Final Winners Selected for March Winter Freeze Bonuses Nine Watco team members were selected to receive a Winter Freeze safety program bonus for March. The Winter Freeze safety program focuses on rewarding team members for near-miss reporting and safety suggestions from Dec. 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020.
March Bonus Winners Phillip Spears, Jr., Jeffrey Hillabrand, Shawn Eller, Matt Nicol, Jeremy Schwarzhuber, Kenith Langsford, Rickey
“By reporting near misses, safety suggestions, SAFE Observations,
Moore, Ryan Johnsrud, and
and acting on lessons learned from them, we can continue to drive
Jeff Hoagland.
to zero, and make this our safest year on record,” said Travis Herod, Senior Vice President of Safety and Training. “It needs to be a part of our lives, something we do daily.”
Team member Phillip Spears, Jr., Railcar Coordinator, noticed a beehive in a tree outside of the railcar repair location’s parts storage building at the Hatton Quarry in Arkansas. This storage building is accessed frequently by the team to get material, and the beehive could have resulted in a bee sting, which can be dangerous to anyone who is allergic and painful for those who are not. The team member contacted the facility owner, who had pest control safely remove the beehive.
Phillip Spears, Jr. Railcar Coordinator Hatton, Arkansas
At the mechanical shop in Omaha, Nebraska, Jeffrey Hillabrand, Railcar Repairman, was assigned the task of removing running boards of a railcar. While performing his pre-work walk around, he saw a low-hanging electrical wire directly above the railcar. The team moved the railcar before working on it, and the shop’s leadership team implemented a practice to discontinue using the spot for that specific task.
Jeffrey Hillabrand Railcar Repairman Omaha, Nebraska
May 2020 | The Dispatch 5
