Summer Spike 2020-2021

from The Dispatch May 2021

Magazine Names Watco SVP to Its “40 Under Forty” List

Summer Spike Program Takes on New Look for 2021

Each year on Memorial Day, Watco kicks off the Summer Spike safety program. This program runs through Labor Day, and the primary focus is to reduce the spike in incidents and injuries that increase during the summer months.

Summer brings many distractions such as vacations, high temperatures, and kids being home from school, to name a few. The safety program is geared towards bringing team members’ focus back to safety and how to make it through the summer months injury-free. In past years, the program focused on a different topic each week, covering approximately 12 to 14 topics, depending on the year and how the weeks fell. However, this summer, there will only be three main topics for each service area. “This year, we’ll be actively focusing on the areas of highest risk of incidences that can cause serious injury. We’ve gone through reports and researched the three primary causes of incidences and injuries in each service area. We’ll spend each month going into detail about the causes and prevention of that subject matter,” said Travis Herod, Senior Vice President of Environmental Health and Safety. “By calling attention and focusing on the highest risk areas, we hope to create positive habits that will reduce team member injuries.”

Unlike the more structured Winter Freeze program, Summer Spike is managed at the location level, and each manager takes the Summer Spike program and makes it their own. Last summer, many teams

celebrated reaching safety goals with picnics, barbecues, and prizes.

“In previous years we had a monthly drawing where three team members who didn’t have any violations were able to win a prize. We also had a hamburger and hot dog cookout each month and then a bigger cookout at the end of the summer,” said Jerry Waun, South Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad General Manager. “The team seemed to really like it so we’re going to do that again this year.”

The Watco Gear store (watcogear.com) will have Summer Spike stickers, tees, and safety shirts available to anyone interested in purchasing them individually or for their teams.