My Big Safety Challenge

John Whalen, CSP, AMERS Regional EHS Assessment Manager at Microsoft, shares his journey from volunteer firefighter to safety professional—and how those early experiences shaped his people-centered approach to safety. In this episode of My Big Safety Challenge, he explains why listening, empathy, and truly understanding workers’ needs are essential to solving problems effectively and building trus...

With more than 30 years in health and safety, Jim Frederick of Nexus HSE has worked across industry and spent four years with OSHA, giving him a unique perspective on the shared responsibility of protecting workers. In this episode of My Big Safety Challenge, he discusses some of the most difficult situations safety professionals face, including workplace fatalities and serious injuries, and expla...

Ty Farmer, senior director of Corporate Safety at Dycom Industries, Inc. could have let being placed on a performance improvement plan (PIP) early in his career derail him completely. Instead, he turned a difficult moment into a powerful learning experience and an opportunity for growth. Ty’s military background led him to his first role at General Electric (GE), where he was quickly thrown into t...

From an Ohio farm to protecting tens of thousands of lives—this is safety leadership at its realest. In this episode of My Big Safety Challenge, Matthew Compher shares the hard-earned lessons that shaped his career, from steel mills and utilities to leading safety across high-risk industries. He challenges traditional safety thinking, introduces his “capacity model,” and explains why passion, humi...

From a landfill site in rural Vermont to helping protect more than 2 million employees at Walmart, Wendy Brant’s safety journey is anything but ordinary. In this episode of My Big Safety Challenge, the former Global VP of EHS Compliance at Walmart shares how “heat experiences,” strong relationships, and saying “I don’t know—yet” shaped her leadership style. We talk confidence, mentorship (up, down...

Anthony Dohmann joins My Big Safety Challenge to share his unexpected journey into the safety profession and the experiences that shaped his leadership style. He discusses early career challenges, the shift from authority to influence, and how mentorship and relationships became central to his approach to safety. He also reflects on navigating a workplace fatality, the importance of continuous lea...

Season 6 kicks off with hosts Merle Heckman and Shelley Baber as they talk with Shannon Overland, a seasoned safety leader whose journey began in the rugged forests of Western Canada. What started as a college job in tree planting evolved into co-owning a contracting company—and ultimately discovering what real safety leadership looks like. Shannon shares the pivotal moments that reshaped her mind...

Welcome to Season 6 of My Big Safety Challenge — where real stories meet real leadership. Hosted by Merle Heckman and Shelley Baber, Season 6 dives deeper than ever into the human side of safety. This season brings together industry experts, frontline leaders, and professionals from around the country who share candid conversations about the challenges, turning points, and breakthroughs that shape...

This week on My Big Safety Challenge, we sit down with David Musgrave. With a background in psychology, specifically in autism spectrum disorder and neurodiversity, David brings a human-centered lens to the safety world. Now serving as the Senior Vice President of DEKRA North America, he helps companies move beyond outdated thinking and platitudes to create lasting cultural changes. He even tracks...

Shelley Baber, CSP, began her career chasing perfection. She wanted to make an immediate impact and thought that if something wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t right. But after 25 years in the field, now serving as EHS Director for Eaton’s Electrical Engineering Services and Systems Division, she’s learned that real progress is made through baby steps, or, as she puts it, “Don’t let no progress get in the...

Heather MacDougall, a lawyer and advisory board member, was in Washington, D.C., when an offer to join the National Labor Relations Board under the Bush Administration changed her career trajectory forever. A lawyer? On a safety and leadership podcast? It makes perfect sense, just trust us. While she didn’t get that position, she did shortly thereafter become the Chief Counsel to the Chairman at t...

One of the more admirable, yet often overlooked, qualities of the safety profession is the spirit of camaraderie that exists even among industry competitors. As Marty Lalick, CSP, Associate Director at ESPN, shares in this episode of My Big Safety Challenge: “There are no trade secrets [in safety].” This mindset of partnership is woven throughout the conversation, as Marty discusses the tremendous...

How many people is it acceptable to hurt at work? That’s a question Will Hewett, Co-Founder & Director of Genii Earth LLC, learned from a colleague and incorporated into his own consultations. In 23 years of safety leadership consulting, where he reshapes the way people think about safety leadership, he’s never heard any other answer than zero. That idea was what drew Will to the safety profes...

Alaina Ziegler, CSP, wants you to become a listener. In this episode of My Big Safety Challenge, Alaina, Vice President of Safety & Human Performance at Lewis Services, unpacks why listening is much more effective when you’re listening to understand, not to respond. Overseeing the safety of a dispersed, multilingual workforce across multiple states, Alaina faces communication challenges daily....

In this episode of My Big Safety Challenge, we sit down with Lisa Brooks, Principal at NexusHSE and a pioneer in the field of ergonomics, to explore what she calls “operational intelligence.” For Lisa, it’s not just a buzzword, it’s a philosophy that bridges leadership and the front-line worker through active listening, relationship-building, and a willingness to get your boots dirty. Lisa shares...

Welcome to the Season 5 premiere of My Big Safety Challenge. We’re kicking things off with fresh voices, powerful insights, and a new co-host! Joining Merle Heckman, Master Trainer at Dale Carnegie, is John Fischer, CSP, Director, Environmental Strategy and Corporate EHS at the Duke Energy Corporation. To begin the season, we sit down with Sammy Davis, PhD, CSP, Gr. IOSH—Vice President of Safety &...

For Michael Langston, Vice President of ES&H at Clean Earth, safety boils down to one simple premise: Make sure the employees know the rules. Make sure the rules make sense. Make sure they’re applicable. It seems easy enough, but as Michael quickly discovered as a young Industrial Hygienist at a steel factory, updating policies and procedures designed to protect the worker isn’t always met wit...

Would a workplace tragedy fundamentally alter your perspective on your career? For Sandra Merritt, CSP, ASP, a workplace fatality became a pivotal moment that redefined her career—and her purpose. In this episode of My Big Safety Challenge, Sandra recounts how the loss of a colleague, which left a four-year-old child fatherless, stirred her to shift her career from environmental management and com...

For most people, witnessing a chemical spill would be a harrowing experience—but for others, it ignites a passion. We tend to call those people safety professionals. Autumn Crum is one such person who, after witnessing a lab spill while shadowing a safety professional at West Virginia University, instantly knew she had found her calling. The intricacies of managing risk and protecting people capti...

Communication. Its importance is a common theme in the safety industry, but how to properly communicate eludes so many of us—on and off the job. Michelle Gladieux is here to fix that. Founder of Gladieux Consulting and author of Communicate with Courage, Michelle is the go-to communication expert for everyone from NFL players to C-suite executives who want to improve how they communicate. In this...

What does it take to thrive across industries as diverse as healthcare, automotive, and food service? For Andrew Wehr, CSP, it’s all about building— whether it’s safety departments, cultures, or relationships. In this episode of My Big Safety Challenge, Andrew shares the twists and turns of a career he never planned for but has come to love. Starting with his pivot in college from a medical path t...

On this episode of My Big Safety Challenge, we are thrilled to welcome our first international guest—Becky Hickman. Becky serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA)—one of the United Kingdom’s oldest charity organizations dedicated to safeguarding lives and preventing serious injuries both on and off the job. With over 20 years of experience...

Like many safety professionals, John Fischer, CSP, sort of fell into the field. When first approached about a safety role and asked about lockout/tagout (LOTO), he wondered what the lottery had to do with safety. Now, 25 years later, John is the Director of Environmental Strategy and Corporate EHS at the Duke Energy Corporation. John has spent those 25 years between consulting and the energy secto...

Have you ever thought about how well you listen to others? Keith Mercurio is back for the second part of episode eight of My Big Safety Challenge, where he reveals how something as simple as being a generous listener can have a profound effect on how we perceive and how we are perceived. Keith illustrates this through his father, an English teacher of 35 years, detailing how in all those years, he...

Have you ever purchased a new car, only to suddenly notice the same make and model is everywhere on the road? There hasn’t been a sudden influx in the number of people driving the same car—it’s a natural cognitive response resulting from how we focus. In this episode of My Big Safety Challenge, Keith Mercurio, CEO & Founder of Ethical Influence Global, delves into the science behind how what w...