After reading the title, you might be wondering what all this has to do with health and safety? Well, we want to avoid all three of these things, or at least put them out of our minds for now. Some of us put them out of our minds until we have symptoms, like a toothache, or until one of our employees has a small accident. Then we say, “You know - maybe we should have safety meetings once a week.” Does this sound familiar?
My name is Ron Valega. I am an IICRC instructor for water, fire, odor and health and safety. I owned a Servpro franchise for about 25 years before selling my business to become a full-time instructor. When did I get serious about health and safety? Not until I started to get into workmen’s comp issues - small accidents. Not that my parent company didn’t have that information, I just chose to focus on other things like sales, production and the everyday issues of running a business. So I want to make a big statement here and I believe this 100% - I don’t believe there is an owner out there who wants to hurt anyone. The problem is we just don’t know what we don’t know! The word “OSHA” to me was like the KBG! I was scared to death of them!