I was looking around on the $afepro web site this afternoon and was looking at the "0 Citation" records that you have in your "Hall of Fame". It truly is amazing to see the number of operations that are doing it right with their citation free inspections and "Putting the Screws" to MSHA. My congratulations to all.

However we seem to have missed some of our industry’s important assets, our contractors. I know from personal experience that MSHA is using a great deal of their time on mining property looking at our contractors. Last February, during a cement plant shut-down, HPC had an MSHA inspection with 350 to 400 contractors on site. The inspection of the mining property lasted nine days. Three of those days were spent looking at eight contractors on site.

While the cement plant had a zero citation inspection (a good showing for a 35 hundred acre facility), so to did three contractors on site, and MSHA wasn’t shy about issuing contractors citations either. Five different contractors were issued a total of 15 citations.

I thought of this after a second shut-down that we had at the Hanson Permanente Cement plant last week when MSHA showed up for the plant’s second annual inspection, a week long inspection that started on Sunday (They do like me RIGHT?). Again this was during a shut-down.  This time we only had 150 contract employees on site, the plant was issued two Non SS citations for house keeping in areas of the plant that were open only because we where shut down, again MSHA took a good long look at the contractors on site.

However one Contractor who had zero citations in the February inspection had their second in a row "0 citation" inspection on HPC property. Frank, your going to love this! The Contractor’s Area Manager, Terry Brewer and his Safety Consultant, Heather Osburn are both graduates of $afepro Institutes.

 If you would post this information in your "Hall of Fame" it would mean a great deal to the Managers at the Hanson Permanente Cement Plant and to me.

My thanks to ARSI Corp, Heather Osburn, Safety Consultant, and to the lessons taught by $afepro for this good accomplishment.

                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                    Ken Lomax

                                                                    Regional Safety Manager

                                                                    Hanson Aggregates West"

$afepro appreciates Mr. Lomax's report and with the Industry congratulates HPC and the ARSI Corp. for their contributions to safe and secure mining workplaces.

The $afepro MS&H Law Institute is proud to be associated with certified

$afe Production Managers like Mr. Brewer and Ms. Osburn.