By Andrew Roach, Safety Specialist
At Southern Air, safety isn't just a metric — it's a culture that shows up in the actions of our people every single day. Each quarter, we recognize the team members who go above and beyond to protect their coworkers, lead by example, and reinforce the standards that make us who we are. Here are the First Quarter Safety Excellence Award winners.
January – Robert Milton, Service Technician
Robert recognized a need for confined space permit and monitoring at Derry McClure Middle School in Buena Vista, Va. Robert also has an outstanding safety record.
Nominated by Charlie Gauldin, Lynchburg Service Branch Manager
February – Jake Riddle, Plumbing Foreman
Jake was next to a co-worker when he fell and sustained an injury at a jobsite. Jake did not hesitate and immediately assisted the individual in sitting up and performing immediate first-aid. When I took the injured individual to the emergency room, the doctor said the first-aid bandaging looked great and looked like a team of people had addressed it.
Nominated by Drew Faulconer, Richmond Construction Branch Manager
March – Noe Flores, HVAC Mechanical Foreman
Noe volunteered to assist as a translator for multiple incident investigations that involved non-English speaking leased labor. Noe also was a translator for large Safety Stand-downs. Noe did not hesitate to assist and seemed very comfortable doing these for a very large crowd. When Noe came for 30/60 training he did very well coaching another team member to operate the scissor lift while answered questions for others. Noe took time to explain best practices for operating. The new employee had never operated the lift before and was visibly nervous. Noe never seemed bothered and continued giving advice. After they completed their hands on operation, he helped others with harness adjustment and coached before they would operate. Noe was not asked nor expected to assist with this. He mentioned to me that he knows how it can be struggle to learn things in groups and wanted to help feel more comfortable.
Nominated by Andrew Roach, Safety Specialist
Recognizing the Safety-First Mindset
The Safety Excellence Awards sit alongside our Yeti Awards program and the ongoing jobsite audits our project managers conduct as part of how we build a culture where safety is owned by every team member. It's the same culture that recently earned Southern Air national recognition at the AGC's Construction Safety Excellence Awards.
If you want to build your career with a team that takes care of each other, we'd love to hear from you. Learn more about who we are and the work we do across our commercial portfolio.