ENVENT Management and Supervisors would like to congratulate Joshua Lockler and Thoi Do for being selected as the ENVENT Safety Award winners for the fourth quarter of 2014. Josh and Thoi, although relatively new employees, used SWA and possibly prevented a fire and environmental incident at the Gulf Coast shop. Recently, Steve Sellinger and Ivan Millman awarded Thoi a flat screen television and Josh an iPod as reward for their commitment to keeping ENVENT safe.

“On the morning of November 14, 2014 the weather had changed with the arrival of an Arctic cold front making the weather unseasonably windy and cold. The temperature was 34 degrees that morning, and the wind was gusting around 15 mph. We had a contractor, Andersen Roofing, that was re-coating the Gulf Coast Shop roof with an elastomer roof coating, and they were having difficulty with the coating material because of the temperature of the materials. Their standard practice was to apply heat to the material to make it more fluid when the temperature was cold like that, and they chose to accomplish this by using a series of tarps and a forced air kerosene heater.

Thoi Do and Josh Lockler, two technician trainees at the Gulf Coast Shop, observed that the blue poly tarp covering the four 55 gallon drums was smoking and melting from the heat and immediately turned off the heater and uncovered the barrels. Upon closer inspection they discovered that the tarp was also anchored down with a 5 gallon can of flammable mineral spirits, and that the coating itself was flammable. After using STOP WORK AUTHORITY to shut the job down, they notified the crew of what they had done, and called me to meet with the work crew and them about a solution. I determined a better safer way of heating the materials without the use of excessive heat or open flames.

Thoi and Josh exhibited outstanding observation and safety performance by using STOP WORK AUTHORITY, especially since it was only Josh’s fifth week with ENVENT and only Thoi’s third week. These two have also, since that time, bought into the safety program, and the safety culture here at ENVENT, 100%! Good job, guys!”