I’ve just returned from a three week vacation to Nepal which included 10 glorious days of trekking in the Annapurna region and three days in Bangkok Thailand on the return trip. As I reviewed my photographs I realized that a disproportional large number were of construction sites and unsafe working conditions. It’s hard to leave your professional self completely at home even while on holiday!
Traveling to the countries in the developing world makes you realize just how far our country has come in changing the attitudes towards workplace safety in the past 30 years.
Construction Site in Thailand
It’s a rare job site in the US where workers aren’t wearing hard hats and safety vests for example. But in three weeks in Nepal I never once saw anyone at a construction site wearing even the most rudimentary personal protective equipment. Clearly, the safety consulting business in Nepal is wide open for business should the government ever decide to develop and enforce safety regulations!
Seeing the differences between safety in the US and safety in the developing world makes me especially proud of the work we’re doing in providing safety training to a wide variety of clients. Working collaboratively with such diverse clients such as the City of Foster City, CA, Seattle City Light, City of Napa, Todd Shipyards and King County Jobs Initiatives our trainers are providing classes on such diverse topics as: Lockout/Tagout; First Aid/CPR; respiratory protection, accident investigation, job hazard analysis, asbestos and lead, office ergonomics and back safety.
JoAnn Copperud, CEO – Emeryville, CA
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