America’s Safest Companies 2016: Middough Inc.

Responsible behavior on an environmental and personal health level drives Middough Inc. to create and maintain a positive safety culture. The company strives to be a good steward of the environment and promote health and preventative healthcare and keep safety in mind as it plans, designs and manages each and every project it secures.
“The safety culture at Middough encompasses our entire company," said Thomas Sexton, EHS manager. “We provide our employees with the opportunity of ownership in our EHS programs. We continue to develop our programs in order to protect our employees and their families. We believe that safety is a lifetime opportunity and not only a work-time requirement."

Middough has been able to show continuous improvement through documentation and communications. It maintains statistical data and publishes a monthly update reflecting progress on key performance indicators on a regional and company-wide level.

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The company's “Safe by Choice" EHS program aims to educate workers about awareness, enhance communication and skill and trains staff to embrace positive environmental health and safety on all levels. This program utilizes marketing collateral, the company website, weekly EHS topics, manuals, presentations and health and wellness initiatives to effectively send messages to workers.

“Middough's EHS program has been created to outline the policies and procedures necessary to help proactively develop an EHS culture, reduce the potential for incident and injury and ultimately achieve a hazard-free work environment," said Ronald Ledin, president and CEO in a commitment to EHS excellence. “... Please keep in mind that no assignment is so urgent that we cannot take the time to plan it and execute it safely. Make a conscious decision and choose to work safely. It will help you, your family and loved ones, your fellow employees, our clients and our company."

Middough University, a computer-based training program, assigns courses to workers each quarter. Topics range from safety to human resources and a variety of management courses.

On the job, a safety observation program encourages proactive recognition and reporting of unsafe actions or conditions to reduce the possibility of incidents or injuries. project expectations are shared and communicated on all levels. Visiting and prospective clients are educated about Middough's safety initiatives.

“Our journey doesn't end with these achievements; it continues," said Sexton.