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WBC PODCAST
WBC PODCAST
MAY 5, 2026 #014 M.SIMPSON/M.SHIRK (SAFETY ALERT 08-0010 RESET & REFOCUS)
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In this episode of Talkin’ Grit, M. Simpson sits down with M.Shirk to discuss a recent safety alert, what it means for the team, and how improvements can be made moving forward. They also highlight Safety Week, why it matters, and how everyone can play a role in creating a safer work environment.
From the job site to the office, from lessons learned to stories worth telling, this is Talking Grit, brought to you by Wright Brothers. Here's your host, Jared Walger.
SPEAKER_03All right, talking grit, and we're back. Thanks for tuning in wherever you're at today. And uh we've got Michael Shirkin here on the podcast and Mitchell Simpson, and we've got some updates that we're gonna dig into today. So, guys, why don't you take it away, Mitchell? What are we talking about?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Jared, thanks. So today we're having a safety conversation about where we're at, where we're going, what's been happening on the safety front for our organization. And unfortunately, we're gonna start out this conversation talking about our second recordable of the year. Michael, do you care to lay out to everybody where it happened, what happened in that? Let's just talk through that so we can all try to learn from it because at the end of the day, we want everybody to learn, we want everybody to grow here, go home safe and a little bit better than what they showed up every day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Mitchell, thanks for having me back on the podcast. Hate it's at this convenience, but we did have our recordable number two of the year on 324-26 over in Polk County, Connaissauga. Is it a river or a creek or lake or what is that? It's Connaissa River. It's a river. Okay, it's a river. You're not a local, are you? That is the smallest river ever. You're not a local. So, anyways, that that job was going on, it was doing pretty good. Getting ready to pour the deck, had everything in place.
SPEAKER_02So, I mean, great job, right? Cool location. It's really pretty. I hate that you're calling Conesaga the mighty Conna Saga a creek instead of a river. That's a creek. And but there's this really cool old bridge next to it, right? Yeah. You know, it's a port-in-placed arch bridge, really neat. I don't know when it was built.
SPEAKER_01You do you remember when it was built? I I can't remember, but I do know there's possibly maybe 71 trips across that bridge that the farmer takes, and that was from Mark Jenkins. Maybe 71 trips. That's it. That's the only person that hardly uses that bridge.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but every time he goes over it, he's breaking the load limit. Yeah. Yeah. Really? Yeah, because the thing, it's it's tagged now for darn near next to nothing, right? Wow. You get on the bridge, sole conquered bridge, you can jump up and down on it, you can feel a bounce. Okay. And that that that's that's what it is. So should have been gone a long time ago, but we're replacing it, right? So we're replacing it with a new bridge directly to the north of the existing bridge. Made great progress.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Gotten to the point where pouring the bridge deck.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Midwell set up great, no issues there. Concrete comes in. We start the start pouring the deck placement. Everything's going great. How wide's the bridge deck? 26 feet. So got your standard 81 plus feet on the bridges. So this was a short bridge.
SPEAKER_02This is a this is essentially a county road with hardly any shoulders or anything. It's a couple of lanes. I mean, it's tight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So the uh the employee is a finisher, concrete finisher. So he's on the on the end. So you got a guy raking it. This guy's underneath the screed as the screed goes away from him. He's under there finishing it after rake after the rake guy was raking it. He goes back and trying to finish his get to the same elevation. The screed comes back. The guy was attempting to get out, he falls backwards and catches himself on the rail. He gets hung on the rebar. Yeah, he got hung on the rebar, grabs the nearest thing to him, and that's the uh screed rail.
unknownUh-huh.
SPEAKER_01And the roller was coming back and he could not get out of there enough time. And like Mark said, if it was five more inches, this incident would have never happened. But the screed rail, the screed's coming, the rollers came and uh nicked the tip of his finger. So from the knuckle above, that employee lost that is an amputation, so he lost the knuckle first knuckle and above. So big deal. Big deal. We never, never sign up for this stuff. We never want people to go home without their fingers and toes, our motto, and it's cliche or whatever you want to call it, but is we want to send people home the same way they come in, and we failed this guy. So a lot to learn from this. It was a finger fingertip amputation. So it's not only a recordable, but it was a reportable. Good news is this guy is a fighter, and he stayed with us. He did everything we've asked him to do, getting it healed up, and he was actually released. I didn't tell you this, Mitchell, but finally he's fully released to go back to work as of yesterday. So that is that is huge, and that's a compliment accomplishment to him and the safety team for taking care of that finger while he is under our control or our care here, and he is back to work full, no restrictions, back to work, and he is a good worker. I just we've made a bad decision there. Great guy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Great guy. So let's talk through this. You know, there's there's things we gotta learn from this, okay? So, Jared, your group, project management team, you did a root cause analysis like you do every time. We have a major incident here at Wright Brothers, and let's just talk through a few of these talking points of what we've learned from the root cause analysis. You know, first thing that we learned is we were digging through, looking at it, we don't like the bidwell screed, right? We don't like how it's configured, we don't like the rollers. We we looked at the other bidwell screed that we had, and we realized that, hey, there's a difference between the two. What what's the difference there, Mike?
SPEAKER_01So talking to Sean Ryder, talking to Chris Brown, Mark Jenkins, all the guys involved there, and and the ultimate is touchstone out back here. But one of the things we've seen that Sean had was there's a guard on those rollers. And we figured that out because we ordered replacement parts. That's correct. So the ones that were on the uh Polk County bridge were the original rollers. Original design, original manufactured, yeah, provided. Yeah, that was and Sean actually opened her eyes to this. And I think you went over to North Carolina to watch that deck placement in Canton, was it?
SPEAKER_02Didn't see the deck placement. I was there right before they poured, saw the screen set up, and you know, well, I went up there and looked at it, and you know, we had new parts on that those the rollers had worn out. Yeah. And you know, when we ordered the replacement parts, it was they configured it differently. So, you know, bidwell recognized there was an issue there. We've ordered replacement parts, we're gonna change the parts out, right? Yeah. So we've learned from that. And bidwell learned from that. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01So we gotta get better, right? That's right. One of the other things that we learned from this incident is having a spotter. You know, on this particular one where it was sixteen, sixteen guys on this on this one bridge trying to get it knocked out. Like I said, it was everything was going great, and we didn't have a spotter for the guy to get him out in time is the quick and the speed of the street can be controlled. We learned this through the process. It probably could have been turned down a little bit, but having a spotter to get that guy out of the line of fire could have played a huge role in preventing this incident.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so let's talk about the line of fire. That's one of the things that I really delved into. You know, why did we have our guy there under the screed finishing that? And what it really boils down to is it's a design issue. So the way the Tennessee DOT has their rebar that transitions from the bridge deck to the bridge parapet, it's this one big bar to where it's all tied together, and our guy can't work on the overhang and reach over to do that finishing, right? Because if I remember right, isn't that two and a half foot bar sticking up? It's pretty tall. Yeah, it might be a little bit a little bit more, but yes, it's maybe it's thir something, right? Yeah. Maybe it's 36 inches, three foot. Anyways, it's something that prohibits the guy from being able to work on the overhang and reach over and work in that area without being underneath the screed. Now, when I was in North Carolina a few weeks ago, I talked to Sean about it, talked to Brian Wade about it, talked to Tanya about it. If you look at it, NCDOT has a different design. You know, they have a bar still embredded in the bridge deck that goes up into the parapet, but it only sticks up like six inches, and then they have another bar that's tied on to it that goes on up into the parapet. Way better design. Yeah. Right. Way better design. I took some pictures of it. I'm gonna send it to T Dot and just say, hey guys, you need to think about this. Because when you're working at finishing a bridge deck, when you have these bars that are, you know, the full height of the parapet, and you don't have another splice bar like what NCDOT does, you you you set it up in operations where your guy has to get in there to finish on the edge of the bridge because you can't get in there any other way. He's gonna be in the line of fire.
SPEAKER_03And you hate that this happened, but it could be a good case study for them. It's gotta be Okay, you gotta take a look at this. It's gotta be right. Prevent from here on out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I mean, shame on all of us if we don't figure out how to put ourselves in a position where we don't set ourselves up. So, anyways, you know, that's the line of fire issue. You talked about spotters, Michael. I totally agree with you. You know, there's so many of our operations that we have that need to have spotters, right? And that's kind of a segue into the next piece of the conversation we're having here about a safety update here at Wright Brothers. Spotters. We've had several incidents over the past few months where if a spotter was there, the situation probably wouldn't have happened, right, Michael?
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. So the the incidents you're referring to, there I'll I'll just name three of them. There's been a few more, because you can always throw in utility strikes too when we strike a utility. That ninety percent of the time when you strike a utility, if you had a spotter, that's probably prevented, unless it's unmarked and we don't have a clue where we're digging into, which that shouldn't be the case either. But the first one is February 20th down in Mercedes, and this one was a a big one for a subcontractor of ours down there working. Boom truck came in, set up right underneath overhead power line, and basically made contact with it, I think, three times as the video showed. Three times, and luckily and thankfully, nobody was hurt on this particular incident, but this one could have been deadly.
SPEAKER_02So let's talk through this for a minute. Our sub comes in to load out forms for where they've poured the bridge pair. Friday afternoon. Everybody's just wanting to get out of there. All everybody is thinking about is, hey, we're gonna load these forms out and get gone. Nobody stopped and looked at their surroundings, did they? No. It was very obvious when you're stepping back and looking at it. So this guy takes the boom of the boom truck into the power line. Do you remember how many people were standing around when that happened?
SPEAKER_01It was a lot. I think they had a crew of I wanna, and Chris Brown will correct me on this. I think it was six to eight guys around there, and the foreman was coming towards that way.
SPEAKER_02It is a miracle from God, all those guys didn't die. So he made contact with the power line, it grounded out. It grounded out. So the guy sitting on top of the boom truck, it grounded out and went through the bridge. It blew a couple of holes in the bridge on the outriggers.
SPEAKER_01On all four sides, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Where it went through the outriggers and it grounded. Now, if it didn't ground, right, those guys would be dead. And the thing is, when you saw it, when you saw the video, everybody did what they weren't supposed to. Right. Yeah. They the guys, the crew on the ground saw it happen, and the natural instinct was, hey, go to our guy that's on the boom truck and help him out. Big no no with electricity, right? Yeah, Michael. That's 100% correct. 100% big no no. Natural instinct, they went to the fire, they wanted to help their guy out. They're lucky they all didn't die. And then the other big no-no is the guy on the boom truck, he got off the boom truck. It's a miracle the way he stepped off that boom truck. He didn't the the electricity didn't go through him, right? Yes, yeah. So, you know, two things to know about that, guys. When when we see that, the three big things that I see out of that is one, if we would have had a spotter, that never would have happened, right, Michael?
SPEAKER_01100%. And we have signs out there on that project that says overhead power lines. But it still happened. Gotta have a spotter. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Number two, if you're around an issue where we hit an electrical line, don't run to it. Don't run to it if you're on the ground. Stay away from it. Three, if you're the operator, stay put. Stay put. Don't move. Stay put. Yeah. Talk to somebody, holler at somebody, explain what's going on.
SPEAKER_01Don't move. Yeah, and if you're the operator, the other thing is to, you know, if there's a fire on the boom truck, if you do jump, and the operators know this, is do that bunny hop and slide your feet across the ground. Do not lift it up because it could ground out from you. So the other thing I took away from this is we always have to be aware of what's overhead, not just what's down below us, but what's overhead when we're operating our equipment too. So that was another one I took away from that one. Yeah, I agree. The next one happened on March 10th. Basically, this happened up here in Ducktown. You know, truck driver doing what truck drivers do. They're coming to help us finish our jobs or help us move equipment or help us do stuff. And basically, he was backing out the uh on-ramp because we had it shut down. But when he backed out, he's backing out in live traffic. It didn't have a spotter where several people that could have spotted during that time backs out in live traffic right there on, I think it's 64 Highway and strikes a dually hauling a trailer. Basically, it damaged the back end of the dually and the trailer and some of the materials in one of them hot shot trucks. Okay. So nobody was hurt, but here again, you know, if we just take the time to have that spotter, this incident, this complaint does not happen. So we we've actually had a long conversation with that crew as well, and Mark helped us on a lot of the stuff we was having up there to help with that. You know, if if you if you can't, and we'll get to this here in a second, visibility and communication. If you don't have those, you need a spotter. Right. And you need to make sure that communication is there. If you can't see where you're going or if you're coming back in live traffic, which we should never, never back out into live traffic. We should always find a way either stop traffic, let the guy back out with a spotter, or a road closure, or a lane closure, or whatever we need to do. But that was that was one of the big ones that we had there. Yeah. Excuse me. Let's see, the the last one we'll talk about, and this one, this one really this one's very avoidable. But April 14th, down at the park ridge job, which was just last week, we had an experienced guy. Experienced guy's been with us, I'd say close to 15, 20 years operating a skid steer in a tight area down on the park ridge job, which is crazy tight. It's a tight job, goes into another area of the project to get some gravel with a skid steer. Well, just to the right or left of him, I think it's the right of him, you had a concrete finisher finishing the sidewalk or something right there on the side, doing his job, minding his own business. We bumped into it. And we we struck him. We we hit him. During the report, during the investigation of this, the operator said the sun was blaring into the uh the camera so he couldn't see, you know, his backup camera. Well, they just bother. Or just stop.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, for a lot of these commercial jobs and some of these DOT jobs where we've just got everything in the world, where we have a confined space, it seems like to me that in the world we live in, it's tighter spaces all the time. Everybody has this huge demand for schedule. I get it. And we just put ourselves in bad spots, right? And that's really what happened here. If we would have had somebody looking, if we would have had a spotter, we could have avoided that.
SPEAKER_03Right. It's like that extra layer of situational awareness, yeah, you know, and just an extra set of eyes and ears, and then that communication piece, just you know, having that extra somebody to be able to just take a look at what the surroundings have to offer and keep it safe. Even if it means you have to go a little bit slower. It's gonna be safer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and some some take takeaways from a lot of these incidents is if you can't see and you're not comfortable with it, don't move. Don't do it. Get out, do your 360 analysis and see what's going on. Take the extra minute. And that's a good point here.
SPEAKER_02Everybody needs to hear this, like we've talked about before. If you're a Wright Brothers employee, I want everybody to hear this. You have the authority and responsibility. If you're not comfortable with something, shut the operation down.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Everybody's got that. Yeah. It doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter if you're a supervisor, doesn't matter if you're the guy running the piece of equipment, doesn't matter if you're the guy in the ditch, doesn't matter what you're doing. If if there's something that we're not comfortable with, hey, let's just shut it down. Let's let's get it right. You know it's take a minute at least to stay safe.
SPEAKER_01Amen, bro. Double check because the last two things I'll say on this is none of these are skill issues. We have some of the best operators that I've seen in our industry. It's not the skill issues. It's there was visibility, there was planning and communication breakdowns on all three of these incidents, and most of the equipment damages or we backed into each other in tight areas. It has to do with one of those three categories. Yeah. You know, and we have to get better at that. And the last thing I'll say, these incidents are preventable, but only if the di we're disciplined in them every time, you know. That means understanding to go through these principles of stop if you can't see, do your 360 analysis, you know, equipment inspections is another good one, you know. But communication is key. And we talked about that when we had our first podcast. You know, you'll hear it over and over this year, but we're trying to eliminate that process of getting more people involved on these jobs and helping these guys out in these tight areas. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So let me just say this on all of these incidents that we've just talked about. It's worth having an extra guy on the job for the Conna Saga River, the river Michael. The river. It's it's worth having an extra guy on the Conna Saga River job to be a spotter so we don't have that issue where we've got our finger cut off, the tip of our finger cut off. And it's worth having a spotter to make sure we're not hitting the overhead power line that runs the Mercedes manufacturing facility. You know, that that electrical strike shut down the facility. It's worth having somebody. Yeah. Right? I mean, there's there's dollars there. There's there's a guy's fingertip there. It's worth having a spotter not to have a vehicle accident. It's worth having a spotter to not hit a guy that's finishing concrete. You know, from a Wright Brothers perspective, look, I I know it is unbelievably hard to put together a high, efficient, productive team. Everybody that's on the teams out there working in the field, I appreciate what you guys are doing. It's worth having that one more individual to have that spotter. Because if you could fix any of these issues with that one more person, it's totally worth it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Totally worth it. So just just hear me on that, guys. Look, I I appreciate everybody. I appreciate all the teams out there doing what you're doing every day. If you can find that one more person to have a stopgap to make sure that we all go home a little bit better every day. Mm-hmm. 100% okay. 100% okay. Yeah. So coming off that topic of conversation, Michael, every year at this point in time, there is a national national push called safety week. So what what's safety week, Michael? What is that?
SPEAKER_01What are we trying to do in that? It is very stressful, is what that is for us. But we uh basically uh National Construction Safety Week is We gotta give love to our people in the field, the men and women out there that's that's doing all the stuff. So we're gonna love on you guys this on May 4th through the 8th. And if we don't get to your job site during that week, there's also the rest of the year we can get to you. So we're gonna try to hit every everybody as much as we can and love on them. We've got vendors coming, we got breakfast, we've got lunch in certain areas, a lot of good topics this year. Working with Michael Buckner over in North Carolina, a lot of trenching and shoring stuff going on over there. So they got a lot of vendors coming in and talking about that. The JV project, they've got a lot of mental health and brain injuries and stuff like that. Got a vendor coming in talking to them. Over here on this side, we've got Wyattcap, we've got Southern Carlson, we've got Ocumeds coming down to talk to some of the uh asphalt crews. NSI is doing heat stress with the industrial group. We've got we've got all kinds of stuff coming. Alabama, they're teaming up with Dunn Construction, and they're doing a big heat stress initiative because this time last year, or well, in the summer last year, they had a heat stress incident down there that was very serious. Yeah. So they're really taking that serious and taking advantage of this coming week and Chris working with Chris Brown on that. And then the uh the fellas over in uh South Carolina, they're not gonna be left out. So uh we're gonna take a rep with us over there and meet with both of those are off yeah, those two uh landfill projects and probably the Charlotte area at that same time and try to get some love over there, those guys. But this week is basically giving love to the guys in the field that's in it every single day, in and out, and just showing appreciation for what all they've done for this company and what they do for their families and just tell them thank you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So, you know, this is an appropriate time to do this at the beginning of May every year. It's really the beginning of the major construction season. Yeah. You know, the leaves are finally coming out or coming out of the winter. The weather's gonna be fabulous. It's been fabulous over the past little bit. It's gonna be a hot summer.
SPEAKER_03Back to those nice long days.
SPEAKER_02Back to those sun stays up. I love that. Yeah, so I mean, it's it's an appropriate time for it, and it's really for all of us to stop and think about hey, are we ready to go for this summer? Are we ready to go in this construction season? Are we gonna take 360? We're gonna stop, we're gonna look around, we're gonna plan appropriately, do what we gotta do. You know, guys, here at Wright Brothers, we are so blessed with everything we've got going on. We've got some major, major stuff happening this year for construction. I'll just try to hit a few highlights real quick of what I know. You know, from a contracting perspective, Wendell and the guys have more landfills going than I think we've ever got. You know, we've got landfills in both of the Carolinas, we've got a landfill going to Georgia, we've got landfills going to Tennessee. You know, we don't have anything going in Alabama right now from a landfill perspective, but we had a whole bunch of them last year. And, you know, we were all the way down in Florida last year doing landfills. You know, from a DOT side of the house, the work in Chimney Rock and Girton is gonna start picking up in North Carolina. We've broken ground on the big job in downtown Asheville. You know, we had that update with Cody and Jeff a little while ago. We're gonna have a lot more to talk about on that stuff. Work on I-40 in North Carolina, great jobs, moving quick. Murphy, you know, we're making lots of traffic switches there. There's gonna be a lot happening there this year. Yeah, and it's gonna be in the heat of the summer. On the other side of the mountain here in Tennessee, you know, I-65. I'm gonna jump to Alabama first. I-65 down Alabama, awesome, going great. So many compliments on that job. Tennessee, you know, we're done with 7524, but that doesn't mean that things are slowing down. Uh we got a whole bunch of bridge work to do. We got a really nice job in Marion County that's a slide job, and we're gonna have some grading jobs that are gonna show up here, guys. We got some grading jobs that are gonna show up. We're gonna talk about that here in the next little bit. We're we're knocking on the door for signing contracts on some pretty significant stuff here from a grading perspective in the Chattanooga area. That's awesome to hear. And, you know, the paving guys, lots of contracts lined up, got a whole bunch of resurfacing work. And WIG, you know, for the industrial group, they have a ridiculous amount of pipe fabrication work that they're doing. Think that they're finally gonna be able to go down to the Chickamauga lock and start that job. You know, they've had that contract for a long time, and you know, the prime contractor that we're working there with, we haven't been able to work out timing to be able to get there, but it's about to happen. So, you know, in general, guys, we're blessed. We got a lot of work, we got a lot of big stuff coming for any job site that I've omitted. You know, I'm sorry about that, but wow, we got a full plate. Yeah, we're blessed. We got a full plate, and safety week. Let's stop. Let's think. We're doing this for a reason. Let's stop, let's think, let's look at what we're doing, let's be safe. Gonna have a great construction season, but everybody needs to go home a little bit better than what they showed up.
SPEAKER_03Right. And with a lot of work and now with the weather turning, we have naturally longer days, you know, which means there's gonna be more opportunity for incidents. So it's you know, this is a great time to have this conversation to be like, hey, let's refocus. Everybody get that that that safety awareness up, you know, and safety week seems like it's gonna be a great emphasis for you know, just start of the the blowing and going season. Everybody focus in, let's keep each other safe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, safety week is just like a refresh, you know, hey, stop. We've got here, now we've got to get to the next phase, and then to the next phase and meet meet our goals that we're trying to achieve. But, you know, in summary of uh everything we just spoke about, you know, you have the the backing and spotting, that's the big thing we're trying to hit on this week. And safety week will also talk about that. Just be your brother's keeper, communication, visibility, you know, let's let's make sure that's happening more back and out and help these truck drivers, these dump truck drivers that come on your site, they're coming there to help you finish that project. Help those guys get in and out of your give them a safe space to get in and out of those areas because they they're a big value to our company. I mean, they there's a lot of value to our company with those truck drivers. And then, you know, the the finger, the hand placement line of fire initiative that we started the season with. Yes, we've had that one, but we're not done. We've got a long way to go. And this guy right here, I mean, he's a trooper, he's back to work, and he's gonna do a lot of good stuff for us in our company. But the rest of us, we have to hand placement line of fire. That is our initiative for this year. I'm still pushing it. Every single LMS that Ashley and Chris send out has something to do with hands at the front of your LMS every single time. So we're trying to get stuff in front of you. We've got a vendor with gloves coming around with us the safety week. So, you know, take it serious, and and the last thing is we want you to go home the same way you come in. You know, you got the same right as I do, as Mitchell does, as Jared. We get to go home each and every day, safe and sound with all our fingers and toes. You have that same right. So we would really want to stress that. And uh, and we just want to love on you on uh safety week as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Michael, appreciate you, appreciate your team. Thank you for caring for our people. And look, guys, you know, just be safe as we work through this construction season, improve, invest, measure. Let's get a little bit better every day. So, Jared, let's wind this one up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's gonna do it for this episode of Talking Grit. Thank you for tuning in. Tune in next time, but just remember we want to hear from you. Send us some feedback at podcast at wbccci.com. Thanks again, and until next time, this has been Talking Grit.
SPEAKER_00That's gonna do it for this episode of Talking Grit. Thanks for listening, and thanks to everyone out there putting in the work day in and day out. If you liked what you heard, be sure to follow the show and to share it with someone who knows the value of hard work. We'll catch you next time right here on Talking Grit.