Editor's Note: The 2026 class of America's Safety Companies will be recognized Tuesday, September 22, during a live webinar beginning at 2:00 PM (EDT). More information about the webinar can be found at the registration site for How to Create and Sustain a World-Class Safety Culture: Insights from America's Safest Companies of 2026.

Forest Electric Corp. New Jersey

Edison, NJ

Electrical

634 employees | 27 sites | 8 EHS professionals

There’s no limit on safety at Forest Electric Corp. New Jersey (FECNJ). The electrical company funds safety gear, specialized tooling and labor costs associated with self-imposed safety stand-downs through a centralized corporate overhead budget—not against an individual project manager’s job cost profit margin.

The company’s president, Harry Sassaman, makes it clear that no expense is too expensive when it comes to keeping workers safe.

For example, while not required, the company has mandated Type 2 safety helmets with chin straps buckled all the time and ANSI A4 cut-resistant gloves in all working areas. And working on energized systems without explicit, signed authorization from Sassaman is a zero tolerance, immediate termination offense.

These personal protective equipment purchases and safety procedures are not one-offs; rather, they help set expectations for employees.

“Executive leadership operates with the strategic understanding that doing a job correctly and safely the first time is the ultimate driver of project predictability, quality and long-term cost savings,” says Philip Chodroff, CSP, the company’s safety director.

FECNJ utilitizes prevention through design during the initial bidding and engineering phases to eliminate hazards well before any field construction begins. For example, the company found that by unpacking lighting fixtures off site and kitting them into specialized mobile carts tailored to specific installation areas, it can eliminate the risk of cardboard fire hazards, traumatic hand injuries due to lacerations from knives, and reduces material handling clutter on the jobsite.

This forward planning has led to some impressive results, such as an experience modification rating (EMR) about one-third of the industry standard. FECNJ has earned a litany of awards over the past decade from the National Electrical Contractors Association and National Safety Council, among others. The company was also previously named one of America’s Safest Companies of 2020.

Over time, that success led to fatigue, with some field teams and leaders focused on protecting the statistical record above all else. Sassaman and the EHS team took deliberate action to shift focus back onto workforce well-being, execution quality and risk mitigation.

“By openly addressing this unintended consequence of prolonged success, FECNJ systematically eliminated the underlying social anxieties and reporting pressures that frequently plague long safety streaks,” Chodroff says. “Rather than allowing an artificial metric to create psychological friction or suppress incident visibility, our leadership transparently dismantled the pressure of the streak to safeguard absolute trust, open communication, and the long-term psychological safety of our workforce.”