Here at Mid-States, we always want everyone to go home to their families in the same condition they arrived in.  How do we do that?  By committing to safety.

Our newest safety program is SafeStart.  The program offers Critical Error Reduction Techniques for work, home and on the road.

"It makes it so personal to each person," said Mike Wolff, Vice President of Safety and Plant Operations.

SafeStart is a safety training program developed by Larry Wilson, who was a behavior-based safety consultant in Canada, prior to creating the program.  He developed the program from investigating real injuries of more than 20,000 people over the course of two decades.  What he found was states like rushing, frustration, fatigue, and complacency contributed to human errors, much more than lack of knowledge did.

And what are the results of these states?  Errors - like eyes not on task, mind not on task, line-of-fire and balance/traction/grip.  These states can lead to injuries.

Like SafeStart, Mid-States has a passion for safety.  SafeStart's motivation is simple.  They believe: "what we do is important; too important to stop growing or to stop improving.  We are honored to share this motivation with the safety professionals we serve."

Everyone on the Mid-States team recently completed the first round of training with a representative from SafeStart.  Twelve members of the Mid-States team were trained to lead the next rounds of SafeStart training.  A steering committee has also been created to help keep the SafeStart programming going strong at Mid-States.

"Safety is part of everyone's life," Wolff said.

SafeStart will only enhance the current successful safety program at Mid-States.  In 2016, we had just seven OSHA recordables, our lowest number yet.

"It truly shows our employee involvement in safety," Wolff said.  "Our team is engaged on a daily basis.”