Director of Safety, BME Family of Companies

 

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Director of Safety
Safety Leadership across BME, Bertke, and Survoy's

Department: Safety
Reports To: President, BME Family of Companies
Operating Companies: BME Mechanical & Electrical, Inc.; Bertke Electrical Services & Testing; Survoy's Superior Service
Travel: Regular travel to job sites across OH, KY, IN, and TN

ROLE OVERVIEW

The Director of Safety leads a proactive safety program across BME, Bertke, and Survoy's, built on a simple belief: safety is created before work begins, not measured after something goes wrong. The role combines proven safety programs, advanced technology, and well-maintained equipment with a strong Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) framework, human performance principles, and behavior-based safety. This proactive, data-driven approach reduces risk, protects our people, and delivers consistent, high-quality results for our customers.

Today, safety at our operating companies is too often an afterthought and too often reactive. This leader's mandate is to change that. The Director will make safety a core operating value owned by field leadership, put the best tools, PPE, and equipment in our crews' hands, and build the observation, feedback, training, and learning systems that reinforce safe behavior and keep every employee returning home safely. The role serves as the safety authority for Bertke while aligning and elevating safety across all three companies, reporting directly to the President of the BME Family of Companies.

WHAT WE BELIEVE ABOUT SAFETY

• Proactive over reactive. We design hazards out of the work and verify controls before a crew starts. We do not wait for an incident to act.
• Human performance, not blame. Error is normal; our job is to build the systems, tools, and conditions that make the safe way the easy way, and to learn openly when things go wrong.
• Behavior drives outcomes. We observe how work is actually done, give immediate feedback, and reinforce safe behavior with data, not just rules.
• Owned by the field. Safety belongs to field leadership and every crew member, not to a binder or a single department.
• Top of mind, not fear-based. People should engage with safety because they believe in it, not because they fear consequences.
• Best-equipped in the trade. Helmets, tools, clothing, and equipment are part of human performance, and we invest in giving people the best.
• We learn and improve. Lessons learned are shared across crews and companies, and we measure progress with leading indicators, not just injury counts.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Lead a Culture Change

• Reset the safety culture from reactive and compliance-driven to proactive, human-performance-based, and field-owned.
• Establish safety as a core operating value owned by field leadership, not the safety department alone.
• Serve as a visible, credible safety leader through regular, hands-on job-site presence and engagement with crews.
• Coach supervisors and service managers to lead safety conversations, recognize good catches, and hold the line with respect.

Proactive Hazard Mitigation & Human Performance

• Build a proactive program centered on identifying and controlling high-energy and life-critical hazards before work begins (serious injury and fatality prevention).
• Implement human and organizational performance (HOP) principles and error-reduction tools such as pre-job briefs, job hazard analysis, take-2 and take-5 checks, and verified critical controls.
• Champion energy-based hazard recognition and ensure crews can identify, isolate, and control hazardous energy on every job.
• Own the equipment-for-safety agenda: evaluate and upgrade PPE, tools, and clothing so crews are the best-equipped in the trade.
• Empower and reinforce stop-work authority for every employee. Anyone can stop a job, no questions asked.

Behavior-Based Safety

• Implement a data-driven behavior-based safety (BBS) program that focuses on workers' actions and their consequences, targeting at-risk behaviors and reinforcing safe ones.
• Establish systematic, routine observation of employees performing tasks to identify both safe and at-risk behaviors.
• Identify and prioritize the critical behaviors with the highest potential to cause an accident or injury.
• Provide immediate, constructive feedback and recognition to encourage safe behavior and correct unsafe acts.
• Engage employees at all levels in the program to build ownership and accountability for safety.
• Use observation data to continuously refine interventions, training, and processes over time.

Field Engagement, Inspections & Stand-Downs

• Run routine job-site safety inspections and audits across all Bertke locations, and establish a cadence and oversight model for BME and Survoy's site visits.
• Lead safety stand-downs and stop-work events to reset focus after a near-miss, a trend, or a high-risk phase of work.
• Implement daily and weekly job briefings (tailboard talks) and toolbox talks across all operating companies.
• Partner with operations leaders so field leadership conducts inspections and engagement on a routine, expected basis.

Training & Development

• Build a proactive training program that goes beyond required certifications to the skills that prevent the next injury.
• Ensure OSHA 10 completion for all field employees and maintain the broader training matrix by role and hazard.
• Deliver and coordinate hands-on, task-specific training and develop field leaders as safety coaches.
• Use lessons learned and incident findings to drive targeted, just-in-time training.

Learning & Continuous Improvement

• Lead incident investigations and post-event learning using a learning-team and after-action approach focused on understanding, not blame.
• Drive root-cause analysis and verify that corrective actions actually reduce risk.
• Build a near-miss and good-catch reporting culture where reporting is expected, easy, and never punished.
• Capture and share lessons learned quickly across crews and across BME, Bertke, and Survoy's.

Measurement & Compliance

• Track and report both leading indicators (inspections, behavior observations, training completion, near-miss reporting, control verification) and lagging indicators (EMR, TRIR, OSHA recordables, incidents).
• Own and administer the KPA safety system as the system of record.
• Ensure compliance with OSHA, NFPA 70E, and state and local regulations across OH, KY, IN, and TN.
• Create and maintain safety policies, procedures, and SOPs that reflect how work is actually done.

Client & External Engagement

• Serve as the safety point of contact for client onboarding, audits, and prequalification.
• Maintain prequalification standing and represent our safety performance credibly to customers and partners.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required

• 7+ years of industrial or electrical safety experience.
• Demonstrated experience building or transforming a proactive, human-performance-based safety culture, ideally gained at a mature, safety-led organization (for example, American Electric Power, Lewis Tree Service, APi Group, or similar).
• Hands-on experience implementing behavior-based safety (BBS) or observation programs.
• Strong working knowledge of OSHA regulations and NFPA 70E.
• OSHA Authorized Trainer.
• Minimum 2 years of leadership or supervisory experience.
• Ability to complete OSHA documentation and reporting.
• Valid driver's license with a clean driving record.
• Willingness to travel regularly to job sites.

Preferred

• Bachelor's degree in Safety, Engineering, Construction, or a related field.
• Formal training in Human & Organizational Performance (HOP/HuP) or serious-injury-and-fatality (SIF) prevention.
• Professional certification (CSP, ASP, CHST, or equivalent).
• First Aid and CPR certification.
• Experience supporting multi-state operations.
• Experience building safety programs from the ground up.

KEY ATTRIBUTES FOR SUCCESS

• Proactive by nature: anticipates and mitigates risk rather than reacting to it.
• Culture-builder: can change how people think about safety, not just what they sign.
• Human-performance mindset: thinks in terms of behaviors, tools, conditions, and learning, not blame.
• Driven, motivated, and resilient: sustains change in a growing, multi-company environment.
• High emotional intelligence and people-first: safety because we care, not because we fear.
• Credible in the field: respected by technicians and leaders alike.
• Holds others accountable with respect: firm on standards, fair with people.