Director of Safety, BME Family of Companies

ROLE OVERVIEW

The Director of Safety leads a proactive safety program across BME, Bertke, and Survoy's, built on a simple belief: safety is created before work begins, not measured after something goes wrong. The role combines proven safety programs, advanced technology, and well-maintained equipment with a strong Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) framework, human performance principles, and behavior-based safety. This proactive, data-driven approach reduces risk, protects our people, and delivers consistent, high-quality results for our customers.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead a Culture Change

• Reset the safety culture from reactive and compliance-driven to proactive, human-performance-based, and field-owned.
• Establish safety as a core operating value owned by field leadership, not the safety department alone.
• Serve as a visible, credible safety leader through regular, hands-on job-site presence and engagement with crews.
• Coach supervisors and service managers to lead safety conversations, recognize good catches, and hold the line with respect.

• Proactive Hazard Mitigation & Human Performance

• Build a proactive program centered on identifying and controlling high-energy and life-critical hazards before work begins (serious injury and fatality prevention).
• Implement human and organizational performance (HOP) principles and error-reduction tools such as pre-job briefs, job hazard analysis, take-2 and take-5 checks, and verified critical controls.
• Champion energy-based hazard recognition and ensure crews can identify, isolate, and control hazardous energy on every job.
• Own the equipment-for-safety agenda: evaluate and upgrade PPE, tools, and clothing so crews are the best-equipped in the trade.
• Empower and reinforce stop-work authority for every employee. Anyone can stop a job, no questions asked.

• Behavior-Based Safety

• Implement a data-driven behavior-based safety (BBS) program that focuses on workers' actions and their consequences, targeting at-risk behaviors and reinforcing safe ones.
• Establish systematic, routine observation of employees performing tasks to identify both safe and at-risk behaviors.
• Identify and prioritize the critical behaviors with the highest potential to cause an accident or injury.
• Provide immediate, constructive feedback and recognition to encourage safe behavior and correct unsafe acts.
• Engage employees at all levels in the program to build ownership and accountability for safety.
• Use observation data to continuously refine interventions, training, and processes over time.

• Field Engagement, Inspections & Stand-Downs

• Run routine job-site safety inspections and audits across all Bertke locations, and establish a cadence and oversight model for BME and Survoy's site visits.
• Lead safety stand-downs and stop-work events to reset focus after a near-miss, a trend, or a high-risk phase of work.
• Implement daily and weekly job briefings (tailboard talks) and toolbox talks across all operating companies.
• Partner with operations leaders so field leadership conducts inspections and engagement on a routine, expected basis.

• Training & Development

• Build a proactive training program that goes beyond required certifications to the skills that prevent the next injury.
• Ensure OSHA 10 completion for all field employees and maintain the broader training matrix by role and hazard.
• Deliver and coordinate hands-on, task-specific training and develop field leaders as safety coaches.
• Use lessons learned and incident findings to drive targeted, just-in-time training.

• Learning & Continuous Improvement

• Lead incident investigations and post-event learning using a learning-team and after-action approach focused on understanding, not blame.
• Drive root-cause analysis and verify that corrective actions actually reduce risk.
• Build a near-miss and good-catch reporting culture where reporting is expected, easy, and never punished.
• Capture and share lessons learned quickly across crews and across BME, Bertke, and Survoy's.

• Measurement & Compliance

• Track and report both leading indicators (inspections, behavior observations, training completion, near-miss reporting, control verification) and lagging indicators (EMR, TRIR, OSHA recordables, incidents).
• Own and administer the KPA safety system as the system of record.
• Ensure compliance with OSHA, NFPA 70E, and state and local regulations across OH, KY, IN, and TN.
• Create and maintain safety policies, procedures, and SOPs that reflect how work is actually done.

• Client & External Engagement

• Serve as the safety point of contact for client onboarding, audits, and prequalification.
• Maintain prequalification standing and represent our safety performance credibly to customers and partners.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Required

• 7+ years of industrial or electrical safety experience.
• Demonstrated experience building or transforming a proactive, human-performance-based safety culture, ideally gained at a mature, safety-led organization (for example, American Electric Power, Lewis Tree Service, APi Group, or similar).
• Hands-on experience implementing behavior-based safety (BBS) or observation programs.
• Strong working knowledge of OSHA regulations and NFPA 70E.
• OSHA Authorized Trainer.
• Minimum 2 years of leadership or supervisory experience.
• Ability to complete OSHA documentation and reporting.
• Valid driver's license with a clean driving record.
• Willingness to travel regularly to job sites.

• Preferred

• Bachelor's degree in Safety, Engineering, Construction, or a related field.
• Formal training in Human & Organizational Performance (HOP/HuP) or serious-injury-and-fatality (SIF) prevention.
• Professional certification (CSP, ASP, CHST, or equivalent).
• First Aid and CPR certification.
• Experience supporting multi-state operations.
• Experience building safety programs from the ground up.

KEY ATTRIBUTES FOR SUCCESS

• Proactive by nature: anticipates and mitigates risk rather than reacting to it.
• Culture-builder: can change how people think about safety, not just what they sign.
• Human-performance mindset: thinks in terms of behaviors, tools, conditions, and learning, not blame.
• Driven, motivated, and resilient: sustains change in a growing, multi-company environment.
• High emotional intelligence and people-first: safety because we care, not because we fear.
• Credible in the field: respected by technicians and leaders alike.
• Holds others accountable with respect: firm on standards, fair with people.