Foremost Pipeline Wins Top Industry Safety Award
The National Utility Contractors Association (NUCA) proudly awarded Foremost Pipeline Construction Company of Gaston, South Carolina the Overall Winner of the association’s prestigious William H. Feather Safety Award.
“At Foremost, we want everyone to go home better than they came to work,” said Christopher Vincent, the company’s safety coordinator. “We apply training to our job-specific tasks that our managers gain from NUCA programs. With all of the training we do, policies and procedures we put in place, and the personal protection equipment and tools we provide, safety comes down to watching out for yourself and your brothers and sisters on your crew.”
The company’s impressive record in 2021 of 432,804 man-hours worked with one recordable accident and zero fatalities helped Foremost to the final selection. Foremost takes the approach of safety as being the foundation of every employee’s future. “Without a safe mindset you jeopardize you and your family’s future.”
“Our people do dangerous and important work every day to benefit themselves and their families,” emphasized Tim Haechten, general manager at Foremost. Foremost uses several safety protocols and NUCA/industry training programs to guide their workforce’s actions each day, on and off the jobsite. These protocols include the Last Minute Risk Assessment, and the “Seven Common Causes” reminders on how accidents begin.
These protocols, training, and employee self-awareness all contributed to Foremost’s excellent safety record. The 56-year-old company has won four previous Feather safety awards, but this was the first year it was awarded the top honors by NUCA.
The William H. Feather Award was created by NUCA in 1978 to honor the contributions of the founding chairman of NUCA’s Safety Committee. William Feather. The awards recognize the superior safety commitments demonstrated by NUCA members in an industry where jobsites can present hazards on a daily basis. The annual awards are awarded based on the safety documentation submitted by interested member companies and judged by industry safety professionals.
NUCA and the industry are proud of those who win these important awards in each award category. Other NUCA members who won the association’s three lesser 2021 safety awards in these manhour categories include:
- 0-100,000 manhours — Fehlinger Construction, of Shavertown, Penn.
- 200,001 – 500,000 manhours – Cleary Construction, of Tompkinsville, Ky.
- 500,000 – 1,000,000 manhours – MAC Construction & Excavating, of New Albany, Ind.
The 2021 Overall Award was presented to Foremost Pipeline at the association’s Annual Meeting held in March of this year in San Antonio, Texas. Foremost Pipeline’s achievement will be the subject of the “SafetyWORKS” column in the March-April 2022 issue of Utility Contractor magazine.
