSGA, is back once more with another crucial and instructive story of workplace safety. This time around, she focuses on the need to exercise safety protocols according to the environment, particularly navigating the dangers that can arise while driving in winter weather. Drawing upon her own harrowing experience and the lessons...

Rob Lanham, the Aggregates Program Manager at the Virginia Transportation Construction Alliance, previously joined the show to discuss his recent heart attack. Today he returns to share another safety story involving a young man who fell eight feet and hit his head on a concrete pier, all because he did not clear up his work area or use the safety harness provided to him. This individual sustained...

Troy Austin is the Value Safety Manager at Luck Companies, as well as a Marine Corps Veteran. Today he tells the story of a friend who was accidentally killed by committing an unsafe act during their service together. Neglecting safety procedures in place, Troy's friend removed the barrel off of a .50 caliber machine gun without standing to the side of the barrel. Unfortunately, there was a round...

Today Libby looks at overexertion and the idea of pushing through pain or injury. More than a quarter of injuries in the Aggregates Industry over the last five years have been because of overexertion, and most occur while lifting, pulling, or pushing an object. A major challenge related to overexertion is pushing through pain. Pain is the body's way of telling us to stop what we're doing, rest, an...

Clay Albright of Caldwell Stone developed his career in the Aggregate Industry at an early age, through a family-owned quarry in Kentucky. He is a third-generation miner and a young leader in the industry. Today Clay joins Libby to discuss his safety story as a haul truck driver nearly twenty years ago. He shares what he learned from this scary experience, and how he uses it to teach other miners...

Rob Lanham is the Aggregates Program Manager at the Virginia Transportation Construction Alliance. He joins the show today to discuss his recent heart attack, the symptoms he experienced, and the importance of acting on chest pains immediately rather than ignoring the pain or waiting for it to pass. Rob waited only 15 minutes from the onset of chest pains before being rushed to the hospital, where...

In this episode, Libby talks to Johnny Farley, Area Health & Safety Manager at Rogers Group, about winning NSSGA's seatbelt campaign slogan contest with: Why risk it? Just click it . Johnny explains how he came up with his slogan, and how his experience as a State Trooper underscored just how important seatbelt safety truly is. He shares the tragic story of responding to a fatal motor vehicle cras...

Kicking off our Safety Shorts series is a conversation about the single most common cause of workplace fatalities, complacency. Unexpectedly, this can be even more hazardous in workplaces where there is a strong focus on safety, as we can become satisfied with our safety efforts, settle into routines, rest on excellent safety records, and slip into a mode where we take safety for granted. Complace...

Bi-partisan legislation was introduced in Congress which supports the construction of much-needed public works projects with the access to raw materials necessary to build and revive the roads, bridges and infrastructure projects in our nation's communities.

Meeting your members of Congress can be intimidating, but there are simple things that separate good meetings from others! Mike Gula, of D.C. fundraising firm Gula Graham, and Michele Stanley, NSSGA vice president of government and regulatory affairs, share their tips for good face-to-face meetings with elected officials. 

Find out how to put together a quarry tour with Don Rosenbarger, business development manager with Delta Companies, Inc. Then hear about the impact of face-to-face meetings from Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who toured the company's Goreville operation in August.  The Delta Companies Inc., is a subsidiary of Colas USA, a leader in infrastructure construction and maintenance across the country.

Ed Mortimer, vice president of transportation and infrastructure at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, joins Michael W. Johnson, NSSGA president & CEO, for a conversation on how these two groups come together for infrastructure advocacy and work within a larger community of infrastructure-focused groups to make a difference.

Luck Companies hosted the staff of members of Congress for a tour of the Bull Run Quarry in Chantilly, Va. It was the first time visiting a quarry for these staff members, who work for members of Congress that serve on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. 

On Thursday, July 25, NSSGA met with Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee staff to learn about the committee's infrastructure bill that they plan to unveil on July 29.

Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., likens America's need for diverse infrastructure funding to the need for a diverse retirement portfolio. "We, as a country, cannot continue to rely upon a very volatile source, and only one source, of revenue and that's the gas tax. Your listeners have 401Ks. Not any of them, I bet, invest in just one stock," he said. 

Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., talks about the need be proactive with infrastructure investment and planning. Short-term planning contributed to creating one of the worst bottlenecks in the country in the 6th District of Louisiana; the Interstate 10 bridge over the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge.

Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., is the ranking member of the House T&I Committee. "Infrastructure is something that the government should do – and should do well," he says and elaborates on ways Congress can properly fund improvements to our infrastructure.  Also, learn hacks to get in touch with your member of Congress and bring them to a quarry this summer from members of NSSGA's government affairs team...

Congresswoman Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon is Puerto Rico's Republican delegate in Congress. She fought to be a member of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee and talks about Puerto Rico's specific challenges and needs as it recovers from Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017.  Puerto Rico's infrastructure challenges are no different than those facing the rest of the United States, but bein...

Members of Congress and the Highway Materials Group held a press conference on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol that focused on the impact of a strong federal investment in our nation's infrastructure. Here are the remarks from Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., NSSGA Chairman Bob Weldon and other speakers from the HMG.