Continuing on our mission of a safety-first workplace

One of the key tenets of our Safety and Well-Being Power Value is to ensure our employees go home the way they came to work: safely. This holds true across all channels of operation, and it’s exactly why we see our Total Case Incident Rate decrease each year with increased safety standards and procedures. To celebrate those who truly go above and beyond with workplace safety training and precautions, we award one of our power plants the annual Power Your Possible Safety Award. This award celebrates the plant that best embraces and demonstrates our Safety and Well-Being Power Value with a safe work environment and onsite operations. 

Criteria for the award is all-encompassing with the goal of highlighting the plant that went the extra mile with regard to workplace safety standards. Considerations include safety training improvements, reduced workplace injuries, station adversity, outage/project execution, and employee involvement. In addition to observing the overall safety performance of the plant, we also look at how each plant embraced safety on the basis of each individual employee.

Like many events, this year’s announcement was presented as a virtual celebration. There were four finalists in the running, all of which who were more than deserving of the award. Finalists’ locations included: Long Beach, Cedar Bayou, and two past winners: Cottonwood and Seward. Although all finalists made great strides in safety culture and well-being, there could only be one winner of the award.

Ultimately, the winning decision went to Cedar Bayou Generating Station, located in Eldon, TX. Over the past fifteen years, Cedar Bayou has only had one Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Recordable incident while performing at a top decile safety performance level. They have championed a culture of safety and well-being with 100% employee participation in site investigations and by actively participating in the OSHA VPP program, often mentoring other sites in their effort to improve safety. Additionally, Cedar Bayou is also frequently chosen to pilot new programs before implementing them throughout the fleet (e.g., test driving the Observed Hazard/Safety Concerns App, which streamlines safety incident reporting).

In acceptance of the Safety Award, on behalf of the plant, Rob Kurelic, Plant Manager, credited their success to their ability to talk and communicate freely between management and employees — a total team effort. Cedar Bayou is a testament to what can happen when a plant’s employees are aligned to achieve one strong, sound goal. 

Congratulations to the Cedar Bayou team and all of this year’s nominees.