First Values
Formed by a lifetime of work and experience my values are at the core of what I am today. The formation of these values began at an early age as the oldest son of blue collar parents. I got a taste for blue collar work myself the day after high school graduation as a summer factory worker. I began this work on a very dangerous mechanical power press. During those summers, I gained the perspective on what my parents did everyday of their work lives. As a result of these summers I experienced first hand the reality, frustrations, and danger of industrial factory work.
Following college I immediately started my career as a Foundry Supervisor. As a supervisor I learned how to effectively manage people and resources. Unfortunately, to many of my employees were seriously injured. As a consequence, the lessons learned from these injuries has stayed with me my entire career. The lasting result for me is to know every injury teaches a lesson. The biggest sin it to have to learn these lessons more than once!
Experience & Additional Education
As my experience grew I found myself working stints in Operations, Human Resources, Occupational Health & Safety, and Quality Control. These stints were in very diverse types of manufacturing, for example foundry, machining, forming, assembly, coatings, and logistics. In the last several years of my formal corporate career I had the philosophy of Lean imbedded within me.
In addition, I continued to learn from formal education and training. As examples, I earned my MS in Organizational Behavior & Management in 1995. A PHR certification from SHRM in 2005. Further, I became an OSHA Authorized Outreach Instructor for General Industry. Pleasantly surprised I found a new love of training and teaching in all these activities. Additionally, through teaching at Lakeshore Technical College and Moraine Park Technical College I honed these skills.
The Result
As a result, I started my own consulting firm. In this new endeavor I found myself working with smaller organizations then in my formal working career. I found smaller organizations have many of the same problems as the big ones from my past, but often lacked the resources. I have been able to leverage my past to assist these smaller organizations. Moreover, I found a wonderful niche in assisting new inexperienced people who have been handed the safety role in an organization. I can relate to that as this is how I came to health and safety many years ago.
Consequently, I started my firm with the intention of performing Human Resources consulting. However, I soon learned I am unique among HR consultants. However, my vast amount of Operations, QA, and Health & Safety allow me to relate very well with most competencies you find in manufacturing. Subsequently, my business has gravitated more towards Health & Safety activities. I like to think all my Health and Safety work has an HR and Operations perspectives to them. Afterall, I consider myself either just an old Foundry Supervisor or Personnel Manager.
Safety Fitz Expertise
- Supervisor Training and Development (I use to be one).
- OSHA Outreach Training for General Industry (10-Hour and 30-hour).
- Safety Culture Enhancement and Safety Teams
- Accident investigation and Workers Compensation Administration
- OSHA Compliance, Communication, and Mitigation
- Training:
- Lockout
- Machine Guarding
- Powered Industrial Truck
- Ergonomics
- Hazard Communication
- OSHA Recordkeeping
- PPE
- Accident Investigation
- Safety Leadership (at the Supervisor level and above)
- Mentoring to those new to H&S, with Manufacturing, HR, or Engineering Leadership Roles.
- All Human Resources Problems
- Lean Concepts
- Experience Understanding the needs of Human Resources and Manufacturing Leaders.
I look forward to tackling your opportunities!