Safety+ National Symposium: Ashley Novak
At the end of August, Ashley Novak, the Safety Specialist for our Table Rock Composite Specialties mill, attended the Safety+ National Symposium in Aurora, Colorado. Along with attending the conference, she was also nominated as the OSHA Region 10 Special Government Employee (SGE) of the Year, an honor she didn’t take lightly. The Safety+ Symposium brought together frontline workers, C-Suite executives, and other community members to learn more about safe practices in the workplace.
Not only does Ashley serve as the Safety Specialist for our Table Rock facility, but she also mentors sites with Oregon Workers’ Compensation Insurance. When asked about what the mentorship entails, she said, “We mentor sites in many different ways. Some sites join our safety committee meetings and gain knowledge about how a VPP site runs […] another way is sharing programs such as LOTO and JSA’s to help them learn to write them.” The Table Rock facility is a great mill to learn from for safety procedures as they have gone over 1,100 days without a lost time injury.
One way TRCS is continually improving their safety awareness is by creating new programs to promote safety. In January of this year, Ashley and the safety committee implemented a year long safety challenge, “Safety on the Spot”. You might remember it from our Fall 2023 edition of Timberline, as we did a spotlight on it right before it kicked off. The Table Rock employees are trying to collect as many safety cards as they can to win the coveted WWE style belt and a parking spot of their choosing for the next year. This competition has proven to be a great success in increasing safety awareness, new safety ideas being brought to Ashley’s attention, and of course, friendly competition. Ashley is looking forward to the continued safety awareness from the TRCS employees in the new year, as she puts it, “They are the experts, and have the best advice.” We are excited to see who comes out on top of this competition, and the continued efforts on ensuring safety is a top priority.
We can see why Ashley was nominated for this award from the work she does with Table Rock and the mentorship she provides. When asked to reflect on what the award meant to her, she said, “This award meant a lot to me. When I first heard about the award, I knew that this was a big goal of mine.” Her favorite part of being nominated for this award was how proud she felt that she was not only representing Timber Products, but also helping other work sites and employees build a safety culture. She said, “Winning the award just solidified my love for safety in the workplace.” We are lucky to have someone like Ashley on the Timber Products team, and are grateful for her continued work on making Table Rock a safe place to work!