Systems Over Signs: How James Ferrell is Engineering Out Workplace Hazards

Speaker A: Instead of saying, hey, we're going to have a campaign saying don't reach into machines, which we all know is not going to work, how about we go and look at the machines and figure out why they're jamming up and redesign them or redesign the belts or whatever it is, whatever that cause was, redesign that so it doesn't keep jamming up.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Canary Report, the podcast where risk leaders, safety professionals and operational executives come for real world stories and smarter strategies to keep people safe. I'm your host, Michael Zao. In each episode I sit down with exceptional leaders who are transforming how risk and safety are managed. Whether you're a leader of a nationwide EH&S program in a high risk industry or you champion workplace safety across 200 retail locations, this podcast is for you. Let's get into it. Welcome to the Canary Report podcast where risk leaders, safety professionals and and operational executives come for real world stories and smarter strategies to keep people safe. I, um, am your host, Michael Zhao, the founder and CEO of Yellowbird. Today I have James Farrell. He is the senior Director of Security and Safety at Purdue Farms. James comes from a amazing background and I will tell you all about it and we'll talk about it, but a little bit about Purdue Farms and James as an individual, why we should listen to what he has to say because he, he has immense experience and knowledge but most importantly, he's working for an organization that has a hundred year history of family ownership, their mission rooted and responsible food production. He is one of the most respected men in safety in general and they are one of the most respected companies in food and agriculture for over a hundred years. As I mentioned, they're a global leader in non antibiotic ever proteins which is fantastic. Organic agriculture, animal welfare innovation and sustainable farm partnerships. So welcome James and thank you for joining us.

Speaker A: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

Speaker B: Thank you again. So I guess first and foremost we are an industry and we are a company at Yellowbird, but also we're an industry of humans first. And I always like to start off by understanding the human being I'm talking to before I talk about what you do for work. So James, tell us a little bit about your upbringing, your journey, career and otherwise, family, kids, whatever you'd like to share with us. But I'd really love to hear about you, so don't be bashful.

Speaker A: No problem. I'll give you the, uh, quick pitch. So I grew up in central Florida and there's a lot of parts of Florida, it's a big state. I Grew up in the rural park. So my neighbor had 10,000 acres of cattle farm. So people think beaches and south beach, but I lived in the country, uh, way out in the middle of nowhere. So kind of grew up that way, you know, a bunch of farming. So when it came time to go to college and get out of the small town type mentality, the military was something that interests me and it seemed like a way to start that path. So I was really looking at ROGC and different things like that, but got some really good advice and ended up going out to the um, United States Air Force Academy in Colorado. So one of those critical decisions that I made in my life to head out there and I plan to go out there and get the best education I could and serve my country and then get out and do something else. That was kind of always my thought. But I got out there and you know, plans change. You never quite know what you're going to do. And then I ended up becoming a pilot out of the Air Force Academy. So uh, spent 15 years active duty, another six in the reserves after that into, I lost count, 85, 86 countries across the world. So somewhere in that mindset, um, lived in all over the place as far as Tokyo. Lived in 13, 14 different states. So just a long career. Met my wife while I was in pilot training. So we're going on 25 years this year, so it's pretty amazing.

Speaker B: Congratulations. I am as well, 25 years with my wife as well. So congratulations. That's fantastic.

Speaker A: But the difference with me is I've still got little kids. Being in the military, doing what I did, it wasn't the right time to start a family when we got married and did that. So we didn't have our first child till right before our 10th anniversary, um, a couple days before 10th anniversary. So she's turning 15 this year and got a little guy who's 6, so still got a busy family life there, like I said. Yeah. Military wise, I flew, I started out in cargo 130s, uh, flying uh, four engine cargo aircraft in the Pacific. So all over.

Speaker B: What kind of range did those have, out of curiosity?

Speaker A: Yeah, those were medium. So you know, we could make it halfway across the Pacific. So we'd always have to stop in Hawaii, which wasn't bad.

Speaker B: We didn't want to do that. You want to get all the way.

Speaker A: Yeah, tactical. So it all depended on your cargo but thousand 1500 miles type area. And then I transitioned to special operations. So I spent most of my career as a special operations pilot and I Got to be one of the first V22 Osprey pilots in the Air Force. So, uh, the tilt rotor. So I tell people I have startup experience in the military, which is not a normal experience. So did a lot with that. So it was definitely an interesting part of my life. But again, after, you know that at that 10 year point, had my daughter kind of told the military I was going to do one last tour, went out and became an instructor. So I wasn't gone quite as much. I was still working a lot, but I wasn't gone quite as much. And then decided to get out and transition into the business world. I always kind of knew I'd do that, but went that direction just to be home and have a little more control over my life. Just kind of that. So took a job out on the west coast and, um, with Foster Farms, another food company. Had never been in food, never done anything in protein. Learned a lot, spent nine plus years out there and then got the opportunity. I, uh, am now with Purdue Farms. So it's been a world one journey, but that's a little bit about me.

Speaker B: That's fantastic. I mean, we could spend the entire discussion around your experience as a pilot and in all these countries. Now, were you in theater at all? Did you have to serve during a war?

Speaker A: Yeah, I got my wings in July 2001. So September, the world changed. So, uh, going through all training and everything, never thought of anything but September. So I spent pretty much my entire career in some sort of combat role or mission or everything. I mean, that was just the life, you know, after September 2001, the world changed.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, and I've had the honor of having two Air Force retirees on my podcast today. I'm, um, literally back to back, two very distinguished and honored members of our military. So I'm honored to be part of that. Now, the Osprey, I have to ask you, is it as difficult to fly as people say? I've read and seen things on it with the tilt rotors. It goes up like a helicopter. You were in the earliest edition of it. So how was that?

Speaker A: So I didn't do a lot of the development test, but I did all the operational test. So I was on it before it was commissioned as a operational capability. So did a lot of early testing, the test environment to, uh, you know, talking about safety, completely different environment when, when you're testing something that's unproven. So, yeah, I mean, I did do some of that. Was it hard to fly? I mean, every aircraft's hard to Fly. It has its own quirks. Um, it definitely had its challenges. It was brand new. I mean, it was a new way to think. There was most things I tell people I have a startup role in the Air Force is most every big weapon system has a precursor that's pretty similar. It's just a better version of whatever. This was brand new. It was something that didn't have a precursor. So it was really interesting. We brought a community of, uh, fixed wing guys, airplane guys on a community of helicopter guys and we put us all together and said, figure it out. Right? So we spent the first two, three years were figuring it out.

Speaker B: That's amazing. It's funny you should say that. Yellowbird is relatively a startup. You know, we're six years in, but we were playing in an industry that started in 1974. People have solved and addressed, I mean, started before that, of course, but from a regulatory OSHA perspective and the way that things have been done for years and years and years is either flying people around themselves or using, using a consulting, uh, firm to fly them around and have a Rolodex. And it's just been the way it's been done. And then we come in and say, okay, we want to change the way it's done to make it more efficient, make it more all this stuff. And you're right. When you don't have anybody doing it like you before, like, we are way better than we were three years ago. Just because the iteration of just, okay, well, that didn't work. And so, uh, it's interesting to hear, even at a level that you were playing with, that, you know, the plane and learning and iterating. It's like every weapon system is a better version of the last one. The first one is always a little sketchy. Right?

Speaker A: You're right on it. And it's interesting because I think it shapes my philosophy now a lot of, uh, because I was in a giant bureaucracy, right? A lot of people talk about how to get through the bureaucracy, but doing something innovative in a bureaucracy, and I think that's something that we all fight is keeping that innovation alive and being able to see the potential. People lose that when they get in big organizations. They just become a cog instead of, hey, we can really change. And that gave me an experience early in my life that, uh, hey, even in a big organization, you can change and do something really innovative. And that's kind of what we try to keep pushing for because that's again, just like you said, you got to do things different. If you really Want to change the game.

Speaker B: So it's interesting. So earlier his conversation was a gentleman named Justin, and you'll hear his podcast later. So I won't give anything away, but his passion is actually for. He is a DIY drag racer and he builds these 1100 horsepower, normally aspirated Mustangs, but they're not even Mustangs anymore. They're. They're shells of, uh, what? They look like a Mustang, but they're shells of a Mustang. But he said, you know, the safety and the process and the inspections and the guidelines. And it's funny because I've noticed a through line. And he was in the Air Force and he was actually on the environmental side. He was actually an environmental EHS professional in the Air Force. But the guidelines and the structure and the checking things and making sure you're right. And he said there is a through line there. You find even those who are kind of adrenaline junkies or enjoy a little bit of risk doesn't mean that they are unaware of what's necessary to stay safe. And I've seen it in our industry a lot. Like, it's been interesting. Right. So how did you end up. So you started on the west coast with Foster Farms, and then you ended up going over to where you are. How did that occur? Like, what was the journey that brought you over?

Speaker A: It's kind of a short journey, but. So when I joined my predecessor, I've been lucky, both the, uh, roles I've taken in the corporate world. My predecessor was still with the company when I joined. So when I joined Foster Farms, the person I was replacing was still there. And he got to mention mentor me. And he introduced me to who the director was out at Purdue as an industry contact. I, uh, learned about the industry. So we became friends. We talked a lot throughout. And fast forward many years later, when he was ready to retire, he reached out and said, would you be interested in potentially looking at this position? I'm going to retire and I want to bring somebody that I, uh, trust to continue my legacy. And the Purdue legacy, as you mentioned, over 105 years. It's a long legacy, and we all are very protective of the legacy. So it was networking, right, to get to my current role, kind of work through that and keep those opportunities open. And it was the right time. Foster Farms had just been. They had went through an acquisition and they had went to a private equity firm. They were a family company when I was working with them. Um, so it was a natural time to leave too.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And you know, every business, including Mine, I can say with great confidence. I can see three distinct chapters in just the six years that we've been around. The true startup component of just figuring out who you actually, it's almost like, uh, raising a child. You're just trying not to stumble and kill yourself. Your parents are running around making sure you don't hit your head on all the sharp objects. And then you get the adolescent stage of, all right, we're figuring it out. And then all of a sudden you get into maturity, or at least you pretend you are, and you actually start figuring it out. And it's interesting because that happens with family owned businesses a lot. It really does. Because when you are in that mature stage, at some point people want to retire, people want to take their money, they want to enjoy their lives. And it's natural to do, but it does change the culture for sure. So in the world that you're living in, and I have a few statistics, and you can certainly correct me if I'm wrong, but when you came to this organization, it was relatively stable, but had some things that wanted to accomplish. Your predecessor was exiting, you were coming in, you came from a 210 facility, 210 location, Foster Farms, that you're responsible. And now you're moving into one of the most iconic brands and you are figuring out how to go through this environment. What was it like? And, uh, now where are you from an operational perspective in the business? A lot of people aren't familiar. A lot of people know Foster Farms, of course, but Purdue Farms, I imagine people that go to Whole Foods know it, or people who go to some of the other organic places know it well.

Speaker A: So Purdue Farms and Foster Farms were very similar. West coast, east coast version. Purdue's much bigger and I would say on the east coast in that area, it's well, well known and respected. It's a bigger company than Purdue. It kind of depends on which coast you're on to some degree that.

Speaker B: Well, I'm from California, so it tells you something, doesn't it?

Speaker A: Yeah, you know, being out west, that's what you hear. But on the east coast, it has more staying power and it means a lot. So that legacy, uh, was important. But I think back to your question, you know, what do we want to do? Right. The company was a great company, has been a great company. The family, uh, again, Jim's still there around. Ryan and Chris are there. A lot of the family's still involved. So we see the family and that legacy lives daily in our organization. So what did we want to Achieve well, we were a great company and again I wouldn't have taken the role. I knew that my predecessor and he had done a great job, job well respected in the industry, but the company we now we have this vision to be not just a great food manufacturing, but be great in manufacturing. And that's all aspects and we're leading through safety because we know leading through safety will achieve all the outcomes we want. If you can truly be safe and do safe operations, everything else just has to happen. Like you can't be truly safe and not be high quality and be efficient and be productive. All those things have to happen to really be safe. Your machines can't be breaking down and you be safe. You can't have jam ups and be safe. You can't have things going off the rails. So you have to do all those things to be safe. So we really look through of that's one of the ways to make us that uh, transformation. So that's really the big difference. It's not anything was wrong. We just want to be even better. And we, we know to do that it's not going to be an incremental change, it's going to be a step change. So we are really looking at everything and going through a, uh, major transformation to get to that next great level. And we're honestly leading that through. Safety is one of the main ways that we're going to drive that and lead it.

Speaker B: I love that, I love it for so many reasons, including the lens that you can't do things in poor quality and do them safely. You have to do high quality and do them safely. And you have to do things safely to get high quality. And a lot of people do not understand that. They may not realize that in their mindset.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think from our perspective, you know, here at Purdue, we think about it as to really be safe, you have to build a great process and you have to really build a great process that's supported by great engineering, all those things. So you get all those other things to really be safe. So again, we're not trying to band aid things. We're not trying to put, put programs in. We're trying to really be safe. So fundamentally get down to the root of what we do and rebuild it up to be great. And if we look at it from a safe lens, you know, if we make it safe, it has to be all those other things. So that's kind of where we keep focusing and pushing. So it's a great place to be. It's a lot of Pressure. A lot of work.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Especially when you're sitting there. But it's such a great message.

Speaker B: I think it's a great way of thinking about any business, not just yours, but of course, produce such a. Well, uh, recognized and such a respected brand that it's great to see you doing it at scale. So, as I wrote in the notes when we had our first chat, you added kind of a modern HOP mindset. And one of the things that I thought was interesting was how you look at the revitalization of human operational performance. And what are some of the things that you've really kind of leaned into as a leader to fully embrace the HOP principles?

Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, a lot of this just kind of takes me back, you know, aviation systems approach and thinking about how everything influences that. So, again, that's where we try to drive at the company. Again, to really fix stuff, we have to be a learning organization, continuous improvement. And that's what hop's about. Right? Hop's about learning, and it's about how do we learn better, quicker to build capacity. And not just capacity and prevention, but also resilience. Things are going to happen. We all know that things are going to happen. How are we going to be resilient when they do happen so people still don't get hurt. Right. So we can fail safe, we can succeed safe and fail safe both, because they're both going to happen. And we just recognize that. So we really think about what we're going to do is we build all our philosophy based on that thinking. That HOP mindset of we're taking a systems approach. We got to dig down to the base level, redesign it to be a better process, but also know that process is going to fail. So put in the capacity and the strength to be able to survive, you know, to be resilient and not have an injury, especially a serious injury.

Speaker B: Can you give an example before we go to the next. So can you give us just a practical example, just for those who aren't familiar? Yeah.

Speaker A: I mean, here's a practical example of thinking of that, of our mindset shift, reaching into machines and fingertip, you know, whether it's amputations or injuries are, uh, a major issue within the industry. Lots of machinery, which meat goes into, and the machine is meant to cut meat. So your fingers are meat, so you get them. Those don't mix. Right. Well, you know, if you really look at, you know, if you have an injury and this isn't being proactive, but we'll just talk about on the reactive Side you have an injury, something like that happens, it's really easy to stop that. That don't reach into the machine. And yeah, that's probably true. We already have that rule.

Speaker B: No, he said they should plan that. Uh, right.

Speaker A: But that's not a good mindset. That's not going to solve anything. So, again, in a hot mindset, we might go through, um, why were they reaching the machine? Well, maybe the meat was jamming up and it wasn't flowing through. Right. Well, if it's jamming up, that's not how the machine's designed. So what's going on there? Let's dig into why that context of they did that and work on that. So instead of saying, hey, we're going to have a campaign saying reach into machines, which we all know is not going to work, how about we go and look at the machines and figure out why they're jamming up and redesign them or redesign the belts or whatever it is, whatever that cause was, redesign that so it doesn't keep jamming up. And now we're preventing that reasoning that they were reaching into the machine because they're just trying to help. They're just trying to make work happen, and we know that. So we've got to make work better for them so they don't have to do that. So that's the mindset shift, right? Is we push that down to the people at the floor of. Don't just say, don't reach in the machine. Don't think about why, and get to that context of the system. Um, what created that. You control that.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: You can turn that work order in, you can turn that machine off till it gets fixed. And we give people the power to do that and then ask and demand that they do that. Right. Don't blame them. Figure out what we can control and fix it.

Speaker B: Exactly. That's such a powerful way of looking at it. It's funny. One of my favorite exercises in life, not just in my business, but we do, is the five whys, you know, And I don't know if you've ever been through any, but asking five whys, you know, you can get to the crux of almost any. It's like, oh, well, why were you on the ladder? Well, because the lights were out. Well, why was the light out? Well, because maintenance didn't replace the light bulb. Okay, well, why didn't they replace the light bulb? And you keep asking the why five times. In general, it's like, oh, well, we don't have these lights on a maintenance Cycle. So you had to grab a ladder when you weren't supposed to and get up there and fall off and you know, like the whole combination of the whys. And I think it's really smart. I think it's a great practice. It really is.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that's where it goes back to good business. Right. Because you create better PMs in that situation. Your machines are going to run better. Guess what, your uptime's better. Right. You get all these great benefits out of doing it. Building safer work.

Speaker B: Absolutely. So we acknowledged it's you've got quite a large organization. And I will full disclosure, James and I both just found out that there is an opportunity that we're working on with you guys. I checked right before we came in here and there's a, you know, lockout tag out deal that we're working and I'm excited about that. But neither one of us even knew it. So that's kind of a nice thing to find out right before we get on. But it was somewhere in Iowa, I believe. But tell me about your infrastructure. Like where are you guys? Like I would have been surprised. I know of Iowa. That's the only place that I'm very well aware of. But tell me about more of your sites.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'll give you a little. Purdue's an interesting company. So we're a completely vertically integrated company, which people will say that, but I'll explain it here real quick. So we have two big sides of the business. We have a meat side, food production side and we have a grain side. So we've got about 20,000 employees, mostly U.S. based, a little bit of Canada based in Salisbury, Maryland. And but what we do is we have this grain side. So this grain side originates with local farmers. They know they're farmers. And mostly here in the mid Atlantic and the Carolinas we're taking grain from the farmers. So we're working with farmers. We receive their grain, buy their grain from them. So we know those farmers. Then we take and process that grain, whether it's we're going to process it into soy meals, uh, corn meals, things like that. Potentially one of the biggest customers for our grain side is our food side. But we also sell to a lot of other companies and we also process that. We're one of the largest organic oil producers in the U.S. so we have oil refineries and do that. So we're taking that and even taking that to some of our great valued customers that are making organic potato chips or organic salad dressings, all that kind of Stuff. So we're supplying into those markets too, but we're also taking a good portion of that grain and then going and feeding our different animals. And we're in multiple and people know us as a chicken company, but we got turkeys and pork and beef and lamb and uh, we got a little bit of everything out there. So we have that. And then you get the whole integration process on that side from we'll talk a chicken. You have to hatch an egg. So you have a hatchery. You have to move those eggs to one of our farmers. Our farmers, you know, we have some company owned farms, but most of them we partner with local farmers in our area. So family farmers, they're raising those. And well, we got to take them back. We have to help feed them. So we're making feed. So we have a whole feed area that's making feed. Then you get to the processing. So you process them. Well, you might sell them in your store as raw chicken, but you also might make chicken strips. And so we have that side of the business do it going further processing. And then with that you got logistics at every stop. So on the grain side we have a port, we have trains, we have interbank barges. On the other side, you know, we have specialty carrying live birds, things like that. So specialty freight, we have refrigerated freight carrying final products. So kind of managing all that too. And then a lot of, you know, different, you know, we got the pet food areas making pet food and different things. They're all kind of variations of the same. But we go all the way from the farmer growing grain all the way to shipping it to the store in a refrigerated truck. So managing all that across that, it's a pretty special organization. Over 20,000 associates making it happen every day. And from a, uh, corporate standpoint, it's interesting because we can't just think about the plants, we can't just think about the grain. We have to think about it all and building a corporate culture. We have to make things that work everywhere and we have facilities that have two people in them. You know, a small little grain receiving spot might have two people, but we also have facilities that have 2,000 people. So we gotta have things that work for both. So it's a definitely a, uh, interesting business.

Speaker B: It's interesting that you should say that because I keep finding and it. I did not expect this in today's conversation. I'm finding the likenesses between our businesses and there weren't any in my head when we started other than the commitment to safety, excellence and the commitment to serving our fellow human being. That does the job. But, uh, it sounds to me like you've got everything from different state and local osha. You've got environmental, you've got Department of Transportation and transport, because now you've got trains and trucks and different things. You've got manufacturing, but you've got ag. You probably have more than most complex pieces, you know, because we're always trying to solve for. I always say that you take 20 different CSP certified safety professionals that are part of the BCSP community and you put them in a row and you say, how many of you have a csp? And they all raise your hand. You're like, okay, how many are in agriculture? And 1 raises or 2? How many is in trucking? How many is confined space? How many is at heights? And like these hands are all over the place. And you're like, yeah, safety people are all the same. Like, like, sure they are. Look at the, like they all on paper. Look, they have the same degree. They are not the same. And you're dealing with that at a corporate level where you really have these various things. So how do you execute training programs and policies and all that kind of stuff? How's it being done today?

Speaker A: It's definitely a challenge. I would say the overarching philosophy is, you know, I look at my role as the cultural steward and the resource steward, so. And that's what I'm spending my time on. But from a company standpoint, we do a lot of collaborative building when we build processes. So we just revamped our hazardous energy control program as part of our SIF campaigns. And again, it wasn't bad. We just wanted to make it better and we brought a cross function. So we spend a lot of deliberate effort to make sure we represent the different parts of the organization to come together to build things when we build them. So it might take a little longer, might be a little more difficult, but make sure that everybody talks and understands the different environments. Again, again, think back to the hot principles, right? The context, the environment matters. And we think about that when we're building even programs like, is this going to work everywhere? How's it going to be working? And then what we try to do is we try to write stuff as flexible as possible. We have high standards and we set our standards and we're not scared to set our standards. We don't write programs that are just osha. We don't just copy the law. We write what we're really going to do. And we say, hey, this is our bar. But then we give you a lot of flexibility on how to achieve that bar. So we can make it work in a grain silo versus a production plant and then we're committed to revamping it. Right, because it's never going to work the first time. We're going to get out there, we're going to start it and that's really just being a continuous improvement mindset of hey, let's do it, see how it works. And again, that probably goes back to my, you know, again, startup, uh, you know, you in the startup world, you know, growing up, hey, you got to try stuff and if it doesn't work, you just, just change it. And I don't get in the way of hey, we'll try it. If it doesn't work, we can always change it. We'll say what we're going to do, we're going to try it and we'll listen. So I think having that communication, the logic path worked.

Speaker B: On paper it works. Now let's see if it works in reality. Because on paper this seems like a good plan and 85, 90% of the time it was.

Speaker A: We used to say in the flying world all the time a uh, plan is just a place to start to deviate from. That's all it is. It's your starting deviation point.

Speaker B: I love it. It's funny because, you know what we're spending the most time doing these days at uh, Yellowbird is we're actually doing a lot of monthly surveys on the same thing to track progress. And I never thought that was going to be part of our business at all. But if you can take a hundred locations and monthly have people following up just one day a month, but to a hundred sites at the end of the year you're going to have 1200 data points and really see in reality, okay, did this actually do what we thought we were going to do? The way it's always been done is you fly people around and spot check because it's economically impossible to be able to check all hundred sites within 12 months and get any real data. And so I think people are realizing like being able to go on a site for four hours once a month, it's a powerful thing. And uh, we always thought we'd be good for training, but I never thought the survey side. So from a practical perspective, overarching. Well, I guess our uh, first question is I imagine being your scale and size and family owned, are you self insured, you guys, are you a captive?

Speaker A: We're Not a captive. But we're self insured for sure.

Speaker B: Yeah, you're self insured. So obviously dollar saved is a dollar earned in that world and making sure people are operating successful. And by the way, that is the most motivating thing you can possibly do is be self insured because you find out real quickly how important it is to have good policies and programs because you want everybody to be safe. And you certainly, if they're not safe, you want to make sure that you fix it. But it's also not the company's. The company did the right things as much as humanly possible. I'll leave it at that. Because again, I'm not a big shaming kind of a guy. Uh, I'm always about progress. So what have you found to be kind of the overarching in your experience there? Like, is there any like overarching risk that surprised you that you're like, you know, what if we solve for this and I'll give you an example, I'll probably lead the witness a little bit, to be honest with you. But we find that forklift training is one of those things. But also dot if distracted driving training and having telemetry on company vehicles for speed and distracted driving and using of cell phones and things like that made a material difference, can make a material difference. Was there any finding or anything that has been one of those without calling the baby ugly or disclosing anything?

Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm a giant data guy. I love data. But this question is always one of those that it's never been hard. Right. It's easy to go figure out. You come to a company like ours, it's easy to figure out what our big hazards are and where they are. And so we go through them, especially with our focus on significant injury and fatalities. We focus on one at a time, just saying, hey, we're going to take one giant energy source and right now we're working on hazardous energy. So we're working on hazardous energy and we're kind of working on uh, IT this year. We take multi prongs, we put a team together and we say what are all the different things we could do to try to make it better and sustain it better?

Speaker B: Define a hazardous energy for the listeners.

Speaker A: So control of hazardous energy, so your lockout programs and those. But you know, we're trying to use the overarching terms and we just try to work on different things that are going to move the needle and make sure they take, uh, you know, and again, you were talking about auditing and one of the things I think in the safety profession we did for a long time. So we put out great programs. Again, on paper, they seem to be perfect. And we'd say, okay, go, execute. And we train everybody and say, go, do. And then we never looked at them again until we had an incident. And we go, oh, well, we put that out, but it didn't work, or, uh, nobody did it. Right. And we got to make sure we

Speaker B: implement things or they send surveys to the person running the plant. It's like, how do you think they're going to rate how they're doing?

Speaker A: Right? So I think that's something. But we look at those. So, again, nothing's been that surprising. Again, we can walk in and go, we know. And that's. Again, you talk to workers and they know what the big hazards are. Right. You know, we looked at electrical, and that was more specialized in our maintenance in those folks. But we have a lot of equipment in our different areas. So electrical hazards were big. Just general lockout. Uh, things are going wrong. I mean, you get as many facilities as we have different types, all the different types of equipment. So that's been a big one. Next year, we're going to work on fall from heights. You know, just, hey, what are we doing? Again, nothing's wrong, but how do we get better and how do we keep pushing that? So we look at those in our significant injuries and take them and we'll revisit. We've all said it's not over, right? We're not done with this just because we have a program. We've got to continually build capacity and build the ability to be safe.

Speaker B: You know, it's so interesting because those who are not living in the grain and food world as you do. I've been around the industry so much just because of what I've done in my life, but you wouldn't think fall from heights. You're like, oh, well, that doesn't make sense. Well, grain silos are very tall. And so our processing, bringing the machines that bring all of the grain up to the grain silo, and, you know, people are going up and down there and they're checking them. And, like, there are all these heights that people are like, oh, I thought you were growing in the ground. It's like, you are. But it does eventually go pretty high up in the air. Right? It's a good example. And, you know, you look at these machines, you know, and fortunately, I imagine you have the best of the best machines, but machines do age and they do have their challenges. And they're massive. What people don't understand in the ag world and particularly in that some of these trackers and some of These machines are 8 foot tall. Tires, just the wheels and tires are bigger than a human. Right. So it's a fascinating world you live in. I am so grateful for this conversation and I thank you for your honesty and willingness to be on here and just talk about what you're doing. This has been a fascinating discussion. I want to ask you two quick questions, uh, personally. So one, what do you do for fun, like when you're not being the grand poobah of safety at Purdue? Do you still fly? Are you still a pilot and do you fly?

Speaker A: So I haven't flown in a while, but my little son, he's really into airplanes so I'm about to start to get back into it, just start flying him around. So when I left, I was ready to leave for a little while from the fly world, but I'm missing it a little bit, so I haven't done that. Family keeps me really busy, so I'd say that's probably not my top priority.

Speaker B: Well, 15 year old girl will definitely also do that. I have a 16 year old girl and I understand.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I've got those commitments but if I get a few minutes off, I try to go to the golf course every once in a while and do that a little bit. Still like to travel, you know, when I can, you know, take the family. My kids have all had passports by the age of one, so we try to get out and do things like that. So a lot of that, you know, just life. But I'd say recreationally sports and golf is what I kind of get myself into.

Speaker B: Well, we'll have to play, we'll have to swing a club next time we see each other. I'd love to take you out. I'm, I'm a one handed golfer. I don't know if you recall that I was born with disability, but I'm a decent golfer. I'm a 12,7 handicap so I can hold my own. I probably not anymore. I haven't played.

Speaker A: It'd be fun.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'd love that. And uh, I have three questions to say that too. And your wife of 25 years and again, congratulations. What does she do and does she stay home with the kids, which is a full time job? Does she also do other things?

Speaker A: That's basically been her full time job since we've got out. She was a teacher for a long time, but once we had our daughter, she decided to take a break from that and she's been station. She actually homeschools both our children, so she's got a full, full time job.

Speaker B: So she's still a teacher is what you're telling me.

Speaker A: She's still a teaching. Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, that's fantastic. And on the business front, it sounds like you work for a wonderful company, so I would love to come visit you at some point. I know that you're not actually at the headquarters, at the headquarters in Maryland, but it's an honor to represent your company as well as you do and for us to be able to speak about, uh, Purdue Farms. So thank you.

Speaker A: I appreciate Michael and it was a pleasure being on and thanks for what you're doing. You know, sharing the message is important and keep in touch. I'd love to keep in touch and, you know, keep the network up.

Speaker B: We will for sure. Thank you. That's it for today's episode of the Canary Report. If this conversation helped you reframe how you think about risk and safety, please do me a favor. Hit, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with somebody who needs to hear it. We're building a new category of safety and risk leadership, one that's faster and smarter leaders who aren't just empowered by tech, but whose wisdom is accelerated by it. To learn more about how Yellowbird's cutting edge platform is empowering leaders to solve workplace safety and risk challenges faster, smarter, and at scale, visit goyellowbird.com don't forget to subscribe to our Spotify, Apple podcasts and Yellowbird pages to stay up to date. Until next time, lead with clarity. Know first and act fast.