Ro Lewis - It is all About Safety - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Ro Lewis from Tremco. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro/Outro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long-term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews, and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from RoofersCoffeeShop. This is Heidi Ellsworth, and we're talking safety. That's what we're talking about because safety is the number one thing. It's the number one most important initiative in the roofing industry. And so, we have our expert on safety, and that is Ro Lewis from Tremco Roofing and Building Maintenance. But I'm just going to say Tremco. From Tremco. I'm here today to talk about safety. Ro, how are you?

Ro Lewis: I'm good, Heidi. How are you? Thank you for having me. I appreciate this opportunity.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. We have you back again. We love having you as a guest. You always have such great information about what's going on with safety. And it's important. It's important that we keep talking about this.

Ro Lewis: Absolutely. You've got to stay on the cutting edge of it. And we strive at Tremco to be an industry leader in that regard. But across the board, just for the general good and responsibility to our workers to provide safe workplaces and environments for them is top of mind for us. So, I love to see what's happening in the industry. I love our partnership with RoofersCoffeeShop and what you do to drive safe workplaces for our people. So, I'll talk to you about safety any day.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. I love it. Well, before we dive in, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, and tell everybody a little bit about Tremco.

Ro Lewis: Sure. My name is Ro Lewis, and I am the executive director for Health Safety and Environmental Program for our organization. Tremco is a large organization, both on the manufacturing side as well as construction services side. With the myriad of offerings that we provide to our clients to create... We used to say create Weatherproofing peace of mind. But now we're really in the business of creating building envelope peace of mind. And so, the portfolio of services that we offer is greatly expanding at a rapid pace. But what I particularly do is I have a team of about 15 safety professionals. And we cover the field services branch of the business, which includes not only Tremco Roofing and building maintenance, the sales team, the support sales teams, but also WTI, which is Weatherproofing Technologies Inc.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow.

Ro Lewis: And that is a myriad of about 800 employees across the country that we have oversight. And then we have Tremco Barrier Solutions falls under the fuel services umbrella. In the UK, we have Structure Care. And we even crossed the border to the north of us in Canada, with Weatherproofing Technologies Canada and Tremco in Canada. So, we're all over the place.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: You are. I mean, the growth I have seen in the last five to six years for Tremco globally and just even here in the us, it's been absolutely amazing. And with all of those people, there's nothing more important than them getting home safe and sound to their family every night. And so, really, I would love for you to talk about Tremco's focus Lead With Safety, is you have a safety culture through and through. So, talk a little bit about that to everyone about how that has grown and really taken the lead, no pun intended, with Lead With Safety.

Ro Lewis: Yeah, I'll be happy to talk about that. As a matter of fact, the mantra was born actually before I arrived at the organization. I've been with Tremco nearly 10 years now. So, the foundation was there, but it is just catapulted into the fury of just creating a culture that ultimately protects every one of our employees. But not only that, have that bleed over into our client base and have them to understand our culture, as well as the community at large. And that's what Lead With Safety basically represents. You hear often companies talk about safety first, and that's their slogan. And certainly Lead With Safety incorporates an aspect of that. But we felt that we had to take it further than that, because our mindset is to create safety leaders within the organization at every level, every echelon, even from the C-suite level on down to the newest tech on day one.

We want to ensure that we inculcate in the minds of all that safety has to be not only top priority, but it is a part of a paradigm that makes our success. So, not only is it just safety, but it's quality and productivity on one side of the equation, that equals the success on the other. And if there's a disparity in any one of those, we won't reach that success level. So, Leading With Safety really incorporates the mindset of being successful in our organization and making sure that people go back to their families. A lot of people say we like they came, but we like for them to go back better than they came.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I like that. Go back better.

Ro Lewis: Yeah, because we want to educate them. Yeah, absolutely. We want to educate them so that they take this practice and have that mindset even in their home life situation. So, I could go on and on about it, but Lead With Safety is a huge part of our culture. Not just safety culture, but our business operations.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, and when you think about your customers. I mean, you do huge projects, schools, hospitals, huge commercial buildings and building envelope, the whole nine yards. And you have all of these workers who are safe because of this culture. But it also really goes over to your customers, your building owners, your property managers, the tenants who are in there. Because when you all are safe on the roof with installations and then leaving safety equipment afterwards, that makes a huge difference for those building owners and the tenants to know that they are safe underneath that new roof.

Ro Lewis: Yeah, that's actually one of the greatest value propositions that we offer. Because not only do we create that weatherproofing peace of mind by making their roof lock tight to the elements, but what most clients fail to realize or they just don't think about it is not a dereliction of responsibility on their part. They just don't think about it very often. Once we leave and they have to get up there and look at their air handling units or get up there and check out anything on the roof, they don't really explore the aspect of, "How do I protect my employees as they get to the edge?" And so, we bring that value proposition to them and actually put it dead front and center and say, "Hey, how are you going to do this? And we have the ability to provide solutions for you to better protect your people as well." And then with our offerings, we come back to roofs on a daily basis under warranty systems. We want to make sure that our people are able to enjoy those safe work environments as well.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right. So, that permanent safety equipment is just so important for the long...

Ro Lewis: It's vital.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: ... Long stretch.

Ro Lewis: It's vital.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It does. Okay. You have taken it even... I mean, obviously the culture of Lead With Safety for over 10 years, and has just exploded and has become such a core cultural value within Tremco. But you have taken it one step further with creating your own Tremco Global Safety Week. I love that. Tell us about it.

Ro Lewis: Well, I'm going to be honest, it was born out of a thought. All companies, especially in the roofing industry, partake in the OSHA stand down for fall protection. That typically happens in May. And we did as well. That's a mainstay fixture in our organization. However, I didn't want it to be relegated to something that OSHA sets forth and we participate. We are an organization that feels that we're, as a part of leading with safety, going to be that industry leader that says, "You know what? We're going to take a dedicated period of time to focus solely on our safety culture and how it impacts our employees, how it impacts the leadership." And from the top down leadership, they've invested into the thought of being able to just take a step back and figure out where we're going next, how are we going to deal with the next, and let's celebrate where we've been and where we're going in one setting. And so, that does take an entire week to do it. And it was a great experience.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. So, how does it work? What are some of the activities, the education, the team events? Give us a little look into that.

Ro Lewis: Sure. Well, the whole purpose of the safety week, the aim was to provide an opportunity to focus on our comprehensive safety culture and examine and celebrate our employees' daily safety performance. That's a huge part. And it's not we're in a rah rah rah session. But we've oftentimes in safety look to find what employees have done wrong and how can we make them better, but we don't as often celebrate what they've done right. And there's a lot of things that's been done right as a part of our culture. So, how they operate on a daily basis, their families, our organization, the communities which we work. It also helps us to fortify our resolve to remain united in our commitment to continuously improving our safety culture. We can't feel that we've arrived, become reticent.

And so, what we did as a part of this year's Safety Week, our inaugural Safety Week, which took place June 19th through the 23rd, was we, across the country and really across the globe, quite honestly, into the UK and into Canada, we allowed our workers to... It was a center led effort, but we allowed them to plan out activities that was relevant to their scopes of work since our offerings are so vast. And that included greater safety education, discussing what we've done, some of the pain points, and be able to identify how we take that advancement to the next level of correcting some things. And then on top of that, in some regions, they did safety awards and celebrated achievements.

We partnered with Grainger, who's been a wonderful partner with us as it relates to providing our safety equipment and outfitting our overall equipment for our people. We had trade shows, and had vendors come in and be able to show us the newest, and greatest, and the latest in the industries to see if that could be a part of our everyday regimen. So, it was just a wonderful event in all 10 of our regions within the United States. And then to even see it, I was really proud to see our folks in the UK all over the UK partaking in this too. That was the cherry on top, I should say.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Yeah. I love the trade show. I love the fact that you brought them in new safety ideas. Because I mean, there's so much going on with technology, heat stress, body bios. Just so much is happening that what a great idea to bring in the experts to talk about some of the things that maybe aren't happening yet. What were some of the big takeaways you had from that trade show and just from the week overall of the ideas that came out from the employees?

Ro Lewis: Well, because the industry is changing so rapidly, you really have to be intentional with getting in front of new items that will help to bolster your program. So, the one that we had in Beachwood, 3M was there, and they really provided some significant offerings that made us rethink our fall protection, if we need to begin to upgrade and create some more comfortability for our employees. We had a company called Malta Dynamics there, that literally blew my mind. And not giving plugs for these companies, but I was just so happy that they participated. And the Malta Dynamics took the cake because they challenged our thoughts on how we protect ourselves on roofs by having... They had this kind of fall protection arm. I can't think of the appropriate name for it, but it was a fall protection arm that reached up to 50 feet.

And those instances where you reach rooftops that may not have the ability to put guardrails because of the width and the space, or you don't really want to use safety monitors. We don't particularly use in our organization the least safe route of protecting someone that's working at edges. What an innovation to have this articulating arm that literally would serve as our anchor point, and allow us to traverse across the roof. It eliminates, in some instances, having to wonder as a part of our fall protection rescue plan, how we would get an employee down should they move into fall arrest. It was a phenomenal experience that stretched our imagination as it relates to protecting our people.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. I love it. Because sometimes... What do they say, Henry Ford, if you ask people what they wanted, they would say a faster horse. And if you ask people out in the field, "What do you want?" "Well, I've got it. I've got my harness." They don't even know what to ask or what to think about. So, brilliant, brilliant. Kudos to you all for bringing in all these innovations and really giving everybody a chance to think bigger and think outside of their normal space every day. I just love that. What do you think the impact is on your employees, their families, the organization, and just your global communities? I mean, you have such a reach. But what's some of the feedback that... Let's start with employees. What were some of the feedback that you got from them?

Ro Lewis: Well, that was really the encouraging piece of the whole effort. We worked tirelessly to try to organize this and put it on my team and the leadership. And to see that there was a return on investment based on their feedback, was phenomenal. They felt a part of something. They felt that the company really, really is invested in protecting them, which does nothing but boost morale for our employees. They want to be a part of organization. I had one employee come up to me at one of the events and says, "I've been in roofing for 30 years. And I've worked for a lot of companies and I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen a company that..." This is not a commercial, but he was heartfelt with it. Never seen someone that really cared about their people that much.

And I have to give a special shout out to our C-Suite leadership team in this organization. Phenomenal. I've worked for other companies. And the commitment from the top is what really makes the difference in a successful safety program. Either you have it or you don't. And they are so unbelievably committed on multiple levels. From our group president, to our roofing president, to our executive vice president, they all participated somewhere across the country in these events. And so, I think it was encouraging for our employees to that, and see them tangible and present in the moment. That was huge for us.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That is so cool. That is so cool. I love that kind of feedback. And a lot of people just don't know. They never get this experience. And so, to have somebody who's been in other companies and now to see this, that's great. And I agree, your executive team. I mean, starting with Paul Hoogenboom all the way down, it's amazing, amazing. And so, committed to the safety culture.

Ro Lewis: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, whenever I talk to anyone, I can't speak well of them enough for what they do and the mindset, the forward-thinking type leadership that they have towards every aspect of the business. But I'm a little bit selfish, especially safety.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: [inaudible 00:17:54]. Well, and when I think about how many different... And you touched on this earlier, how many different types of business do you have? You have WTI, which is, they're on the roof all the time. But you have the Tremco in the manufacturing plants where safety is so important with machineries and what's going on. You have your sales team out there. And then you have Canada, UK. So, what were some of the feedback from some of the different, maybe the non rooftop employees who were involved in this? Because it doesn't matter, if you're a salesperson, safety is still... You're leading with it. So, what are you hearing from some of them?

Ro Lewis: Well, one company that I did fail to mention was our newest acquisition, which is Pure Air. Which is our HVAC restoration organization that fits our existing mold, which is why they were a great fit in the niche of business that we're in. And I'll speak to them and then maybe I'll move over to Structure Care. Because they were a smaller organization that has moved into this larger complex business, it was a little bit difficult for them to adjust to a lot of the requirements that we had, but it's on demand. And they were just so blown away with the amounts of time and effort that we put into educating them and giving them the education that they needed to be as safe as possible and have the safest work environment.

And we just hired a new safety manager and operations training for that organization that's in-house, right there with them, so that they can really have that kind of subject matter expert presence. And their feedback has been just phenomenal in the reception of him and the reception of the program. So, it doesn't really matter what genre of the industry that you engage. What matters is the stability and the static fixture of a culture. And once you establish from day one that this is our culture, this is who we are, any worker that values their employment, they're totally invested.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, and their life. I mean, let's be honest, right?

Ro Lewis: Their life. Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. Yes.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And their future. Okay, I'm just so curious. Tell me about how it went in the UK. You said they were people from all over the country. But give us just a little bit more.

Ro Lewis: Yeah. So, in the UK, it was much of the same as what happened in the States. So, crews, they couldn't all come in one place because they were just so vastly spread. So, we treated them just as if they were the regions here in the US. And wherever they were, they had their own little party, if you will.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it.

Ro Lewis: And got around in classrooms and on job sites, and went through a lot of the educational pieces that did. Because Structured Care, for folks that don't know, is our... It's funny, they call it car parks, we call them parking garages here. But it's our waterproofing organization there that works in a myriad of places, even a roofing outfit there. And so, we can't just be prescriptive as to the content that we go over and review, and the safety practices. We have to be prescriptive. And especially in the UK with the ministry there, there's a total different subset of rules. But we allow them to be able to explore all of the educational pieces and have some of that celebratory aspect as well. And they loved it. You know what I'm going to do, Heidi, I'm going to send you the... I should have did this in the first place. I'm going to send you the recap video so you can kind see the safety across the globe. It was awesome.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes. And we'll put that on the directory. So, everyone listening to this, go to the Tremco in WTI directories. You can see the recap on this. Perfect.

Ro Lewis: Yes, definitely.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That is awesome. One other question before, we talked a little bit about the future. But you have a beautiful network of certified roofing contractors around the country. I'm friends with many of them, Madson out of Sacramento, Chinook out of Seattle. And I don't know, do they participate? Or is this something that they get to see? And it really leads back to that Lead With Safety, for your overall community.

Ro Lewis: You're back behind the curtain, Heidi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know.

Ro Lewis: You're kind exposing us a little bit. No, they did not participate this year in the inaugural one, but certainly that is a part of our vision. And we don't consider them just to be contractors. They're partners. They're companies that share our vision, share our thoughts towards safety. And what better way than to have your partner as a part of the celebration. Because a lot of the success that we have and the safety success that we have, quite honestly, reside with our partnerships with our contractors. So, they will eventually be a part of these celebrations, or at least we'll give them the opportunity to do as such. And I'm sure with the level of involvement that they have with us, they'll be happy to participate.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I was going to say the high quality, the high quality across the board of everyone who's involved. Okay. So, you just started right down where I was saying. What are some of your plans for the future?

Ro Lewis: Well, I'll try to sum it up. We have a lot of things in the pipeline. We are constantly trying to figure out what's next. We don't want to sit still, but we also don't want to become a company that's doing flavor of the month things. Anything that we add as a part of our safety culture becomes mainstays. And so, the biggest thing I would say that's present for us in the pipeline is our safety committee effort. We are creating what you don't see in most construction companies, especially general contracting and that nature. We're creating an in-house safety committee that will be comprised of, not only C-level officials, but both management and field level workers coming together to talk about our culture and figure out what works best, and set folks in audiences that they would not typically be able to talk to as it relates to the management.

And so, that safety committee will actually... We just went through the selection process. We were so surprised to see the response. For a few weeks now, we've been putting out information about it, trying to educate people on what a safety committee actually does in a construction company. A lot of manufacturing companies have it. But not very, very popular in construction outfits. And so, once we did that, the response was overwhelming at every level of the business with folks who want to become more involved in creating the culture, which, as you know, creates the ultimate buy-in, because we all sit at the table together and decided this is what we're going to do. So, we're so excited about that. And the end of this month is going to be the big announcement of who all were selected. And then figure out how we're going to build subcommittees across the country and throughout the world, actually, because we have participants from the UK, participants from Canada, sales executives. It's just been awesome.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, that's so good. Congratulations. I love that. I love that.

Ro Lewis: Yeah, thank you.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And the more involvement, the better. The better. And so, you're planning on doing the Tremco Global Safety Week again next year?

Ro Lewis: Oh, that's why we call it in inaugural, because this is going to be an annual event. And it's going to just be bigger and bigger as the years go. As a matter of fact, I mentioned the partnership with Granger, our national accounts manager is like, "You have no idea what we're going to do next year. We're not going to just be in Beachwood or just be in the mid-Atlantic region. We're going to every one of your regions, and we're going to replicate this trade show for every..." I mean, they're as excited as we are. Which is great to have partners that work with you in that regard is phenomenal.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: They are a great partner. Oh my gosh. Ro, thank you. I am inspired. This is just so great. Thank you for all you do. And I mean, really, everything you do with Tremco is really giving back to the industry overall to Lead With Safety. So, thank you so much.

Ro Lewis: Well, no, and I want to say thank you, Heidi, because my experience with you over these past years has been nothing but phenomenal. And I just love the way that Roofer Coffee Shops highlights every aspect of what we do in this industry. And you play such a high value on how we contend in the industry. So, thank you very much for all your hard work and your team's hard work.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Thank you. That means the world to us, because we love to get this information out. And it's all about rising the industry overall. And you are doing that every day. So, thank you.

Ro Lewis: Thanks, Heidi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And thank you for being on this podcast.

Ro Lewis: Absolutely. I appreciate it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Okay. Well, we'll have you back again. You're regular.

Ro Lewis: I'm there. I'm there whenever. However I can help.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, maybe we'll have another one talking about that safety committee. I'm really excited to hear about how that goes.

Ro Lewis: Okay. Oh, gosh, yes. Give us a few months, but we're ready.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Okay. Perfect. That will be excellent. And thank all of you for listening. Again, some great ideas. Think about your own safety trade show. Who knows? There's so much out there. This is just great stuff to help grow your business, and most importantly, get all of your employees and yourself home safe and better. I love that part. So, be sure to check out all of our podcasts under the RLW navigation, navigation under Roofing Road Trips, or on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe and hit the notification so you don't miss a single episode. And we'll be seeing you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

Intro/Outro: Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi, from the Rooferscoffeeshop.com.