This quarter’s lucky safety heroes – Advanced Light Source Designer Adrian Spucces and Environmental Specialist John Jeliniski – were awarded $50 each for having been selected at random from among the Hero Card recipients who registered their card in the past three quarters.

Adrian’s good deed was to turn off a coffee pot in a room that had been locked for the night. Smelling the coffee, he found someone with a key and made sure the coffee pot was turned off. The Hero Card log shows that Adrian promptly did his next good deed within a few days by giving his Hero Card to someone else he found doing a good deed!

John Jeliniski was recognized for identifying a better electrical safety solution for the GEM power cord used by the Environmental Service Group.

Doing a good safety deed is a matter of safety mindfulness and choice.  Winning the raffle is a matter of luck – but all Hero Card recipients play a huge role in maturing the culture of safety at LBNL. Let’s keep LBNL Hero Cards circulating, spreading the number of good choices, and multiplying the number of good outcomes. If you see someone “safe-ing the day,” give them Hero Card! Need a supply of Hero Cards? Contact [email protected].

Looking at it now, the striped barriers along the loading dock between Buildings 70 and 70A seem right at home perched along a vertical drop, and the newly painted yellow border under them also seems to be the bright, just-right shade of safety.

A few months ago this loading dock – part of which is also used for pedestrian traffic – was drab, and anyone making their way toward the cafeteria may not have noticed the steep drop along the business side of the dock, especially at dusk.

When Building Manager Adam Bradford noticed a distracted worker coming too close to the edge one day he identified this safety issue to Facilities and Environment/Safety/and Health (EHS) staff. Working with EHS’s Matthew Rice, the safety gear that was eventually installed balances the needs for dock work while bringing attention to the safety hazard for pedestrians. Adam’s initiative in identifying the hazard and seeing the resolution through to a successful end has earned him an EHS Safety Recognition Award.

Nominating a fellow employee  for a Safety Recognition Award (formerly Safety Spot Award)  is an important first step in advancing a culture of safety at LBNL. If you see a co-worker taking extra steps to make our workplace even safer, let them know you appreciate their efforts by sending in a nomination through the Safety Award webpage, or handing that thoughtful person a Hero Card (available from [email protected]).

When Cheng Hao Wu, a graduate student in the Materials Sciences Division, began his beam time at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) he found himself needing to clear a space on a workbench, which had on it used KimWipes and beakers that still contained liquid.

Aware of the potential hazard, he took the time to properly dispose of the waste in the chemical room and cleaned the beakers. “Although the beakers were labeled and there were no dangerous chemicals, I could have easily knocked one over or even broken one, since I was assembling rather large equipment on the bench,” says Cheng Hao.

Noticing Cheng Hao’s attention to safety, a colleague presented him with a Hero Card, and he is now the latest winner of $50 in the Hero Card raffle, randomly selected from recent Hero Card recipients.

“Safety is really important in any research activity, even more so for a user facility such as ALS,” says Cheng Hao. “There are so many different users coming and going — it is very important for everyone to clean up their own mess after their experiments. If they don't do it thoroughly, it could really endanger the next user, because the next user may not know what they are dealing with.”

Another Hero Card recipient and raffle winner this quarter was Bianca Bocobo of Human Resources. A big “thank you” to Cheng Hao for stepping up to properly dispose of abandoned waste, and a thank you to colleagues who recognized Cheng Hao’s and Bianca’s extra efforts.

If you see someone safe-ing the day, give them Hero Card! Need a supply? Contact Kat Wentworth at [email protected] or if you need more information contact [email protected]. 

When Jose Soriano, who does construction jobs in the Facilities Division, spotted a bottle of liquid near Building 88 without a label, his instincts kicked in. Uncertain whether the dark substance in the bottle was safe or whether it had been illegally dumped, he stopped shoveling and alerted his supervisor. Jose was concerned that the bottle’s contents could be toxic to the environment or to fellow workers.

“It’s what they teach us,” says Jose, “to make safety the first concern.”

Jose thought first of his coworkers’ safety. But he’s also careful about the environmental dangers possible in such a situation. “Nature is my first call,” he says. “What we do affects everyone.”

Jose performs construction jobs for Berkeley Lab, including trenching, operating a backhoe, and working with concrete. In his 13 years at the Lab, his safety awareness has only increased, he says.

The substance in the bottle was analyzed, found to be a hazardous oil, and disposed of properly. For his attention to safety, Jose was handed a Hero Card. Hero Cards are an easy way to say “good job” for performing positive everyday safe behavior.

Jose registered the card on the Hero Card website which automatically entered him in a quarterly raffle drawing. His was the lucky number pulled, and Jose is $50 richer. The other quarterly raffle winner, Frank Rosado, received a Hero Card for helping a coworker in Building 50 rid a cubicle of a mouse.

Such seemingly simple acts reveal a concern for the safety of others that goes above and beyond a job description. If you know someone who has shown such concern for others, thank them with a Hero Card! If you need a supply of cards, e-mail [email protected]. If you want to learn more about the Hero Card Program, go to the Hero Card website.

For ATAP Division Director Wim Leemans, listening to firsthand accounts of accidents and near-misses “is more powerful than any lessons learned that you get in an e-mail.”

For example, he says, two of his Lab workers shared experiences from previous jobs in industry, where, Leemans says, “laser safety standards were lower than what we have.” Both employees had suffered eye injuries from lasers. Among their details shared with Berkeley Lab coworkers:  When you are struck in the eye with a laser, your vision turns red due to popped blood vessels.

Fortunately, ATAP has an excellent safety record with lasers. “That didn’t come by itself,” says Leemans. “It was by working closely with the laser safety officers, in addition to the deep-rooted safety culture of the folks who use the lasers. We have a strict policy on wearing goggles, which took a lot of education, and that’s where those personal stories come in.”  Wearing goggles can be inconvenient at times, but the stories underscored the importance by providing concrete examples—and making it personal.

Regarding lasers and other hazards, Leemans encourages his staff to share their experiences without fear of judgment or being called clumsy or inattentive. “It takes courage to say, ‘I made a mistake and I don’t want anyone else to do that.’”

A culture that rewards openness, feedback, and the perseverance to dig down for root causes and think about how to generalize solutions can have benefits beyond Berkeley Lab.   Once, an Engineering Division worker in ATAP (then called AFRD) suffered a cut to the head while working with a machine. The machining station had been quiet for a minute or more, and when the worker reached inside the machine to clean it, it suddenly kicked back into gear to change a tool, striking the worker in the head. The two divisions mobilized. “In our safety culture, everyone immediately went to work to find the most robust, engineered way to avoid this happening again,” Leemans says. They worked with the vendor to find a solution. As a result, the manufacturer recommended an interlock system to solve this problem.

“It’s something the Lab as a whole can be proud of, that we have worked with and influenced vendors” by giving feedback on machine operation, says Leemans. “I’m very proud of the way it was handled.”

Besides lasers and machines with moving parts, Leemans’ division also works with radiation sources. When the group wanted to turn a laser beam into an electron beam by shooting it into a plasma, resulting in accelerated charged particles, they turned to the Lab’s Radiation Safety Committee and Radiation Protection Group first. “We told them, ‘We need your help on thinking through how we go from that concept to something we can execute safely,’” Leemans says. Not only were the groups involved in planning, but “they were with us from the first time we produced electrons from the laser beam, on that very night. My approach has always been to bring them in on the ground floor, not when you’re already well-launched in your project. It’s a partnership, with the understanding that if we make a mistake, they can call us on it.”

While Leemans takes pride in his division’s — and the Lab’s — focus on safety, he acknowledges that the job is never done. “You can’t just stop reinforcing safety culture because you feel content or you think everyone understands it,” he says. Each year brings a fresh crop of students and staff. “You must relay those important lessons to the incoming generation.”

Every day, Michael Walling and Janie Morse process incoming packages in Berkeley Lab’s Shipping and Receiving department. But late last year, they spotted a potentially dangerous problem. One vendor’s packages of hazardous materials regularly began to arrive with improper labeling.

“We started noticing inconsistencies and things that didn’t look right regarding the packaging,” says Michael. “We’d have a box with a flammable liquid, which is supposed to have the placard on it. Certain data is supposed to be there. But it would either not be there or covered up.” Such packaging violates Department of Transportation regulations.

Improper labeling of hazard materials can result in worker injury — or worse. “I don’t want myself or anybody else to get hurt handling this material in an unsafe way,” Janie says. 

Both Michael and Janie are Material Handlers whose job includes monitoring packaging. While they could have simply reported the problem, they took the extra step by alerting their shipping expert, Chuck Horton, who immediately recognized the deficiencies. With supervisor Jon Cleveland, he contacted the vendor to work out a solution.

Mike and Janie’s efforts prevented possible mishandling of hazardous material during a spill, leak, or emergency response. For their extra effort, Michael and Janie received Berkeley Lab Safety Spot Awards, which recognize workers for exemplary safety actions and accomplishments.

Eli Dart, a Berkeley Lab network engineer, is adept at spotting and fixing problems in ESnet’s operations. He used his problem-solving skills in an unexpected and potentially dangerous context last year.

“I heard a crash on the walkway below my window,” says Eli. He looked out and saw that a large window had fallen from a floor above his Building 50 office, showering a sidewalk with broken glass. Quickly going down to the walkway, Eli began to divert foot traffic.

“We started coning the area off. An on-site electrician saw us, and brought caution tape so we taped off the area. When building safety members arrived,” says Eli, “I stepped back and let the folks who know how to handle these things do their job.”

For his work to protect fellow Lab employees from a dangerous area littered with broken glass, Eli received a Berkeley Lab Safety Spot Award.

--Photos by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab

Bill Singh is no stranger to safety at Berkeley Lab. In his 6 years here, he’s already received two Hero Cards — which are given out for demonstrating good safety behavior — and a Safety Spot Award. And now, Bill can add “raffle winner” to his list of safety-culture achievements.

A few months back, Singh, a senior recruiter in Human Resources, spotted slip hazards on a walkway near Building 90. “Leaf-blowers had blown foliage onto the hilly stairway leading from Building 90 to Building 55,” he says. This made for a slippery situation, so Bill took action and cleared the branches off the walkway so that others could walk safely. Robert Rodriguez, a fellow senior recruiter in HR, happened to see Bill’s efforts to prevent a slip-and-fall injury, and promptly handed over a Hero Card.

Hero Cards are a way for Lab workers to thank one another for using safety common sense, and for looking out for fellow employees. The size of a credit card, they are passed along when one employee catches another in the act of doing the right thing. And they’re not just a thank-you for a job well done; winners receive a “Safety Is Elemental” pin and can become eligible for a quarterly raffle drawing, with a cash prize.Bill became a raffle winner when his card was recently drawn for the $50 prize. Following instructions on the card, he had registered it at the Hero Card Program website, which made him eligible for the raffle.

Bill is matter-of-fact but serious about Berkeley Lab safety: “The importance of safety is visualized daily, when you start looking for hazards and realizing the things that can cause injury or illness.” When you work at the Lab, he says, “It becomes second nature. You see floor mats flipped over, it becomes a habit to flip them back. You see branches in a walkway, it’s become a habit to move them so nobody will trip.”

And Bill believes in paying it forward. The card didn’t linger in his possession for long. When he one day was chatting with fellow employees, he stepped back, not noticing he was close to a 2-foot drop behind him. He was quickly warned about the situation by colleague Blanca Bocobo, who then became the next owner of the Hero Card. And so it goes.

Another $50 raffle winner was Helen Budworth of the Life Sciences Division. She verified that cryostat users were trained and the cryostat service technician was working with a valid SJHA.

Do you have a Hero Card that’s gathering dust? Pass it along! Carry a card with you, and when you notice a fellow Lab worker doing the right thing for safety, thank them with a Hero Card. Would you like a supply of Hero Cards to give out? Click here. More than 250 Hero Cards have been given out so far.

Sometimes the barrier to a healthy safety culture may not be in the lab but in your assumptions.

Prof. Monte Helm had some trepidation about doing research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He feared a “government-run laboratory with inflexible rules instituted by someone with no experience working with dangerous compounds,” he says. But Helm, a chemistry professor at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, had an entirely different experience at PNNL. And he brought that inspiration back to enhance his own laboratory.

 “It was the opposite of what I expected. PNNL's implementation of safety rules helped our research move forward in a safe and effective way. My experiences at PNNL led me to consider how I could implement similar safety rules and procedures at my Fort Lewis lab." Helm had suspected that his students did not follow rigorous safety procedures. After his national lab experience, he determined to change that.

Helm presented his observations recently to postdocs at PNNL, which published his findings in a Lessons Learned. Among the changes he says he brought back to his research group:

• The determination to improve their safety culture. When in the lab, students are now required to:
  • Use PPE: eye protection, lab coats, gloves
  • Work in fume hoods with the sashes set correctly
  • Follow standard lab rules.
  • Remind others if they are not following safety rules.

Helm, now a senior scientist and deputy director of the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis at PNNL’s Physical Sciences Laboratory, cites other lessons learned from his national laboratory experience:

• Top-down. In any lab, safety culture starts with the principal investigator, who must:
  • Remove obstacles to safe practices by making safety equipment readily available.
  • Inculcate the importance of safety culture into lab workers’ — and students’ — behavior. At his college lab, Helm says, “only about 10%” of postdocs arrive with proper safety culture awareness.
  • Supervise. Helm’s PNNL EHS representative shadowed him. “She was invested in keeping the lab safe, not inhibiting my progress. It’s important to know somebody is watching out for you.”
• Responsibility. Safety violations can have great impact and affect a wide range of people. At a university, researchers may feel they have more freedom to experiment without restrictive safety rules, Helm says. But in his national lab experience, safety rules enabled successful research by reducing risks.
  • National lab groups work together closely, watching out for one another.
  • Safety culture creates pride in one’s work.
  • Safety promotes good science.
  • A strong safety culture protects the institution’s reputation.
• Meetings. Safety meetings reinforce protocols.
  • At PNNL, Helm’s group met monthly to discuss safety and recent incidents. At the university, however, “we didn’t sit down and talk about safety or discuss why it’s important.”
  • When accidents happen, they are discussed in meetings. The broader worry at the national lab is, “How can we minimize risk to researchers and create a reputation for doing work safely?”

Note: From PNNL Lessons Learned

Paula Ashley of Environmental Energy Technologies (EETD) was pleasantly surprised when she opened her December paystub. There was an unusual line item: a “Safety Award” for $50. The same thing happened to Sandra Ritterbusch in Nuclear Science.

It turns out both were card-carrying Heroes…and lottery winners.

Last summer, when EETD Grid Integration Group leader Sila Kiliccote was moving in to an office near hers, Paula noticed electrical cords were running on the floor through the middle of Sila’s new room. Paula casually remarked that this was a safety concern, and rearranged cords against a wall herself. For this moment of common-sense and decision-making, Sila handed Paula a small blue card, about the size of a driver’s license. It says “A Super Thank You!” on the front. It was one of Berkeley Lab’s Hero Cards.

Sandra earned her card for pointing out an unfortunately common practice: employees were taking a shortcut outside the crosswalk connecting Building 50 to the bus stop at Building 65. Sandra had done it herself, and the last time she did, she turned an ankle on some uneven pavement. NSD Safety Coordinator Martha White commended her for her forthrightness and handed her a Hero Card for identifying the problem. Not long after that, the Lab installed a railing to guide pedestrians toward the crosswalk. “I guess you can call it the Ritterbusch Railing,” says Sandra.

There are 225 Hero Cards waiting in the wallets of participating Lab employees, and they are ready to hand one over to you on the spot. On the back of each card, recipients are asked to register its assigned number on the Hero Card Web site, hero.lbl.gov. After Paula and Sandra did so, they were each mailed one of the Lab’s “Safety is Elemental” lapel pins. Their registration also automatically enrolled them in a drawing for the two $50 prizes.

The Hero Card program was launched last summer as an initiative of the Safety Culture Work Group, a Labwide program sponsored by Deputy Laboratory Director Horst Simon and the EHS Division to build and advance safety culture among employees at home and in the workplace. They are the group that organized the creative effort that produced the Safety is Elemental theme. They also provide those gold lapel pins. More than 960 have been distributed so far.

Work Group Chair Mike Ruggieri has been monitoring the Hero Card program. “We wanted to wait to announce this to the lab community until we saw if the Hero Card program had legs, and we learned that it does,” he says. The program started with 250 cards, each with a unique tracking number. Thus far, 225 cards have been distributed to volunteers who requested them. A recent survey found that 89 of those cards were subsequently handed-out, or “awarded,” to other employees for their good deeds.

Here’s where the program gets interesting: Once someone has been awarded a hero card, they are asked to “pay it forward.” That means handing it over to someone else, to award them for good practice or safety awareness. That new recipient then has an opportunity to pay it forward as well. Of the 89 cards, 23 have been awarded again a single time; two have been paid forward twice; and two cards have been paid forward three times. That’s a total of 122 exchanges, or 122 good deeds recognized.

Date: 1/14/14

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Date: 1/10/14

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Berkeley Lab’s Users Machine Shop, where scientists build their own parts for experiments at the Advanced Light Source, was once thought of as the most likely place for a workplace accident. Not anymore.

Since taking charge of the shop in 2010, mechanical technician Kurt Krueger reorganized its operations, revamped the safety training program, and imposed his own brand of tough love. “Not in my shop, not on my shift,’’ he says. “It’s that simple.”

The Users Machine Shop is an essential resource for scientists who may need to cut a jig or fashion a fitting for their beamline experiments. The shop has metal lathes, milling machines, band saws, and grinders. Powerful, sharp, and fast, these machines can slice and shave stainless steel, copper, and aluminum; and in the hands of untrained scientists have the potential to cause serious injury.  Krueger, who built race cars before joining Berkeley Lab in 2001, brings to work 40 years of machine shop experience. “If I tell you ‘Don’t do it like that,’” he says, “It’s probably because I’ve seen it done like that before. And the results weren’t always good.”

Before he took over, staffers and students who wanted to use the machine shop were handed a copy of shop procedures, told to read it, and more or less given the keys to run the equipment. Now they have to complete a course with a quiz, keep the place shipshape, and follow off-hours rules that, for example, forbid them to work alone. “It’s like scuba diving. You have to have a buddy,” says Krueger, a scuba diver himself.

As hard-nosed as Krueger can be, this wiry former motorcycle racer has a ready smile and an infectious enthusiasm for the job and respect for the scientists he works with. When he raced motorcycles (“It’s a younger man’s sport”), he volunteered for safety squad and literally carried around a book of rules.  Now he keeps the shop procedures in his back pocket. If challenged, he had a ready answer: “Let’s read it together.”

Krueger knows he has something to teach and prefers friendly persuasion to “assuming the authoritarian position.”  He has earned the respect of the scientists who use the shop, and received a Spot Award earlier this year in recognition for the safety culture improvements he has championed. The award is good, but Krueger also finds a deep satisfaction with his mission: “I like to do things that promote longevity,” he says.

A recent partnership between Berkeley Lab ergonomic experts and scientific researchers resulted in custom-designed equipment. With collaboration and a nominal monetary investment, Lab workers now can adapt to the difficult positions required to work on uncommonly shaped equipment.

Read more about this ergonomic partnership

When a graduate student injured herself while using a wrench, Division Director Ali Belkacem visited the Lab to share personal safety tips he learned from being in similar scenarios. This commitment to safety, from the director down, is an important component of the Division's culture.

Read more here