Weyerhaeuser, Columbus, creates a monument to Safety
By Glenn Ostle

(Editor's note: This is one of five outstanding industry efforts highlighted in the November/December "Proud to be a Papermaker" issue of Paper360°, now being mailed. Be sure to read them all!)

Visitors to Weyerhaeuser's Columbus Cellulose Fibers mill in eastern Mississippi, are met with an unusual sight when entering the gate--a 14' high rotating stainless steel structure depicting a man inside several large rings, and holding up a sign that says "SAFETY."

"Safety Man" serves to reinforce the mill's commitment to an injury free work environment, and to remind everyone entering the mill to manage their own safety.

Weyerhaeuser Columbus has a long history of safety awareness. Since the mill was built, safety has been the first consideration of every task undertaken. As a result, it has been recognized and won numerous awards; two of the most prominent being the first pulp and paper facility to achieve OSHA VPP Star certification in the mid-90's, and Weyerhaeuser's Senior Management Team's Award of Excellence Gold Award.

According to Kent Walker, mill manager since 1999 and self-described safety fanatic, "Our work family is like our home family, so we want to create an environment where we take care of each other. Before employees can care about business aspects, they have to know that they themselves are cared about."

Because of this emphasis on safety, mill leadership decided they needed a powerful image to serve as an inspiration. The task was given to the Central Shop Team as they had the longest standing safety work record over a 20-year time period.

"We like to celebrate major milestones," says Walker. "The Central Shop Team achieved something special so we wanted to recognize them and also get them involved in helping replicate what they are doing with safety."

The team comprised a number of individuals including Carl Miller, W.V. Hutcheson, Dock Pounds, David Smith, Daniel Taylor, Dave Andrews, and Steve Wright.

According to team member Hutcheson, a 30+ mill veteran who joined the company when the mill was built, the Safety Man concept depicts an individual's personal space--a ten foot sphere that surrounds and moves with him. As the individual moves from location to location, some safety issues become less of a concern, but new ones take their place.

According to Hutcheson, the team designed and fabricated the monument from beginning to end and says "while a few parts were fabricated for us, the shop built most of it and assembled it all in house."

"If you are aware of and work to control all of the forces and hazards within your 10' sphere, there's less chance that you are going to be injured," says Walker. Today the structure is something on an icon, and visitors comment on the fact that it is so visible.

"We are proud that our 10-year moving average for safety is at a world class level as measured by OSHA standards," says Walker. "We've also set two company records, going 5.6 million hours (almost 5 years) without a lost time or an accident, and had two complete calendar years without any injuries. To date, this year we've had no injuries. We get a lot of benchmark requests and we are always happy to help with those."

Every leader at the in the mill strives to ensure that no safety procedures are missed when decisions are made. Risk assessment and JSA's are part of every work plan developed at the site with emphasis on eliminating hazards wherever possible.

"Every day people come to the mill and expect to leave injury free," says Walker. "The greatest responsibility we have as leaders is to first be human health stewards of our people. There's no effort that we go to, that's too great to take care of our people."

Glenn Ostle is Editorial Director/Associate Publisher of Paper360° magazine. He can be reached at: gostle@tappi.org.

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