April 2006 - Safety Milestone

1,000 Safe Man-Hours

ONE THOUSAND DAYS WITHOUT AN OSHA!!

Evergreen Industrial Services recently celebrated 1,000 days without an OSHA recordable, a tangible result of the company's dedication to taking a proactive stance in the area of safety.

"I can remember five years ago when 1,000 days without a lost work case was a significant accomplishment. Not many companies have acheived this milestone." said Rick Pitman, Vice-President, "Reaching 1,000 days without an OSHA of any kind really sets a new standard for safety achievement."

Evergreen leads the industry in developing and providing its employees and clients with the most advanced safety processes and safety tools. The company's safety program centers around three main points: behavior-based safety, process safety and engineering controls. As an example, if an employee wants to deviate from a safety policy, he is required to get the signature of the site manager, the safety director and the CEO. The person will be asked what he is going to do to compensate for the deviation. It may take extra time during the preplanning stage to get the signatures and some running around, but even if the task takes only 30 minutes in the end, that doesn’t matter.

"Safety is the cornerstone of our company culture," said Craig Byard, Evergreen's vice president. "It is a commitment that we make to our employees as well as their families that we will only work according to the highest safety standards."

Recognizing Evergreen’s safety culture, Sterling Chemicals, Valero Houston Refinery, NOVA Chemicals and Pasadena Refining Systems Inc. all nominated the company for the NPRA Contractor Merit award.

Evergreen will accept all four awards May 4 at the NPRA Safety Conference in Austin.

"All four of these companies have set high standards for safety performance, and we are honored that each has nominated Evergreen for the NPRA award," said Jon Hodges, Evergreen's CEO. "I participate in the contractor safety committee for each site, and the commitment to safety is evident," said Todd Carson, Evergreen's safety coordinator. "You can't be a spectator when it comes to safety in these locations. You must be willing to commit to being the very best."

The Contractor Award for Meritorious Safety Performance is awarded to process area contractors on a per site basis who are nominated by a refinery or petrochemical facility member. A contractor must achieve a total recordable incidence rate of 1.2 or less for the calendar year at an individual site with the qualifier that the contractor must have worked a minimum of 20,000 hours at that client site.

As part of its commitment to the safest operations possible, Evergreen participates in the Houston Business Roundtable (HBR), and will be honored as a Safety Mentor company at their Safety Excellence Awards banquet May 5. Evergreen mentored nominees and finalists for the award. Evergreen has been actively involved in the HBR’s Safety Excellence Award program for many years as both a participant in the award program and in service on the committee that oversees and has recently made revisions to further enhance the program. Each company that wins the HBR Safety Excellence Award the year before acts a mentor for the following year.

This position is considered the highest honor a company can receive.

The companies mentor in a category other than the one they won, and a representative from each company assists the HBR Safety Award committee during the entire safety award process, from reviewing programs, assisting companies that will be audited and answering any questions that may arise during the process. "Because of companies like Evergreen and their willingness to share information and practices, the safety performance of industrial contractors in Houston continues to improve," said Bill Bobo, HBR’s executive director.

For more information, please visit www.evergreenics.com or call (281) 478-5800.