Implementing Proper Fall Protection with David Kozlowsky

Falls in the workplace are one of the leading causes of serious injuries and fatalities.  Citations around the OSHA standards for fall protection have made the top 10 most frequently cited OSHA standards for the last decade. Fall hazard exposures exist in almost every industry and finding the right fall protection solution for your situation is not always easy.  There are many factors that should go into making the right choice. On this episode of the MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast, I speak with David Kozlowsky, President and Owner of Safe Approach in Poland, Maine about his company and the approach they take with fall protection and prevention.   Peter Koch: [00:00:04] Hello, listeners, and welcome to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast, I'm your host, Peter Koch, five thousand four hundred and twenty four. According to a February twenty sixth article in Safety and Health, that's the number of violations or citations in 2020 alone for the OSHA Fall Protection General Requirement standard for construction. And that standard sits at the top of the OSHA top 10 most frequently cited standards for the last 10 years, believe it or not. And if you looked at all the other fall protection related citations listed on the OSHA top 10 like scaffolding ladders and the fall protection training citations, you would get nearly 12000 citations related to fall protection alone for the year 2020. And if we look at beyond citations and look at injuries and how they affect people. Falls, even if you exclude falls on [00:01:00] the same level and just falls from one level to another, so falls from a height. That's one of the leading causes for serious injury and fatalities in the workplace. There are fall hazards in almost every industry or business. And personally, whether it's scaffolding, ladders, anchors, personal fall arrest systems, rope access or rescue. Fall protection training and education make up a huge part of what I do with the businesses that I work with. Well, we wanted to bring on an expert in fall protection to the podcast. So on the line with me today is David Kozlowsky, president and owner of Safe Approach in Poland, Maine. So led by David Safe Approache's team designs and builds a fall protection equipment and harnesses, anchors and lifelines, everything from that to safety netting and custom fall protection, worksite solutions. So, David, welcome to the podcast today. David Kozlowsky: [00:01:52] Thanks, Peter. Glad to be here. Peter Koch: [00:01:54] Yeah, it's fantastic to have you. You know, I've had the pleasure of working with Safe Approach during my time [00:02:00] here at MEMIC. And the team there has always been able to offer some sage advice, as well as design some custom solutions for a number of the policyholders that I've been working with. I think it's an important part of the story to get a little to know, get to know you a little bit more and about the company, because instead of jumping right into, again, right into the fall protection side of things and why it's important, I think it's important to know what your history is. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and the company's background and how you got to where you are today? David Kozlowsky: [00:02:30] Sure. Thanks, Peter. So the company was founded or conceived anyway? I would say right around 1988 ish, the previous owner, Roger, owned a business called Mobile Maintenance, which was kind of like a mobile mill writing maintenance type thing where he would go around to mills or various places and do work on site things that were difficult, either too large or too difficult to actually send out to be repaired. He would go [00:03:00] and had a truck with a lot of machine type tools and stuff and would just go around. And he was actually at a repair job in the town of Lisbon back around 1988ish. And while they were working around an open wet well either he or one of the guys there almost fell in. And so someone made the comment like, oh man, you know, somebody should put a net in this thing or something because it's 30 feet to the, you know, to the pump. And we all know what's at the bottom of a sewage pump station. So to add insult to injury, I guess so here they're like somebody should make a net for this thing or something. And so that's kind of how it was conceived. Incorporated in 1992, brought on some distributors and kind of launched the company from there. So from its very inception, the whole premise of the company was on innovation [00:04:00] and finding ways to help people work safer. As our logo says, sometimes something off the shelf or out of the box just doesn't cut it. And it's easy to have a catalog of, hey, here's my repertoire of harnesses and lanyards or whatever else I sell. But, you know, there's countless different situations that you run into in business where just something out of the box just doesn't cut it. It's not there. And so the company was conceived on that that principle and that concept. And so we've kind of gone from there since 1992. I came on to the company in 1998. I was young. I was twenty five years old. I really didn't know anything about fall protection or anything else, but spent the last 22 years kind of learning my way through it. And I really feel like I'm kind of a  [00:05:00]example that the American Dream is still alive. I started at twenty five, I didn't know anything, but I was willing to learn and willing to work and started out in the shop basically getting dirty, working with my hands, learning how to make stuff, and then kind of from there graduated to turning some wrenches in the field and into sales. And then, you know, ultimately at one point basically being the general manager and kind of running the company. And now here I am. Twenty two years later and I own the business. So it's kind of a neat little story. You know, it's still can happen. People say the American dream isn't alive, but it's there. If you're willing to work hard and you're willing to learn and you're willing to pay your dues. And I think a lot of people don't know the term paying your dues anymore. If you're willing to do it, it's still there. You can do it. So here we are. Peter Koch: [00:05:57] Yeah, that's pretty cool because it's a great story when I [00:06:00] kind of think about it, because you back in 88, there weren't a lot of guidelines. I mean, the fall protection standard was there for OSHA and they told you a bunch of stuff. But I think there's a really great connection there where you said not every out-of-the-box solution is going to work every place. And that's a key part that I talked to policyholders all the time about, well, you know, here you're not following the standards for fall protection like you've got a fall protection exposure right there. How come you're not putting something into that? He said, well, the typical harness solution gets in the way or the horizontal lifeline solution that we could get from the Amazon catalog isn't going to work within this particular space or area. And being innovative around those fall protection solutions, I think is a key part. And it's a great way because you really had to understand what your what the exposures were and then what the company [00:07:00] needed. Not safe approach, but the company you're working with, what they needed in order to make the job not only safe but productive. And I mean, David Kozlowsky: [00:07:09] I think you're right, Peter. You have to really understand No. One, what OSHA's just telling you about, what are the regulations, No. One that you have to follow. And coming up with solutions within those regulations can still be out of the box without, you know, going through some of the traditional methods. You know, one of the things that we've worked on a lot is safety netting and safety netting is just one of those things that there's not a lot of stuff written on it. And you can be very creative and still follow the standards and the guidelines in the spirit of the law that they're giving you. That's where the original product came from. The Hatch ness, that was the first thing. I mean, it was taking something that was not traditionally considered a fall item and turning it into something, [00:08:00] testing it and certifying it and turning it into something. And that was in its infancy. I mean, harnessess weren't even body belts weren't outlawed until nineteen ninety six. I mean so back in, you know when I started it's like it was still kind of in its infancy regulatory wise. And so we carried that, you know, that desire to to be innovative and creative and help people find solutions to stuff, you know, all the way through to today. Peter Koch: [00:08:29] And it is funny how you still find some I don't call it older or maybe it's a traditional understanding about fall protection. Like you said, like body belts weren't outlawed until 1996. But you still find him someplace. You'll go different places and you'll still find people that have that particular tool in their toolbox of solutions that they'll put in place somewhere. And it doesn't really fit. So there's a lack of knowledge in some cases out there. I think OSHA has done a great job at educating [00:09:00] the businesses out there about what is appropriate. But it's a passive type of education that people need to want to get it. And in your case, too, I think I find that when someone approaches you, at least when I've worked with safe approach in the past, there's been an exchange of education. Like you're you're looking for information about what the exposures are, what the workplace looks like, where I'm willing to go. And then you're also taking that and educating me about, well, you know, the solution that you might think is going to work isn't going to work for these reasons. And here is how it fits within the standard. So that education about what's good, what's out there, what's functional, and then why is a big part about what makes safe approach pretty special and then how some of their solutions or some of your solutions work well within the workplace? David Kozlowsky: [00:09:55] Well, there's many different levels of education that takes [00:10:00] place when we go on a site visit. You know, as you mentioned, it's not always just, you know, what are the standards and how do I apply them to this situation? You know, and even in today's day and age, there's still a certain amount of education that takes place to get people convinced that they actually need it, that they actually should have it. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I tell people fall protection is like purchasing an insurance policy. It's one of those things that you hope you never need. And you might come to me and say, well, I've worked around this open hatch for 30 years and I've never fallen in. And I would say, well, if I was an auto insurer, you'd be a bad risk because they the numbers show you're going to probably get in an accident at some point. And if you've been here for 30 years and you haven't yet, there's a good chance you're going to. So just educating [00:11:00] people that, you know, you're not necessarily protecting for the everyday mundane tasks you're protecting for that one in a million shot, that one. And, you know, that thing that never could have happened. It just seems like, oh, this was a one in a million chance. But if that's that one time you're around an open hole and you know it's slippery and you get tangled up in a cord and you turn to look at somebody and you're doing three things at once. And next thing you know, you lose your balance and fall in. And you've done it eight thousand times and every time was perfect and you really don't think you need it. But that one time you need it, you want it to be there and educating people that just because you've done it a million times doesn't mean that there's not some value to protecting yourself. Peter Koch: [00:11:50] And that is a really hard lesson for some folks to swallow without having the experience of having been the victim of that particular [00:12:00] scenario. It happens both ways on my end. So I'll go into a company initially and I'll identify uncontrolled fall hazards that companies have and then on the other hand, I'll go in post accidents and do an accident analysis and help them figure out why it occurred, because someone fell because an unidentified fall hazard, something that they didn't actually take care of. If I compare those two experiences and I have the one company that hasn't had an incident occur, whether it's an injury or just a near miss, they're the ones that are typically harder to convince that you need to put a solution in place. But the ones that have had it happen and especially the ones where it's been, unfortunately, a tragedy, they're the ones that really desire a solution. But it's truly unfortunate that that is the impetus behind people being gung ho about putting a force protection solution in. And you [00:13:00] I think you describe it very well. It's like an insurance policy. So if you put it in place and you maintain it and you install it and you educate around it, then that exposure that exists because of the job and there's no other way to manage that risk. You put those fall protection tools in place. Now you're helping to prevent the tragedy from happening and that's that insurance policy. So that's a cool way of thinking about it, really is. David Kozlowsky: [00:13:27] That's exactly right. I mean, that's what we're trying to educate people, is that don't be the guy that calls me because you had somebody fall off something and you already have an injury. It's like let's , you know, work with this ahead of time. But we've had enough. And you can tell when that happens. I mean, there's been multiple times where in the past during our history, you can tell when you've gotten a call from somebody and you know that they had somebody fall there's an you know, an incident and now they're kind of in a panic [00:14:00] to come and, you know, put something in place. And so we just try to educate people to show them that they need it and in some cases show them that just because you opened up, you know, a catalogue and you see someone's, you know, list of harnesses and whatever, that just because you don't see that doesn't mean that there isn't a solution, that there's sometimes creative ways to come in and fix problems. Peter Koch: [00:14:29] Yeah, let's diverge a little bit, I think this would be an interesting time to talk about this particular topic. And let's talk a little bit about the hierarchy of controls and how it can be used to address fall protection, because I think a lot of people and maybe not some of the folks who are listening to this podcast, because, you know, if you're a safety person, if you were in charge of safety for your company, you don't always or you're not going to start at personal protective equipment as the end all be all for your fall [00:15:00] protection solution. But a lot of folks, that's what they jump to. I want a harness. I want a lanyard and I want an anchor. And when I put that in place, I'm good to go. Boom, I've checked the box. I'm safe. And that's not really where we want to start. So let's can you talk a little bit about maybe the hierarchy, like from elimination to engineering and administrative controls to fall protection and how that fits in with your process of coming up with a solution? David Kozlowsky: [00:15:27] Sure. I mean, when we go to a facility or go to look at a situation, you know, the hierarchy is to No. One to try to engineer out the fall to begin with. If you have a situation where there is a fall hazard, you want to try to look for solutions that engineer that out. So maybe it's a guardrail or something of that nature to take a situation where there is not an opportunity for a person to fall. So that would be at the most preferred [00:16:00] level. And you go down from there to kind of what is in the middle we call kind of a restraint type model where, OK, we can't really engineer out the fall. This isn't an application where we can, you know, put up a bunch of guardrails or put something to prevent people. But we could set up maybe some type of restraint system where you could use fall protection or PPE type equipment to prevent somebody from being able to get to the edge. And then finally, the honestly, what should be the last on the list. As you mentioned, a lot of people jump to first, but which should be last on the list, should be actual fall arrest. But then within that, once you've gone to a facility where, OK, we've ruled out the other opportunities. So we can't engineer out the fall. We can't prevent somebody from getting to the edge. We've determined that we actually do need [00:17:00] some type of fall arrest system. I would say we spend the most amount of time working within this kind of subcategory and that's educating people, the limitations of fall arrest and what you can and can't do with it and when it's appropriate to have something or not, you know, it happens all the time. I'll give you one example without naming any company names or anything. But a number of years ago, I was asked to come in and look at a situation where they had some concrete tanks that they were working on, those precast concrete tanks. And so the tanks were not overly large. They were only about seven or eight feet tall and they had to get on the top of these tanks to work on them. And they called us in and said, hey, listen, we've got this building and we want to put a cable up here so we can, you know, tie off while we're on these tanks. And after a rather long discussion, I basically [00:18:00] tried to educate them, say, listen, this isn't the right application. No. One, this building is extremely old. It's barely engineered to the snow load. I'm surprised it hasn't collapsed yet, much less attaching fall protection to the roof. But you're lucky to be maintaining the snow load in this region with this old prefab building. And you want to string a cable between them and you're only going to be eight feet off the floor. And by the time somebody falls off and the cable stretches out in the lanyard stretches out and all this happens, the person is going to hit the floor long before my system even catches you or arrest the fall. This isn't the right application. You need to do this. But that wasn't the cheapest alternative. And, you know, it was it was sad to see them go and purchase a couple of beam clamps and a cable and put it up there so that if anybody walked through, they could look up and say, [00:19:00] oh, see, we have our fall protection it's in place. We're doing what I supposed to be. But it doesn't necessarily mean it's working. And I would say, you know, going through the hierarchy is one thing, but spending time on helping people find something that's proper and works like it's supposed to is where I would definitely say we spend the majority of our time. Peter Koch: [00:19:25] This is one of the reasons why I liked working with you guys in the past, because. You will spend the time to do the education about a particular propered solution or proffered solution and whether or not the company decides to go with you to purchase the solution that you're recommending for them to put in place, you're still going through the process of educating them and why this is a good spot and not just, hey, here it is. This is this is what's going to work for you. Put it in place or don't put it in place. Whatever you want. You really want to see people succeed. And I think [00:20:00] just from having some conversations with you and knowing the team is there's a real desire within safe approach to not have people hit the ground. I mean, you go back to 1988 and Roger and putting that net in place, I mean, the mentality around many places would have been, well, don't get so close to the edge and you won't fall. Right. Not to think about putting a net in place and and building on that. I think that is a philosophy that kind of flows through safe approach that you really you don't want to see anybody hit the deck. So education's part of that. And determining the right solution is part of that. David Kozlowsky: [00:20:39] It's a tough thing to do to walk into a place and not sell somebody something because what they're wanting to do isn't going to work. It's easy to walk in and say, OK, well, I'll take your money. And here, here's a system. And meanwhile, you know, 10 years down the road, somebody [00:21:00] falls and it fails or doesn't work like it's supposed to. I mean, it's a tough thing to do to sometimes go in there and have to tell people that. But the other side of that is that we've been really successful and really good at coming in and helping people find what would work and helping people, you know, come up with solutions that sometimes are a little bit out of the ordinary or out of the box, to use a cliche. But that's you know, we've been really good at that over the years. And I think that's what's helped us succeed, is working with people to come up with those solutions. Peter Koch: [00:21:39] Yeah, for sure. Can you talk a little bit about some of the fall protection challenges that you've seen over the years that you talked about the one with the concrete tanks? I'm sure that there are plenty of other examples that you might be able to share with us. But I think it's important for people to see that, you know, some of the fall protection needs [00:22:00] aren't just on the construction site or aren't just in a heavy industry like oil or mills, but it exists in many different places. It could be hospitality, it could be hotels, it could be office buildings, depending on what you're doing. So could you share some of them? Maybe the fall protection challenges that people have come to you with and maybe some of the solutions that you've been able to offer? David Kozlowsky: [00:22:25] Sure. That's one of the unique things. You're right, Peter, about fall protection is that it really touches so many different industries. I think a lot of times people associate it with construction. So they you know, they just think, oh, here's an iron worker, you know, erecting steel. Well, obviously, he needs fall protection, but it really touches almost every industry. We have customers that range from semiconductor facilities, that make machines that make semiconductors and people think, oh, electronics,  [00:23:00]why do you need full protection for that? But, you know, these are big machines, similar to what the concrete tanks were, seven, eight feet tall. They're up there on the top of them. They're building them and they're constructing them. And they're in a room, a clean room maybe where there's limited opportunities for tie off. Where can you connect to, you know, limited space. And so, you know, that's a unique situation where somebody might not expect that there would be a fall situation. But there there was there was a really unique challenge. You had a very low ceiling, very high machines, a clean room, very tight tolerances for space. These machines were packed in here. It's not like you could just be rolling guardrails around the room and, you know, put them up. So on those type of things, the stuff that we we look at, we did a job a couple of years ago for actually the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. They did a dome rehabilitation project and we put in a custom safety [00:24:00] net that was a safety slash work platform that actually that would suspend inside the interstitial space at the dome and allow workers to actually clean the dome. They would actually climb in it and and clean it. So, I mean, there's another example of kind of a unique situation where not many people would think of. Then there was the usual stuff. I mean, even what, you know, maybe we would consider a run of the mill, but not so run of the mill is, you know, even in construction, there's countless times that we run into where we'll have let's take the stanchion, for example, our bridge stanchions sell hundreds of them all over the country with a couple of common dials. One clamps to a steel IBM, one can bolt to concrete. Those are the two most common types of bridge girders, right? Steel and concrete. But, you know, there's we came [00:25:00] up with a solution a number of years ago for we had a contractor that has some kind of oddly shaped box beams that had no flanges on them. They weren't concrete, they were steel, and they had no way to tie off. And honestly, the solution was really something as simple as taking the stanchion that we already had the to connect Lifeline's to, and engineering and building a new kind of base that would have, you know, there would be able to adapt to this type of beam. So it could be anything from a, you know, a unique work situation to even just something as mundane as, hey, we have a different type of connection here. And everything that we've seen on the market doesn't work. And you adapt something that you have to work with this. So those are you know, those are the most common types of things that we run into, Peter Koch: [00:25:53] Again, thinking outside the box, but sort of inside the box. Like, you don't have to design something from scratch, but you can look [00:26:00] at a particular situation, modify what you have in order to fit the application, but still managed to fit it within the standards that you have to meet in order for it to be certified for fall protection. David Kozlowsky: [00:26:15] Sure. Yeah, right. Exactly. Peter Koch: [00:26:18] So that kind of leads to another question here. Like if someone has a fall protection problem like there, listen to this podcast and going, hey, you know, I  we've been really lucky over here. And I'll give you an example. We had working with a hospitality organization that had a fairly sizable flat roof space that they had to get up there and shovel all the time here in New England when we when we have snow. So up in northern New England, we still have snow somewhere through the wintertime. And even like this year, snow has been throughout the country. Even Texas had snow this particular year. So the flat roof, they you [00:27:00] know, they didn't really see it as a fall protection hazard because for the most of the time, they were not anywhere near the edge. But the maintenance guys or the people that they hired to help with maintenance were there shoveling the roof off. So they had to be close to that particular edge all the time. And if the company sees an issue like that, they could come to you and say, hey, we need a solution. But I imagine that in your initial conversation with those guys that you need some information that would help you point in a direction for a solution. So if they're listening like, hey, you know, we've got this pretty unique challenge or maybe it's a mundane challenge, we just haven't been able to figure it out. What are some things that you need to know as the solution provider about a situation that would help you get an idea of where you might need to go David Kozlowsky: [00:27:56] There's a short answer and a long answer to that question. And, [00:28:00] we'll stick to somewhat the short answer for the purposes of this show. But the short answer to that is, is there when you when you start to get into this, you find that there really is no set of standard questions that you run into because each situation is is different. And, you know, I would take your example of a rooftop situation and then coming up with a solution to that, we would need to know things like, well, how big is the area that we're trying to cover? Probably the most importantly, how, you know, how many people do you want to put on the roof at one time? Because the solution for well, I want to send one guy up there to shovel off this. You know, this little hippogriff or something is different than, you know, here we have a warehouse facility and I need 30 guys up there shoveling the roof. The solutions are different for those two applications. [00:29:00] So, you know, you would want to know how many people you would have working up there. Unfortunately, you need to know how much those people weigh. That's a question nobody likes to ask. But I'm going to tell you, this comes up more often than anything these days is OSHA's limitations of, you know, the three hundred and ten pounds fall protection. And while we do have gear that's ANSI rated for higher than that, that is an important question that on. Unfortunately, we ask a lot how many people how much do they weigh and then what are they doing, how close to the edge or how close to the fall hazard are they getting? What functions are they performing while they're there? Those are types of generic questions that I think apply to most any situation. And we would do we would start there. Peter Koch: [00:29:52] Yeah, that's a I think it's a good list because it really does hit on all the hits on all the cylinders to getting you thinking about. All right. [00:30:00] So where what potential solution is there? Is it a restraint device? Is it truly a fall arrest system or is it an engineering solution where you can do all those will tend to lead you to one way or the other. And if you don't ask those questions and you just kind of look at through the catalog and like as the business owner going, well, it looks like this might be the solution you might put a solution in that actually adds more hazards than an appropriate solution would. David Kozlowsky: [00:30:32] Yeah, because those questions would lead into other questions once you've established the duties that they're performing and how many people and what they're trying to accomplish, depending on the situation, those questions lead into other questions like, well, how far we've established that, you know, we need some fall protection here. Well, how far could the person fall, you know, talking about the tank situation, if you're [00:31:00] only six feet up, off of a lower level, you know, a horizontal lifeline with a shock absorber lanyard attached to it is probably not the right solution. It might not be the right solution, even if you're 20 feet above a lower level, depending on how you're tying off and what you're doing. So those questions lead into other questions like how far is the fall distance? Are there any hazards below the fall area that we should take into consideration? And then ultimately that leads into which, again, this is way deeper than we probably have time for today. But OK, so they we've engineered a solution and a person fell off. How do we get them down? You have the fall clearance, you have all the gear you need and everything is lined up, except that there's no conceivable way of getting the person down in the amount of time that you have. So you end up saying, OK, we for that reason, we actually [00:32:00] need to engineer out the fall. You can't have someone fall here because you're never going to be able to get them down or get them out, especially in the case of, say, like a confined space entry where there's only one way in and one way out and you don't have the ability for a couple of firefighters to come in with a stretcher and put you on it and carry you out. And so the rescue and retrieval aspect of it is another important thing that we usually would hit on. Again, leading into the basic questions would lead into those depending on the situation. Peter Koch: [00:32:38] Let's take a quick break. In 2018, 320 of the 1008 construction related fatalities were attributed to falls. If you're listening to this podcast before May 3rd, of 2021, then you still have a chance to participate. The eighth annual national safety stand down to prevent falls and construction [00:33:00] is happening from May 3rd through the 7th of this year. If you're listening to it after you still have an opportunity, a safety stand down is a voluntary event asking employers to take a break and talk directly with their teams specifically about safety. The stand down around fall protection asks employers to talk specifically about fall hazards their team is exposed to because fall hazards exist in almost every industry. Think about ladders or roof maintenance and scaffolding. MEMIC is asking that all employers take advantage of the resources offered at www.OSHA.gov/stopfallsStanddown and talk to your team about fall hazards. Even if you're not in the construction business. If you're looking for more fall protection resources to help you educate your staff or inspect your workplace, check out the MEMIC safety director at www.MEMIC.com/WorkplaceSafety. Now [00:34:00] let's get back to today's episode. Peter Koch: [00:34:04] It's a really, really good point about rescue, and it's I think it's something that does not get discussed enough when we talk about fall protection. I had a client a number of years ago where I went to go to his construction client building residential homes, and they were building a house somewhere like, you know, township six, row 11. So, you know, you don't have emergency facilities really close. Like it's going to be an hour before someone can get to you if you call nine one one, if you have reception on that day, like if you're on the wrong side of the house, you're not going to get reception. So we're looking at like three and a half stories on the Walk-In basement side. And they're planning the roof process. And it's like, well, what do you have for full protection of all? We have the typical you know, they've got a rope grab and a vertical lifeline and a temporary roof anchor and which would work fine for most cases. But if he fell working by [00:35:00] himself and he fell and there was any injury at all, he's not coming down until his wife decides that. Well, it's been a little longer than normal. Maybe I should call the bar first and then I should try to find if he's still at the work site. And so from then, like a fall arrest solution was not the solution that we discussed. It was like, you really should get a piece of machinery in here to do the work that you need to do because, you know, you can get a lift up there. Of course, it's going to probably cost you a little bit more. But if you do fall, the result can be tragic and it's not really where you want to be. So that's a it's a great point. I think people miss that that rescue process because they never think that they're going to fall. They just think most of the time that the fall protection solution is there to check the box. And I'm never going to use it. David Kozlowsky: [00:35:48] Yes. This goes back to the insurance thing that we were talking about. Exactly. It's I'm going to check the box. It's here. Yep. I did it. So I'm protected. But you never expect that you're actually going to use it, convincing [00:36:00] people to stop thinking in terms of money, which unfortunately in private industry that I mean, that is a very important topic. You just can't get around that. There's not unlimited budgets for everything. But sometimes the consequences of a fall or a serious injury could be life and death when, you know, maybe spending just a few extra dollars on the right solution or maybe a different solution would possibly prevent that. So you're right. Peter Koch: [00:36:29] Yeah. And I think another part to consider, and I'm not sure if this sort of falls within your wheelhouse within Safe Approach, but training for those people who are going to be using the solution, whether it is an engineered solution and understanding the limitations or a restraint solution or a personal fall arrest solution. So training of those people that are using it is pretty key. I know I've had conversations when I go to companies that are using a fall protection solution, regardless of what it is. [00:37:00] And you talk to the employees and there's a certain level of training that OSHA requires. And I like to think that there should be a certain level of understanding for that individual who is using that so that they understand what box they have to work in David Kozlowsky: [00:37:15] And they should be. And that's one of the things that we that we talk about quite a bit. So part of the survey process is discussing that very thing. And this comes up very often in rooftop safety, as you were talking about earlier. So sure, we spend we spend a very high percentage of our time these days working on rooftop safety. And the certainly the two most common solutions would be some type of guardrail or some type of roof anchor or lifeline or fall arrest type apparatus. And part of the discussion we invariably have is, OK, so there's two different costs to this project. There's [00:38:00] the upfront costs, the initial costs, the capital expenditure of X amount of dollars for a full guardrail system or a roof anchor or a lifeline system. And quite often, you know, the guardrails get overlooked because it's more costly. The capital expenditure is, you know, just more expensive upfront. And people immediately want to go to. Let me just throw a couple of cans up there and cable and call it good. And part of the discussion invariably has to be the training that you were just talking about and telling the customers, say, listen, if you put the guardrails up there on the roof, they're set and forget you go up, you put them up there. You can have unlimited people. You can move around as much as you wish, and you don't have to inspect them and certify them. And there's really no training involved. Whereas if we put fall arrest up there, you're limited to a certain number of people that however many people are allowed to be on the [00:39:00] engineered into that system. You're limited to the weight of the person, because part of the engineering is the weight and the dynamic forces of the fall, you're looking at training for every person that goes up there, because we wouldn't recommend that you allow people to use an active fall arrest system without, you know, having some training and understand what you're doing. You're looking at an annual inspection every year. You're looking at recertification every five years because we don't want to just leave these up there and then hope they're going to work 10 years down the road every five years. You need some type of recertification. So there's all these things that come after the fact that may or may not make it your best solution, even though the cost may be less upfront and the training that's involved in it may be one of those things that might be a limiting factor for you, training all your users and having roof sign off sheets and just covering [00:40:00] yourself and coming up with a rescue plan. Peter Koch: [00:40:03] Yeah, there's a lot more to it, depending on what solution that you have. And you're right, I always look at safety being kind of one of three things that have to get managed within any company. People who have heard this podcast before have heard me talk about it. And it's not nothing new. It's safety, quality and productivity. So you have all three of those things which have to be in balance in order to be a successful company. And I joke all the time. I can make you as safe as you'll never have an injury. You'll never get anything done. Right. So I can  put safety first all the time and you'll never have anything else happen because there's you're preventing that person from engaging anywhere near that particular exposure. And the exposure happens to be the job that they need to do. Like, you can't be a sewage technician without going into the hole you can't be a roofer without going up on the roof. So you [00:41:00] have to have a balance in there so that it fits. So you've got to find the solution that fits within that safety, quality and productivity triangle. I think from a different view standpoint is not putting safety at the top of the triangle, like in productivity and quality or at the base. You flip it around and you put that point at the bottom. So safety is the thing that balances productivity and quality. And if you have a good, robust safety program and think about that from the the perspective of the scenario that you just proffered there with the choice of guardrails versus a horizontal lifeline solution that you have for people. Well, the horizontal lifeline solution is good as long as you stay within your productivity demands for what it's designed for, guaranteed you will have productivity, demands that will exceed the design of that system, ike you will need more people up there or you'll have [00:42:00] to have a heavier person that gets up there. Something will exceed the design of it. So if you think about safety as as the base right, the guardrail on that particular piece will balance productivity and quality much better than that horizontal lifeline would. So having that robust safety program really fits within puts you in a better position to have a safe and healthy and productive workplace so. David Kozlowsky: [00:42:25] Well, trying to trying to balance risk with productivity and with investment. I keep talking about the money aspect because it seems like it comes up so often is that, you know, people want to spend money on their businesses that do one of things. They either save them time or save the money in productivity and safety. Let just be honest. Very rarely does either of those things very rarely saves you time on your project or labor. And it certainly doesn't save you money unless, you know, there was a potential [00:43:00] incident down the road. We could talk about opportunity cost for a potential accident. We talk about that all day long. But, you know, up front at least, you know, going back to the whole insurance analogy, you're spending money on something that you hope you never use. And if you're creative and use the term you just did robust with your safety program and you spend, you know, time managing it properly, it really doesn't have to have always that big of an impact on what you do. If you're being creative in spending the time to actually analyse the problem and come up with a creative solution, it doesn't always have to cost a ton of money and it doesn't always have to be so obstructive that it's limiting the job that you do and you're not. There's certain times where it does. I mean, you know, there's times where you just can't get around that. [00:44:00] But that doesn't have to be the norm. And that's partly what. We do we try to come in and listen to customers concerns, listen to the, you know, the task that they're doing, as I mentioned before, and find out who's doing what and where and see what we can do to be as seamless as possible to make it so that with as little impact on productivity and bottom line cost, come in and try to make that person safe. I mean, there is a hierarchy. I mean, let's get back to that briefly. I mean, you know, OSHA never says that there is never allowed to be any risk in a job. Certain jobs have risks. And so it's not practical to take every job that's ever out there and say, oh, there's absolutely zero risk of an injury or zero risk of anything. Even OSHA doesn't realize that otherwise there would be no such thing as fall arrest. Because, you know, quite honestly, sometimes the act of falling and getting caught can injure [00:45:00] you. I mean, there's a possibility that you can get hurt during a fall. So I think if you just manage it effectively, try to engineer out the fall whenever you can and then when you can't spend some time to manage it effectively. And I think you would find that not always does it really affect your productivity and your bottom line as much as you maybe think it does. Peter Koch: [00:45:24] And I think that's a good place to sort of come to a close here, because that is something that is hugely beneficial to going to an expert like yourself to talk through the different solutions and have an idea or get an idea about how a particular solution might actually affect you positively or possibly negatively, instead of just looking through the file protection catalogue and finding the, you know, fall compliance and a bucket in buying that and putting it out there, it might not be the best solution. But sometimes that's [00:46:00] the only resource that someone thinks they have. But there are other resources out there. And I think safe approach brings a good philosophy to understanding the problem and also to developing a solution. So I want to throw this question at you here as we come to a close. And this kind of goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning in your history of just coming into it cold into the fall protection process and learning and taking chances and understanding and then finally getting to the point where now you're the president and an owner of Safe Approach. So if you go back to when you started, like, what do you know now that you wish you had known when you started out from a fall protection standpoint? David Kozlowsky: [00:46:46] That's a really tough question. No one's ever asked me that before. I mean, my brain immediately goes to all of the knowledge that I've gleaned over the years. And I [00:47:00] don't know if I have an immediate answer to that. I would maybe have to think about it some more. But when I first started out, you know, as I went through the learning process, I know I put a lot of pressure on myself to think that I had to be the be all end all to everybody for everything, or they weren't going to call me or they weren't going to trust me with anything. And maybe I guess to answer your question, I think probably one of the biggest things I've learned is that sometimes it's OK to tell somebody, you know, I don't have a solution for that, or at least I don't have the right solution for that. Or maybe I need to go think about it for a while and come back. And just to be honest with people, not that I was ever dishonest, but it was really hard in the beginning to be OK with not knowing everything. And 22 years later, I don't know everything. [00:48:00] And every day I learn something. And it's you know, I think if you ever get to the point where you think you know everything, that you don't know anything. And so it's really just a matter of kind of I wish I could have gone back and told myself, it's OK. It's OK to learn. Yes, fall protection is important. Yes, people's lives are on the line. And yes, you definitely need to take it seriously. But it's OK to not know everything and it's OK to tell people when you don't know. And I feel like people will trust you more if you tell them that you don't know, rather than trying to pretend like you do know everything. Peter Koch: [00:48:37] I think that's actually great advice. And especially in the fall protection realm, you know, if you're just starting out in your own business as a contractor or you come into a safety position and you're looking at a particular situation to look at it and be OK with not knowing, but also understanding that there are experts out there that you can rely on or you can go to the help find [00:49:00] the best solution. And it might not just be one expert. It might be. A combination of maybe it's your insurance carrier and they have a safety expert with expertise around the situation that you're looking at, and maybe it's someone like yourself, David, who works for a specialized company that deals with that particular piece. So knowing where your resources are and being comfortable in that tension of yeah, I think I should know, but I don't know. And that's OK as long as I seek out the best solution that's out there. David Kozlowsky: [00:49:30] Smart people surround themselves with other smart people because they realize they don't know everything. They can't possibly know everything. So you try to surround yourself with people that fill in the blanks and fill in the gaps of what your skill set is. And even myself, I know my skill sets. I know what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. And I try to surround myself with people that are good at things that I'm not good at. And so, you know, if you're out there and you have a unique [00:50:00] situation or you have, you know, a tough spot that you haven't tackled because you just don't know what to do and maybe you do like I do and procrastinate rather than tackle it, then you know what? Maybe, you know, maybe just reach out to somebody for some help and say, hey, let's I need to tackle this and I don't know what to do and let somebody come in and give you a hand. And we can do that. We can give you a hand. We work with you, too. We're not we're not pushy. And we don't we don't come in and try to sell you a bunch of stuff you don't need. We just try to come in and help. We really do. Peter Koch: [00:50:34] That's awesome. And you set me up for this question. So where can our listeners find out more about safe approach if they do have that question? David Kozlowsky: [00:50:42] Sure. You can find us on the Web, www.safeapproach.com, but certainly the phone I'm old school. I like to get phone calls. So 800-471-1157. You can give us a call. You're going to go to the website. And if you're listening [00:51:00] to this podcast and you felt compelled to call me, it's probably because you need something that's not on our Web site. So it's a great resource. But if you go there and you look at the same harnesses that you see in everybody else's catalog, certainly pick up the phone, give us a call. You can email me [email protected] and we don't charge anything for we're not consultants. So I don't, you know, charge people to come out and do site surveys. Everything's related to solutions. So, you know, we don't want to come out and, you know, charge you for, you know, a site survey and give you reports and all that stuff. But if you have a genuine solution that you need help with, we don't charge anything. We come out, we'll give you give you an honest look. And if we can come up with a solution, we will present one. Peter Koch: [00:51:54] Perfect, thanks. That's awesome. David, I appreciate that. And I imagine you'll get a couple of calls about [00:52:00] that. David Kozlowsky: [00:52:01] Thanks for having me. Peter Koch: [00:52:01] Yeah, no problem. So that about wraps up this week's Safety Experts podcast. And David, again, I wanted to thank you for sharing your expertise with us. And I'd like to have you back at some point in time, because we've only really scratched the surface over the different types of fall protection and the requirements that are out there. And we haven't even really touched the standards that are out there either. So if you're willing, I'd love to have you back on. David Kozlowsky: [00:52:23] I would love to. This is a lot of fun and yes, definitely any time. Peter Koch: [00:52:27] Fantastic. So thanks again for joining us. And to all of our listeners out there, thank you. To today on the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast. We've been speaking about fall protection basics with David Kozlowsky, president and owner of Safe Approach in Poland, Maine. And if you have any questions about fall protection or would like to hear more about a particular topic on our podcast, email me at [email protected]. Also, check out our show notes at MEMIC.com/podcast, where you can find additional resources and links to other podcasts, as well as our [00:53:00] entire podcast archive. And while you're there, sign up for our Safety Net blog so you never miss any of our articles or safety news updates. And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if you took a minute or two to review us on Stitcher, iTunes or whichever podcast service that you found us on. And if you've already done that, thanks, because that really helps us spread the word. Please consider sharing this show with a business associate friend or family member who you think will get something out of it. And as always, thank you for the continued support. And until next time, this is Peter Koch reminding you that listening to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast is good, but using what you learned here is even better.