By: Adam Meza   As Americans, we enjoy the open road. There is something to the feeling of the rumble of the road under the tires and at our feet. There is also the power and control of being able to stop, go or take the turn up ahead. One day on the road, going 55 mph or so, I began to wonder what every driver in my front view was thinking, what their next move would be, and what the moves of the cars the same distance ahead of them would be. In traffic school, instructors teach you to “look ahead and beyond.” If you stop to think about it, a one-way road is like a current running throug ..read more

By: Adam Meza   Picture this, you're driving down the highway on your way home from a job. You're looking through your clean and clear windshield. As you approach what is probably the most dangerous intersection on your commute, suddenly your windshield turns tinted green. You immediately wonder how on earth you missed this feature when you bought the car. You have trouble identifying the colors of the traffic lights and your vision just isn't the same. Now you might be saying to yourself, “Well that's absurd! That would never happen!” If you are an electrical professional, this is proba ..read more

By: Mike Enright   As we continue to fight through the pandemic, the popular practice of having workers share electrical PPE, including arc flash suits, hoods & face shields and even gloves, quickly started to change. If you think about it, it would be unacceptable to have a nurse take off the medical PPE they were wearing at the end of the day, put it in a gear bag overnight and then have a different nurse open the bag and don the same PPE the next day. Yet this is often what happens with electrical PPE today. We’ve asked dozens of safety professionals how, when and why this practic ..read more

By: Todd Cook   Safety and health professionals are typically focused on the hierarchy of controls (Elimination > engineering > substitution > administrative > PPE) to prevent injury and illness.  Hazardous energy, heights, confined spaces, and heavy equipment are often at the top of our list and consume much of our focus.    Root cause investigations often lead us to human error where blame is mistakenly assigned to the injured worker.  Yes, in some cases, the worker is at fault.  However, the true cause of an incident or other undesired event is ..read more

By: Fred Bothwell   While working as warehouse manager for one of the nation’s largest tire companies back in the early 1990s, I had requested getting the roof-top unit checked out by our A/C company. As the A/C guy was checking voltage, he lets out a yell. Then he gathers himself, starts doing the same thing and lets out another yell. It turns out that through perfect timing, at the same moment he touched the two leads to the unit, his beeper--on vibrate in his shirt pocket--was signaling him.  He thought he was getting shocked. Later that year, when this same A/C guy was checking a ..read more

By: Rich Gojdics   Sitting at the dealership waiting for the attendant to find me after completing a scheduled oil change, I was stung with the quote he handed me, along with the complimentary vehicle inspection results indicating I was due to replace all the tires on my vehicle.  All 4 tires had been properly maintained, but inevitably their treads had worn down and I was advised their life cycle was nearing an end, and that I better act soon, otherwise face the possible consequences of compromising my family’s safety.  Sound familiar? While they were bringing the car around, I ..read more

By: Adam Meza   Let me tell you a story; when I was a boy my Parents used to buy me a very popular brand of denim jeans. These jeans were designed to fit you just right after they shrunk. My Mother was a scientist when it came to shrinking jeans just right. She would fill up the bathtub with cold water and had me sit in the tub wearing my jeans until they shrank to the perfect fit. Sometimes it worked perfectly. Sometimes, not so much, mind you I liked to eat as a Boy, and still do. Of course, that was some time ago and now that very popular denim jeans manufacture preshrinks all their f ..read more

By: Rich Gojdics   Innovation is the best path to ensuring that qualified electrical workers routinely adopt and use each and all of the components required to meet the minimum protective requirements to Arc Flash PPE Category 2, or referred to as CAT2.  Enespro continues to listen and react to the ideas of the electrical workforce to design improvements into the components of CAT2 PPE to mitigate the risk of human error and improve electrical worker safety. One of the most common terms to any reader aware of arc flash hazards is the phrase Arc Flash PPE CAT2.  In fact, best est ..read more

By: Adam Meza A businessman in Virginia steps into a rental car for a business trip. He takes a breath, ready to hit the road, and gets a lungful of stale cigarettes and old french-fries. He decides the car is not acceptable and has it swapped out with no problem. A software engineer in Texas starts his first day on the job. He opens his assigned laptop only to discover the screen is cracked. He lets his IT department know and they swap it for a new one right away. An electrician in Colorado steps into the Denver International Airport. He reaches the job, follows NFPA 70E to the T, and opens t ..read more

By: Noah Beveridge, Safety Team Leader Anderson Electric, Inc. Some studies suggest the average human makes nearly 35,000 choices per day. Those choices lead to outcomes. Most of those outcomes we hope are favorable, but some of those choices can be made in haste, which may lead to poor outcomes. In the field of safety, a poor outcome is never a favorable one. Workplace safety is rapidly evolving; new technologies are making it safer, new electrical PPE is becoming more comfortable, new tools are reducing soft tissue injuries, and, generally, employees are starting to buy into and help shift s ..read more