When it comes to safety, staying informed of best practices, trends, and the latest science can save lives.

Our colleague Max Thorpe, Regional EHS Manager, recently attended the Michigan Safety Conference to learn from other safety professionals and strengthen safety practices at L&P. We talked to him about what he learned and why prioritizing safety is important to him.

What did you learn at the conference?

I attended presentations around sustainability, machine guarding, respirations, near miss reporting, PFAS (aka forever chemicals) remediation, and more.

I learned a ton about respirators. In my work area, we currently do not require them, but this conference helped me understand respirator requirements and how to determine what respirators are required for specific jobs.

How will you apply what you learned at L&P?

In safety speak, a “near miss” is an event that could have resulted in someone being hurt or damaged property but didn’t due to quick remediation or some other factor.

I am going to implement some changes to improve the quality and quantity of near miss reporting. I plan to implement a ‘Near Miss Hall of Fame,’ which will be a tool that helps the production team highlight their recording of near misses.

Why is prioritizing safety important to you?

Every day, I want my teams to go home to their loved ones. I believe that people have a right to work in a safe environment and should not have to take risks that impact their lives.

Thank you, Max, for putting people first by prioritizing safety!