Roco Rescue
Roco Rescue.jpg

America's Safest Companies 2019: Roco Rescue

Nov. 11, 2019
The enthusiastic support of Roco Rescue's safety philosophy by all personnel is vitally important to the success of the company.
Roco Rescue
Baton Rouge, LA
Technical rescue, standby services and equipment
160 employees | 3 sites | 3 EHS professionals

Read profiles on all the other 2019 America's Safest Companies!

Roco Rescue has a 36-year history with only a single lost-time incident due to a heart attack along with zero general liability claims. The company credits this track record to an efficacy of their process.

As standard practice, initial baseline assessments and safety surveys are performed to identify the general hazards to which employees can potentially be exposed. This includes Roco headquarters and warehouse facilities, the Roco Training Center (RTC), and CSRT Standby Rescue Operation.

“The enthusiastic support of our safety philosophy by all personnel is vitally important to the success of our company,” the company’s application reads. “Despite having zero incidents, we recognize that we can always be better; therefore, we evaluate even ‘near misses’ to look at what we could have done differently to improve the safety of our workplace and training center.”

Having all safety processes in writing and accessible to all employees ensures that these processes are communicated consistently to everyone at Roco Rescue. In addition, the processes are not static; rather, they continually evolve with the input of employees at all levels. This is key to a culture of continuous improvement.

When appropriate, assessments are followed up by a more detailed hazard assessment (JSA) of specific risks associated with each job area. These detailed assessments evaluate the specific job functions along with potential risks. Also included are suggested procedures and actions to eliminate, control or protect the employee from that hazard.

Considering the number of students who train at the Roco Training Center each year, participating in highly-technical and potentially dangerous activities, achieving a solid safety record is nothing short of remarkable. The company trains approximately 3,000 students each year with approximately 160 standby/safety personnel who are working in major industries across the country.

“While designed to provide realistic confined space rescue experience, the training center has also been designed to provide the safest rescue training experience possible with redundant protective systems incorporated into the training processes,” the company states.

Maintaining OSHA VPP Star status is another way that Roco promotes and emphasizes active safety participation and ongoing improvement throughout its organization.

“Our motto—‘There's a safe way, and a SAFER way!’—has even greater meaning as we strive to keep safety and continuous improvement at the forefront of our activities and job duties,” Roco states. “This self-evaluation is also used to track our goals and plan for further improvements.”

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