Small Business Safety Leadership - Elise Brown and Brian Schortz

<p>According to the US Small business Administration, 99 percent of firms in the US are small business and according to JP Morgan Chase, the vast majority, nearly 88%, have fewer than 20 employees.    </p> <p>At MEMIC, we partner with small business who understand that the health and safety of their employees leads to a more productive and profitable workplace.</p> <p>On this episode of the MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast, I speak with Elise Brown, partner and Executive Vice President at Evergreen Home Performance and Brian Schortz, General Manager at Evergreen Home Performance about developing and leading a safety culture at a small business.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:00:04] Hello, listeners, and welcome to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast, I'm your host, Peter Koch. Small businesses make up the lion's share of the employers across the country, and most large businesses started out as a small business venture where just a few people with a passion for something took their product or service to the people. And while not everyone or every small business will be the next Apple, Exxon or Tesla. Just about everyone, especially if you are or have been a small business owner, can relate to the struggle of building or owning a small company at MEMIC. We see that at the heart of every company that has enjoyed long term success, that there's a correlation between productivity, quality and safety. Of course, we're a safety company, so we would see that. But statistics do show that long term success does come from a balance between those three things. And there's analogies out there about the business [00:01:00] being like a three legged stool where safety, quality and productivity support the success of a company. And without all three of those, the stool is going to fall. Really, what has to happen is there needs to be a balance because you can't have a short leg on the stool and have it function for you, otherwise you will be precariously perched on one of the other legs and that's not going to be functional for anyone's long term success. So safety, we see it as the foundation upon which a business can build production and quality and without people, which is the crux of safety and the right people in place, most businesses will fail and we've all seen this and especially now. And if you're listening to this in 2021 are probably even in 2022. Finding employees is a very challenging part for any business large or small, and it becomes even more challenging when you find an employee, spend the time to train them to make them part of your team, and then they either leave [00:02:00] because they found a better offer someplace else or they get injured and they can no longer work for you. Because when people get hurt or leave because of conditions, your businesses may be unable to fulfill the productivity demands or quality demands. So having a robust workplace safety program and a culture allows an owner or a manager or a supervisor to be flexible around increased productivity and quality demand changes while still keeping a skilled workforce in place. A strong safety culture and program provides those parameters and tools to protect employees while still maintaining a focus on productivity and quality. Now, creating and maintaining that culture and program is a true leadership challenge, and I believe that small businesses can find really elegant and creative solutions to balance productivity and quality on a culture steeped in safety that large businesses can't always or sometimes struggle to find. So today, [00:03:00] to help us look at safety leadership in a small business are Elise Brown and Brian Schortz from Evergreen Home Performance. Elise is a partner and executive vice president, and Brian is the general manager. So, Elise and Brian, welcome to the podcast today.</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:03:16] Hi, Peter.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:03:17] Good morning, Peter. Thanks so much for having us.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:03:20] I'm excited to talk to you guys. You know, we have you and I don't have a long history, but you guys have a fairly long history with MEMIC. We were just talking about this before we started the podcast that you've been with MEMIC for somewhere around 15 years. A colleague of mine, Randy Klatt, is your lost control consultant, and he has spoken very highly of you guys, both as a company overall and as really leaders on the safety aspect. So we wanted to talk to you today, some about who you are. What Evergreen Home Performance is and how do you manage safety in such a, and really, it's a fairly challenging industry that you work in from a safety standpoint. [00:04:00] How do you manage safety and how do you keep it going? So let's find out a little bit about you guys first, Elise, let's start with you first. Why don't you tell me a little bit about you and your history with Evergreen? How does that sound?</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:04:14] Sure. I come from a background, a varied background. I guess I would say I've been a Jill of all trades. I've worked in construction. I've worked as a boat builder and the basis of my career before coming to Evergreen was in emergency response services. So I've been a professional and a volunteer firefighter and officer in our local volunteer fire department, and I've been an EMT and emergency medical technician as well as an ambulance driver. And currently I'm the emergency management director for the town of Liberty. And so all those prior and current experiences really have me steeped in the whole concept and value of safety. And [00:05:00] so when I joined Evergreen, that was an obvious place for me to put some attention.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:05:04] Yeah, sure. All of those really have substantial focus around safety, especially the emergency management part, but construction as well. And then boat building. I didn't realize that you had a boat building background to talk about that offline sometime and see where that goes. That's pretty cool. Brian, how about you? What's your background and how did you come to Evergreen?</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:05:27] Thanks, Peter. I have been, you know, with an evergreen for 11 years now and transition to evergreen from a corporate food service world. You know, basically, it was a large international companies that had lots of systems in place. And you know, you didn't have to think about safety. Safety was kind of presented as part of the operating plan. So there was there was not a lot of creativity. There was a plan. If you could follow the [00:06:00] plan, it was put together, you know, for success. So it was more of an implementation rather than kind of. Trying to figure it out for our business. And again, I've been with Evergreen for 11 years. I'm most recently, we've done a little bit of reorganization in the last year or so have taken the safety responsibility for Evergreen as my, one of my primary duties. This was Elise's passion and you know, up until and this is more of a soft handoff, and perhaps it will be handed back to Elise in the future. But nonetheless, we work at it collaboratively.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:06:41] Awesome.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:06:43] Hey, Peter, just to jump in a little bit here, I kind of started rambling about my safety background, but I didn't talk necessarily about what I'm doing in my role currently with Evergreen is that should I say a couple of sentences about that or</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:06:56] No, we'll get to that because I was going to bring it back after Brian. So great [00:07:00] lead in, actually. So the background actually in foodservice and I have a background in food service, not that large international corporate, but definitely corporate food service through college and then worked in small restaurants. And then that's actually how I paid for part of my college tuition is working in the cafeteria. So it definitely was a kind of a cookie cutter safety plan. And if you could follow the plan, you could be safe. But it really all depended upon if you wanted to follow the plan. So very, very interesting and neat background. So both of you have some background within safety, corporate emergency management, but let's find out a little bit more about evergreen itself. So Elise, why don't you talk a little bit about what you do for Evergreen? And I think more of an umbrella to like what is evergreen do? What is evergreen home performance about and what's the product that you have out there?</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:07:54] Sure. Evergreen Home Performance is a contracting company, and we have two locations in Portland [00:08:00] and Rockland. Each location has about 12 people, and within those groups we have a group of salespeople, two or three salespeople and the rest are in production, working in Maine homes, doing retrofit work to make them more energy efficient and comfortable. So the bulk of the work is in cramped spaces like attics and basements. And so, you know, as we think about safety, it's a fairly creative and customized approach in interpreting a lot of the rules. My role in the business has changed over time, but I tend to think about systems and I like in a small business. It's a very creative endeavor to try to make a system first, create it and then keep adjusting and adapting it to suit the businesses need. So currently I'm working on IT System improvements also work on sales processes in terms of how we flow our contracts through [00:09:00] a process and advising Brian on our safety system.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:09:05] Awesome. Lots of balls in the air for that, and I think there's kind of going back to the introduction there is an interwoven theme of safety that can be related to each of those systems, whether it's in a sales system. And we'll talk about this, how you know, how our salespeople can actually help or hinder some of the safety processes that we have in place. Our IT systems can certainly support or break down some of those safety systems that we have in our HR systems can certainly be a boon or a challenge to our safety systems. So interesting that you've got all those pieces in there. And really, from a systematic standpoint, it's not what I thought when I saw you as the executive vice president or heard that to think about that would be your focus in developing all those systems. So that's pretty cool. And again, [00:10:00] more of that conceptual piece as a small business leader in keeping safety at the forefront. Awesome. Brian. So as a general manager there? So what are your responsibilities and how do you interact with those systems that that Elise is getting in place for you or fine tuning for you?</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:10:22] Well, one of the duties one of my duties is I'm the human resource manager, so we're often talking about safety in use. So you know, our a lot of our work requires wearing respirators and true respirators, not, you know, paper masks. We're talking about respirators with P1, hundreds on them for a lot of the day. So that's a conversation that we're having. You know, all the interview is, you know, talking about the importance of the safety, the culture is that something that would even work for people? Some people do not want to be [00:11:00] saddled with a respirator or the primary thing you see and Elise is doing it is every person who we interview walks in the door with a beard and if you are going to wear a respirator. Unfortunately, that beard is not they're not friends, and the beard has to the beard has to go. So we talked about like, you know, maybe a very tight Elise calls them, you know, a fire fireman's moustache or so. Know things like all this over here has to go. So the seal works and your respirator is actually doing what it's intended to do. So we're talking about it at the very beginning, kind of making sure that we've got candidates and understand that it's super important that we're dealing in really hard work, tough conditions. Places that require respirators, so if it requires a respirator, that means there's something there that you don't want to be ingesting. You know, taking in your body, so you know, it does take [00:12:00] a certain kind of person and a commitment from the employee's standpoint to work, you know, to come to work for a company like that. I work in, the other part of my duty is I'm working directly with, we call our teams that are doing the work, production our production teams. So I manage the group in our Rockland office directly and, you know, have some scheduling input in our southern Maine. But so really just connecting with the people that are doing the work on a daily basis as well,</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:12:32] Great making sure that they have what they need. And I like that tie in right back from the interview, starting with a safety discussion. Whether you use the word safety right from the beginning or start talking about some of those different exposures that your employees will be exposed to. So the hazards that your employees will be exposed to right at the beginning in the interview, so they understand not only that you take it seriously, but you're aware of it, and there are some expectations around their [00:13:00] interaction and performance around those exposures. Awesome.</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:13:03] I think we found early on that we needed to let people know that safety was an important part of working at Evergreen two ways. One is that we take it seriously so that we're often interviewing folks that have worked in small businesses. They're not coming out of a corporate kind of world or a perhaps like DIW, where there are a lot of rules coming from a lot of mom and pop places that are used to operating, you know, sometimes fast and loose. And so, you know, trying to just get people to understand that this is not, that that's not the culture that we're, you know, is this the right fit? Because we do. We're not perfect. But these are some of the, you know, these are this is the culture</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:13:47] Great set in that expectation right up front. I think that's a good it's a good thought process to have to recognize that not everybody is going to come in with the same habits and understanding of not just [00:14:00] the expectations for performance, but that you do know what the hazards are, and there are some rules around how you interact with them. And not every business recognizes that. And as a small business, I think that's key for anyone listening that it's a great takeaway to know that you have an opportunity when you hire somebody on to reset their expectations. Hopefully for the positive, sometimes for the negative of what they should be doing when they're working here. You have that option as a business owner, as the hirer, or as the supervisor, as the manager. So kudos for, you know, weaving that in and throughout the hiring process and then the interaction as you go forward with those staff to Elise, did you have anything to add to that part because you know, you've been a part of this for a long time as well and putting the systems in place, you need to be able to support just what Brian's been talking about. So how does some of those systems interact and what else do you have to add [00:15:00] to that?</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:15:01] Yeah. My head is just abuzz with all kinds of ideas. So here's one thing that became apparent to us right out of the get go is, you know, as a contractor, we needed a CRM, a contact resource management tool all the way to a database to track our customers in a way to develop our pricing and get proposals out to customers. And we looked at out of the box solutions we could just purchase. And one of the things we came up against is we could not tailor what we sold to our satisfaction, both from a quality perspective, but from a safety perspective, because for us, no two spaces are the same. And if we were to just sell Widget X for the same standard price in every situation, we would be creating pressures on our teams to execute at that level, even if the space didn't allow for them to do that safely. So we need we built our own pricing tool so that our advisors, our sales [00:16:00] team, when they go in and build a project, they can incorporate safety considerations into the pricing structure so that the cost of almost everything we sell has some safety consideration, the ability to build that into the price. And so from a systems perspective, we had to build that ourselves so that we had the capacity to do it. And from a training perspective, we had to train our sales team and it's an ongoing process and all the things they need to be looking at and thinking about as a designer project and price it out. And so it's this constant evolution of really keeping them in touch with what our production teams are seeing and experiencing so they can properly price a job for them to do it safely. So that's just one example of how the entire business has to think about safety from a systems perspective.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:16:55] Yeah, and that could really make or break someone's experience as an employee in the field. [00:17:00] And I love the way you said it before, like, no, no space, no two spaces are the same. And I can just think about that from my experience with my own home, which, you know, is circa 1832. So that can give you an idea of what it looks like on the inside. And then so say my brother in law's house, which was built in the 90s. So a vastly different environment for you to work in. And if it's cookie cutter, you could really set somebody up to end up with the wrong tools to do the job. It's still essentially increasing the performance of the home from an environmental standpoint, from a heating and cooling standpoint. But the tools will be different if you have to go into an older home versus a newer home versus a home that's been remodeled before something else has changed. So interesting the way that works. And Brian, how do you see that enhance performance in the field? So Elise talked about [00:18:00] how the systems are working? And do you see that truly are really functioning for the people who are out there doing the job, doing the work when they get out into the field?</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:18:10] I guess what we see is people may not kind of understand what went into the pricing, necessarily the pricing and the thought process, but they may understand that there's less pressure. So I think that we have a metric that, you know, an informal metric of kind of production per day know each group of three when they're working in a house should be able to produce a certain amount of revenue per day. And what I think where I think this connects is that people understand that if the space is very tight or there's just, you know, kind of some very challenging elements to it that that's been factored in to the pricing [00:19:00] so that they have a little more revenue to work with. So they're not under the same kind of constraints to feel like they've just got to really cut corners. So from a customer standpoint, cut corners or even the safety corners that if it would call for normally we would do something. But they're feeling under, you know, under a pressure to get the project done in three days. They may skip that integral step of kind of making sure that they've done the right, the right process to make sure nobody gets hurt. And so I think that's where some of that and some of that is just really communicating what our goals are for the project, kind of some of the some of the challenges per project that we're seeing and getting feedback. You know, I think part of this also is hearing from the folks in the field that, that space was too tight. You know, honestly, it was too it was. If they're going to be like that, we shouldn't. We probably shouldn't do a project like that [00:20:00] because it really was way too physically exhausting, you know, taking it back to Elise and our sales team and just trying to figure out what the minimum space that we're going to work in. And, you know, kind of taking that feedback for real as we do want to keep people safe and employed at Evergreen. They have other needs to go places. If we put them in torture spots every day, the job becomes a lot less enticing.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:20:27] Well, so one example is we often work up in attics, and it used to be that we didn't necessarily have a line item to price for the necessity of placing or building out walk boards up in the attic. So before we specked that out and made sure it was part of the work scope, sometimes our production teams would come to an attic and go up and find that they had nothing to stand on. And so if they had come ill prepared and didn't have those materials and we hadn't priced in [00:21:00] enough time for them to build in a safe working platform, you can imagine the pressure they would feel to just do the dance along the floor choice and hope for the best, rather than have it built in and expected that they would take the time to build that walkway and have the materials with which to do it.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:21:19] That's a great example, because that takes a long knowing that because that's my attic. There are no walk boards up in the attic, and there's enough blown in insulation up there that you can't see any of the joists. So you're always wondering where you are. So, yeah, building that out takes some time. You got to have materials. And while you were both speaking, it made me think that this is part of that evolutionary process of, you know, how the systems can support the people in the field and how the people in the field can support the system. So there's this ongoing spiraling process of information flow back and forth to [00:22:00] overall balance those three pieces safety, quality and productivity. Because you know, you talked about it, Brian, you need to be able to make enough money to be successful to have the business continue. So that's a given that has to happen, and that's based around a lot about the quality of the work that you do. So not only the quality of the end product, but the quality of the work that's done while the people are there. And I know I've talked to folks that have had a particular construction crew or carpentry crew or remodeling crew come in. And even though the end product was functional, the process to get to that end product was not very functional. It was very conflicted a lot with the homeowner and the process of living and functioning and what was said. And lots of stuff goes on to reduce or increase the perception of quality that the customer might be getting. And it seems like [00:23:00] those systems that you have in place can help support all of that.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:23:03] Well, you know, when you look at a job hazard analysis for construction, one of the primary sources of injury is slips, trips and falls. So the easiest way to address that is through simple housekeeping. And so even just in the project set up, you know, taking the time to have a good greeting with the customer, find out which access points work best for them. You know, setting up your hoses and your cords and your workstations in a way that works well for them makes it super efficient for the crew and safe. You know, then you've kind of solved every problem, all in one fell swoop. And so it just makes sense to take the time to do that right at the outset. It makes the day go better for everybody.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:23:47] It sure does. It sure does. And it sounds like you set that expectation that that is the expectation of your crews when they get on the job, that they know that they're expected to do that. You don't just leave it to chance that [00:24:00] they're going to bring the habit from another company or their own personal life, that that's how they'll interact with your customers.</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:24:06] And they do. They understand that it is part of part of what we're doing here, and we're not selling something that is that is glamorous, that is shiny. And it's not, you know, it's not some trophy counter. It is. Once we're done in the attic, they might pop their head up for five minutes and then they're hopeful they never have to look up there again. So where we have the opportunity to kind of make a strong impression on a customer is, you know, with the people that we bring into their home and the experience. And so that's, it is super important, you know that that aspect of working in someone's home where contracting experiences haven't always been positive. You know, we're kind of we're, you know, we start off, you know, working against people's experiences often. And so we have to be better than, you know, than what they're expecting.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:25:00] Now [00:25:00] that's great. So how do you like, how would you quantify, maybe quantify as not the right word, but how do you how do you make sure that you get the buy in from your staff that this is like this is not just the because you can set the expectation, and I think a lot of people listening will have had this experience where you set an expectation and then you go out and look at the performance that's happening in the field or on the shop floor, wherever you are. And the expectations aren't met because the buy in is not there. So how do you make sure that your staff stayed bought into this process?</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:25:43] That's the biggest challenge is I think most people buy like verbally and mentally buy in, you know, to the idea because no one wants to fall down the steps. No one wants to fall through a ceiling. And, you know, kind of crack their ribs. People get rushed. People [00:26:00] kind of forget they get, you know, started to develop bad habits. So, you know, our job is to just to continue to be vigilant, to continue to reinforce, you know, kind of the standards most people want to play along. You know, they just develop bad habits over time. And it's just kind of bringing out, you know, kind of refreshing those and making sure they understand how important it is. And it's important to the company success. And most people here understand the correlation between the company's success, their happiness. You know, it's kind of all tied together that they play an important role at Evergreen. And if the people that are doing the work aren't able to do the work, it impacts the company negatively. So if they're out because they've fallen down the stairs, that's a beyond the torture that you know, puts us through and feeling bad about their injury and physically hurts them. [00:27:00] It also hurts the business, and I think everyone understands how it all kind of plays together for evergreen's success.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:27:08] One of the things I noticed when I was in the fire service was that it was really at the level of the lieutenants that would make or break a safety culture because they were the ones that would sort of embody whatever the values were that the management was trying to impart at the ground level. And one of the things that I've noticed Brian Schortz do really well in managing his production teams is he really cultivates good relationships with his site supervisors, the project managers, and develops a real culture of safety with them so that they feel free to communicate with him. Concerns of any kind. You know, when a job is especially difficult, when they notice something that feels unsafe to them. So I think a lot of it is really in sort of the HR culture that a [00:28:00] business develops so that the middle the mid-level management feels free to express what they see going on and developing, you know, a work atmosphere that feels friendly and supported, I think creates a receptivity when the management team says, Hey, we really got to work on our safety. You know, people are slipping up a little bit or I noticed you weren't wearing those safety glasses. Let's talk about it. And often there are other issues or concerns that we haven't thought about. And so if you don't have that culture of safety where people can really express what's bugging them or what they really need, then you can do all the preaching you want. But maybe there's not going to be on the buying because they don't feel respected or heard about something else.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:28:52] Yeah, it's a really, really great point on both sides for Brian and Elise, you guys. I'm glad you said it because [00:29:00] that's something that I talk often with my policyholders, with the clients that I work with, that, you know, accountability is not just going out and trying to figure out what's somebody doing wrong, but it's the back and forth between your employees, the supervisors, the line staff and make sure making sure that you have all the information to make good decisions and letting them know that they're heard. So I've got a question for you on that particular one. Do you have any examples around like how your employees, maybe they're your middle managers or your line supervisors, or maybe your staff have come up with different ways to be safer in the field and that have been implemented company wide so that they know that they're heard because I think that's an important part because we can talk at all the time. But unless they're really seeing it, they're not going to buy in. So I know you've got some examples out there. So [00:30:00] what might be one that you can relate to our listeners?</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:30:04] Well, I think we can take the example of hot attics, and we'll each have something to say about it. So I can talk about hot attics from a system perspective. So as we've mentioned, we're a retrofit company. We work often in attics to air, seal and insulate them to help an occupant save energy and be more comfortable. Well, that often means that we're up in the attic doing that work and six months out of the year, those temperatures can be quite elevated. Brian, will talk to you about some of the improvisation that our field technicians figured out to do to cool those spaces. But we also got feedback from our line staff and from our site supervisors that some of the conditions were just unbearable was unsafe. You know, when we did temperature monitoring, we were hitting the heat index. It was unsafe to be in. And so we made a decision [00:31:00] from a management perspective to not schedule some of those projects in the summer and to defer them to cooler months of the year. And that had all kinds of implications for our marketing, for our project scheduling. So we had to implement those from a systems perspective, and I'll let Brian talk about some of the improvisation for how we can continue to work in some attics that we found were acceptable.</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:31:26] So working and, you know, when we were less prepared to not work in attics in the warmer months as this was starting to become the concern as an issue, you know, some of our some of our production managers developed systems to help cool the spaces. So ultimately and using, you know, some unique thoughts, they created a way to water roofs to ultimately bring the temperature down, you know, in those, you know, in those spaces and it could be [00:32:00] 10 15 degrees that they would see the difference of, you know, getting these long kind of contraptions that held a hose and a sprinkler up to a roof to safely get it up there and have it attached to the roof and making enough of a difference to make it palatable and safe to work in those environments. You know, during certain points of the day. So, you know, that's just one innovation that the folks have a lot of different fans and air conditioning units. And again, because every space is so different that we work in, it's trying to figure out which tool we have that we'll kind of make little work in that particular environment. So it does require a little bit of, you know, innovation. Each project say, what are the containers? Are there? Are there actual window schematics that windows in them? That's a very convenient, you know, if you've got an attic that has a window and [00:33:00] some power, you know, a small, a small AC unit in there, it might make the difference. No windows, no anything. You know, you're bringing fans tube fans up from the basement because the cold air from the basement, you know, is much different than the summer or the air outside your house in the summer. So, you know, those are a couple of different things that you know that we've kind of put in place to make work happen safely.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:33:23] So I guess two questions for follow up on that, and I guess this will tie into the systems as well. But Brian, when your team came up with the watering the roof, which I think is a very innovative plan, it's not something that you would normally think of and it makes scientific sense, but it's not something that your regular attic insulation installer is going to think of right off the top of their head. So how did that go from idea to one of the potential solutions for attic cooling when you're [00:34:00] in those situations?</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:34:02] Good question, Peter, and I'm not sure that I can kind of go back to the genesis of this, but we are a building.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:34:10] I remember.</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:34:11] I'll speak to one aspect and all that Elise up in, you know, part of our business is we adhere to building science concepts. So we're not just a traditional insulation company, you know, we use building science as the backbone of the work that we're doing. And so people that are in the company are exposed to building science concepts so that the concept of, you know, of a roof cooling with water is something that, you know, that perhaps came out of, you know, some of those discussions. Some of the building science discussions and not your normal water cooler talk.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:34:52] But I remember one of our I guess I think he was still a technician at the time. Brian Pringle got this concept and he asked, Hey, [00:35:00] do you mind if I make a prototype and try it out? So we said, sure, and he went and bought all the items from Home Depot or the hardware store, and we paid for the materials and he rigged one up and tried it and liked it and took a little video and showed it around and people got interested. So I think we gave him the time and the budget to build a couple more. And then the shop up in Rockland did the same. So it was just a little seed money and a good idea. And the encouragement to do it,</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:35:30] That part, that encouragement part and giving employees and you had spoken about both of you spoke about this earlier is the having both your managers and your technicians, your line staff, the ability to be heard and then not just being heard in a meeting and then everybody nodding and then going away. And you do the same thing the next day, but actually taking a potential concept that people see value and bringing it to fruition and then installing [00:36:00] it as part of one of the solutions. That's very powerful for an employee to be heard. And it's not just the moneymaking solution, but it's a safety solution. It's a really interesting way of managing a very dangerous exposure for your staff. And it's innovative. That's a fantastic a great story, a really great story. And I think it speaks to some businesses, whether you're a large business, a medium sized business or a small business, we sometimes get roped into all of the solutions have to come from me. And when you have a group of employees that you're training and you're caring for and you're working with a lot of solutions or at least ideas for potential solutions can come from them. And that's a it's a great story. Water on the roof. It's a great story.</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:36:53] And I just like to add to at the other end of the business level, from a management owner perspective, [00:37:00] we had to be willing to stop selling certain things. You know, if it was just too hot and too dangerous, we had to be willing to walk away. And so it was it was in conjunction with that concern of hot attics that we started considering adding other services to our business offerings so that we could generate revenue in ways that were safer. And so we started installing windows and doors as another offering that had different safety hazards, of course, but not the same hot attic exposure.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:37:34] But again, another really innovative way of seeing an exposure and knowing that no matter what happens, you're still going to have some times where you, you really shouldn't be in the attic. You shouldn't expose employees to that for a multitude of reasons. One is safety. And then Brian said, the other one that, you know, if you continue to expose people to that kind of environment, they might find another place to go. So looking at safety [00:38:00] as the impetus of saying, Hey, here's the boundary that we have to work within. And if we come up against that boundary and it's not going to be functional for us to go beyond that, but it's going to restrict our productivity or our quality, we have to find something else. So again, another great way of looking at safety as being an innovator to move you to different product lines, different ways to make the business grow and stepped you up into a place where, you know, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, you didn't expect to be there. So just another market, another place for you. So let's think about just safety and other ways that as a small business, you are able to move that safety needle because again, you're balancing safety quality. Productivity, you have incorporated safety really into the business, it's not just an add on or something that gets checked [00:39:00] off as a box, but it's something that you live and breathe. You still need to draw on different resources in order to help move that safety needle. So what are some different resources that you draw on a regular basis to help your employees stay safe?</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:39:15] Most recently, six months ago, we found that there was another a company that was very similar to Evergreen at one point in their history, a home performance company doing similar work out of New York state. They had received a lot of a lot of funding to really put high level systems together. And so they developed a really incredible library of video safety best practices that were applicable to our industry. So we ended up purchasing kind of their system that group's plan and been very, you know, it's been very beneficial in that in [00:40:00] the past and we had a ladder safety or an electrical safety. It was, you know, could be very some of the videos that went along with it were instructing me, you know, but not they weren't our industry. These videos actually speak to the hazards that folks in this actual industry in similar housing stock are going to encounter on a day to day basis. So we found it really having that resource has been a great tool. You know, it's been much more it's just been much more effective. If you're spending, you know, an hour and you're in a safety training, it's much more targeted and real world, you know, real experiences that these folks are going to encounter on the job. So that's one example.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:40:48] That's a great example. Always looking for different resources, which is which is excellent to not just think that you have all the answers yourself, but look outside and see what other organizations can help you with that.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:41:00] Well, [00:41:00] when I first started working on building a company safety program, so it was really hard to know where to start because you can look up all the different OSHA regulations and just tear your hair out and trying to interpret how they apply to your business. And that can be maddening. I called upon safety works quite a lot. That's the training and education arm of the Maine Department of Labor. Those consultants were really friendly, helpful. I had them come out and do a number of site visits so they'd come right to the site and we'd just poke around and get all kinds of ideas. But then we also had some really specific questions like we didn't understand what the requirements were for our folks who were applying spray foam product in a space, and we didn't understand what was going to be required in terms of their respiratory protection. So they were able to come in and do some air monitoring for us at no cost. [00:42:00] And that was really helpful because then we took those results and we could develop a safety program tailored to our needs. And after using safety works, you know, then really started developing a close working relationship with Randy Klatt. He's our guy at MEMIC our safety management consultant and using him as a resource, you know, we'd come up against something and not be sure. So we'd ask for his guidance or if we had an accident, you know, just try to reach out to him and have him help us think through how we might do it differently to prevent that happening again.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:42:40] That's excellent. And I think safety works is an underutilized resource here in Maine. And I know so there's people across the country listening to this podcast. Just about every state has a safety works within their state, so it's the educational arm of their Department of Labor that will be able to go and do different [00:43:00] things for them, whether it's an exposure, specific training or, like you said, the air quality monitoring or the air monitoring that they're doing and that when we think about respirators and Brian, you talked about that at the very beginning as one of the things you discuss at hire about. Are you willing and able to wear a respirator or shave to wear a respirator, to be able to go back to the data and say this is why we're wearing a respirator, not just because we think you should wear a respirator, but here's the product. Here's the space. Here's the concentration. Here's the type of respirator. Here's the cartridge. Here's the change out schedule. Here's all this stuff that you need goes a long way to make that employee feel comfortable and confident in the methods and the resources that the employer is putting forth. So that's fantastic to tap into a resource like that. And then the resource of your insurance carrier like MEMIC is [00:44:00] relatively unique. But we are not the only insurance carrier that has lost control or safety management consultants out there. So you know, if you're insured with MEMIC, give us a call if you've got a question from a safety standpoint and. If you're not insured with MEMIC, you know, call your carrier and see if you do have some safety resources that you could tap into. You might be surprised of the amount of experience that your carrier can bring to the table for you.</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:44:29] To your point earlier about making people feel comfortable and part of our orientation is very it can be a little scary. You know, we're talking about lead. We're talking, you know, exposures to lead, we're talking about potential exposures to asbestos. And, you know, do we find that every day? No, we find it very rarely. But the point being that, you know, when you're telling someone that they may encounter asbestos [00:45:00] and you know, these are, you know, folks are not kind of hardened tradespeople that, you know, have seen this and heard about asbestos their whole lives. These are some, you know, folks that are new to the trade, perhaps. And you know, it's a scary, you say asbestos and that's scary to someone. So if you can let them know that you know they'll be wearing a respirator, that's appropriate so that if there is a discovery and unexpected discovery that day that they've been protected, you know, they've got the right respirator for the conditions and we're not going to once we find it, you know, that's kind of a job stopper for us. We back out. But the fact that you've had that rescue, you'll be wearing the appropriate respiratory protection really goes a long way and not scaring people away from the job.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:45:48] I think that's another underrated tool that small businesses don't take advantage of. And then you said it's orientation, and I've been through many different types [00:46:00] of orientations, been part of presenting an orientations, receiving orientations from the whole, the whole gambit from those that are really just kind of checking the box to make sure that people are quote unquote oriented to the job and others like yourselves that are actually taking the time to let people know what the exposures are, what the hazards are, what the expectations are and then what is going to happen if they do encounter something. So what are these? What are those expectations? And that's a powerful part of the orientation process that we miss. So let me just ask you this question on orientation overall. So when you're orienting a new person, how much time does that new person, how much time do you spend with that new person in orientation from the time that they're hired, to the time that you consider them to be oriented enough to be competent on the job?</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:46:54] One of the things that I found so interesting is a couple of years ago, we [00:47:00] asked Randy, our safety management consultant, if he could go through our particular data on accidents and injuries and give a report over the years of what had happened for our business. And the amazing thing it was like an inverted bell curve. And so we had the highest number of injuries with new people and then it would go way down. And so our hires who had been with us say from one year to six year years had relatively few injuries. And then the folks who'd been with us a long time started to get more injuries. That was really illuminating for me. And so from an orientation perspective, it became apparent that really the first three months are not about productivity at all. It's really about getting oriented to the safety culture, the safety program and the safety mechanics and habits. And so right at the get go, you know, we're talking about safety as the [00:48:00] primary focus. And for a business like ours where you're in strange spaces, where you're not just standing on a flat floor all day, but you're in attics or crawling in a basement, really just focusing on a presence of mind, you know, really being oriented in time and space is a really critical function in being able to be safe in those environments. So we just kind of start hammering that and we started doing that in a new and a different way. And it was thanks to that graph that really got me fired up to make that such an important part of our beginning with any new employee.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:48:37] Yeah, that injury data can be very enlightening and it's something that I think we miss like we don't know many businesses tend to treat the injuries kind of separate from other data that their business takes in to use to evaluate what those steps they need to take to be successful. And I would I would imagine that if [00:49:00] a business decided to pull their injury history for the last, however many years that they would find if they looked at it in the same light that you looked at it from how long someone had been employed with you, that they would find a similar bell curve. We do find statistically overall when we look at MEMIC data aggregated that we do find there's a predominance of new employees being injured, and so that goes depending on the seasonality of your business. That new employee could be, you know, six months in or three years in as a new employee. And then it'll peter off. You know, you won't have so many injuries as people understand the exposures and the controls that are out there. And then you'll see it to start to increase on the other end as people get very comfortable with those exposures. And they forget, I love the way you put it, Elise the presence of mind. When you're in a space, how do you get people to have presence of mind? Can I can [00:50:00] I throw that odd question out at you? Like that's do you have a way to really help people keep their presence of mind when they are in a space where there are different exposures?</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:50:12] I think it comes back to the work culture. I think it comes back to, you know, creating a work environment that doesn't feel so rushed where people feel cared for, where it's a friendly environment. You know, it's amazing how much those kinds of factors help remove distractions or pressures that take your focus away. And, you know, if people are relatively happy and like the people they're with, they're, you know, they're not going to just be angry and thrashing around or just trying to hurry through the day. So I don't have any magic answer. I really don't know. But like we hear from our folks that they appreciate the friendliness and how accepted [00:51:00] they are just on a very human level. I don't know if that answers your question, but I think it would help.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:51:07] Yeah, no, I definitely do. And I think it adds to the comments that you were both making before about the importance of your middle management group because I think that's the group that sets the stage for that presence of mind within the job site, at the job site. So Brian, when you go on to the job site and you, you know, you're working with that management team, you're bringing that presence of mind to them, they're bringing that presence of mind to the staff that are working there. So it's a key thing. I'm not sure that you can teach it, but I think you have to be the example and have people emulate that.</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:51:51] We're not creating best practices in the office. We're hearing from the people that are doing the work. And you know, they're often [00:52:00] the people that are innovating for our business. They're innovating, you know, best practices, some of the safety, you know, some of the safety practices that ultimately they want to go home at the end of the day, you know, with what they started with and no more, no less as well, you know, in terms of their bodies. So I mean, you know, we're hearing about things that aren't safe. You know, they'd like to see different, and we also there's an example of this past safety training in our sales team. So we, you know, we'll break up our groups and we'll have different departments and the sales team. We did a ladder safety training and honestly, they use ladders the least of our groups. And so in a little ways, you know, it was an hour's worth of ladder training videos that, you know, they may have felt wasn't, you know, the best use of their time. But I want it to be phrased it in a way that was that they need to understand the company. You know what we do [00:53:00] as a company and what the safety goals of the company is so that if they're out on a job site, they see the ladder is being used inappropriately. They've got the opportunity to be an intervenor. Tap someone on the shoulder and kind of gently say, Let's maybe we should reconfigure this. Not that's not the way that wants to be used. And I actually got feedback from one of the salespeople. He was at a job site this past week. And you know, part of that message was it's your job to say something. It's not like we're teaching you this. It's your responsibility to say something when you see something. And you know, we teach on saying it respectfully and not, you know, we're not the Hammer Company, you know, we really try to say things in an appropriate way. But one of the salespeople came back and said, Well, I was at a job site today and they had us all out and they didn't have to stand for it. So they had it on these rickety, rickety set up. And he said, I went over and said, Rick, I [00:54:00] was told to tell you, this is like, that's not the right way to do this, you know, in our training. And you know, let's can I get you a stand like, what do you need here? Do you need do you need the stand? Where's the stand? You know, I can get. And they hadn't. When they bought the saw, the stand was back ordered, and I think they never they just never end up getting around to it. But it was, you know, it was purposely given to me as, you know, look what I did. I helped, you know, I was listening to you. You know, it really was wasn't about a ladder. It was about something else. And they took it seriously. So it was great.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:54:37] I think that's a great example.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:54:39] Here's another example of presence of mind, you know, sort of indirectly, Peter, and that is, is that, you know, because Brian and I guess evergreens tried to cultivate, you know, a good relationship with the site supervisors. And we have pretty tight teams that work together frequently. They know one another. And so a site supervisor might call [00:55:00] Brian and say, you know, Joey seems a little off today. He seems distracted or tired or I know he's had a hard time at home, so I'm not putting him on the tough job today. You know, I'm going to have him do something else, and that really is good hazard management because you know, why put a worker, you know, is kind of stressed in a position where something's more likely to go wrong. So those are, you know, some examples of how a workplace culture can really avert something going really wrong just because you know the people and you're not going to just make them do it because they're supposed to</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [00:55:34] Right that that trust in the culture that you know the has got your back. My fellow colleague employees got my back, my supervisors got my back. So it's all about it's all about success. And it's not like realization. I bet you if you if you did like a company culture survey that try to ferret out what people's attitudes were around, what you're all working for and you're all working [00:56:00] together for the success of each other and ultimately then the company. So I think as I'm hearing that there's a lot of openness within the culture and at the foundation of that, you know, is safety. It's hard to talk about productivity only productivity and get that openness. But there is that compassionate part of safety where there's a moral part of safety. It's not just checking the box for compliant, but that's a moral component of we all have a responsibility of going back home at the end of the day to our family, our friends and our loved ones. That's awesome. So I got a couple more questions and we're getting right towards the end of it. This is one that I don't know that we've talked about in the past, but you brought up the injury trend. So I wanted to ask you because like you said before, you're not perfect. No companies perfect injuries do happen. And even if a company is going to end, it happens more often [00:57:00] than not with small businesses. So I don't have any injuries. Well, I guarantee you that your employee has gone home, injured and just never told you it's going to happen, whether it's a splinter or it's a strain or a sprain or something more significant. And they just never told you and came back to work the next day. No harm, no foul or. They left work and never came back because they got injured, so when there is an injury at your company. After all, the reporting happens and you care for the employee because I know that's part of your process and you get them the treatment that they need. What do you do around the analysis and trying to prevent that from happening again? What do you do with the information about that injury?</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [00:57:47] Well, you know, unfortunately, we had an injury a month ago and it was not insubstantial. It was, you know, was a fairly painful injury and some lost time. Not significant lost [00:58:00] time, but more pain and more pain and suffering than the last time. But. And you know, this is a struggle, you know, to try to get to, you know, very good at reporting it and staying on top of, you know, requirements and then getting back and figuring out, you know, we do a hazard analysis, you know, we kind of go and do that, do that, dig in. And it's often there's nothing all that, you know, this is not that complicated. We use the wrong tool for the wrong, the wrong job. And we realized it, you know, during the during the job that we just kind of put our head down and kept plowing through it and didn't happen to be a site supervisor, you know, on site that day. And, you know, maybe it might have been different, you know, had there been someone, you know, someone at that level on site. But when you don't take the time you realize you've you don't have the right tool on site that day, the cost of not going back to the shop was significantly less [00:59:00] than the cost of the physical pain. And you know that this person went through by getting hit in the face with a drill that got seized up on a wall. So it's just really getting back to folks and letting them know now that no one had bad intentions there. You know, the intention was they had no, they didn't think anything bad would come of it, but ultimately they also knew that it wasn't the primary tool for the job. So just letting them know that's not the right answer and that we're all here to support. If they're 30 minutes away, they call the office, someone can bring them the right tool if they can't get back there. It's just making sure that they know there are options or not firewalled into just walking straight ahead. Straight ahead all the time.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [00:59:50] One thing I'd like to add to that is as a system oriented person, I always think about, Well, how can we make this different so that it's less [01:00:00] likely to happen? And you know, when you think of human nature, it's so hard to stop, you know, people just want to keep going. So I when an accident like that happens, you know, I really want to understand and help communicate to the crew, you know, the steps they can take to help prevent it. But then I want to take it back, you know, a few steps back in the process and think, how can we make it even less likely that it would even be an option to occur? So, you know, for me, it's like, do we need more of those tools available? Do we need a different packing system? So it's always on the truck? You know, what are those kinds of steps that happen five, six, seven, 10 steps prior to even, you know, being standing at the wall using the drill in the first place? So it does take a willingness to look at a lot of different layers. And that's really hard to do when you're a small business and you're just trying to stay afloat. And sometimes we succeed [01:01:00] and really, you know, digging to the bottom of it and sometimes the best we do is put some ointment and a Band-Aid on and hope. I hope we get the time to really look deeply. A little later on. And that's a hard thing to be honest about. I think sometimes</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [01:01:19] You're both right on the money, and I love that you really described a progression that many businesses go through. Some stay at the we've reported it. We've taken care of the employee and it's done. Some take the next step, take that data and bring it back to the employee to recognize that the tool wasn't used correctly. And then there's the next step of looking at it, as there was a decision that was made to not use the tool correctly and then the decision to not go back and get the right tool. And then finally, that that next step or that downstream step of how do you integrate the solution of using [01:02:00] the right tool or having the right tool available or eliminating the decision back to the systems process? And that's a really great progression. And you hit the nail on the head super hard to do and super hard to do. Whether you are a small business, small business owner, a medium business or you're an enormous business, there's just. Different challenges that come up because an enormous business in order to change a system could take an act of Congress where the benefit that you have of a smaller group, you can actually tweak the system in order to make a more reasonable or a reasonable change in a small amount of time. So there is benefits on both sides. One might have more resources and as a small business, you're a lot more agile to make to make better decisions as or change decisions to go forward. So great. Great example, and I appreciate you just taking the time to explain that process to us and be a little vulnerable there. You know, I asked you a [01:03:00] pretty challenging question around, you know, what are your injuries? And it's never easy to admit that, yeah, they happen to us too. But they do. They do happen. All right. So I got one more question and this will go to both of you guys. So what's the one thing that you know now about workplace safety that you wish you would have known when you started out?</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [01:03:23] I was thinking about this earlier today. Not directly, but I was thinking about what makes someone who's in the safety role of an organization potentially successful and assuming a lot of other things being there, is, you know, finding someone who has the passion for safety. You know, I found that when Elise joined Evergreen, she came in, you know, with a zeal, you know, and a concern and a focus, you know, about safety that you know that frankly, I cared about people and I, you know, we had that caring culture, [01:04:00] you know, really wasn't it didn't focus on the safety side of it the same way. And Elise, such a passion and kind of a drive for it that that allows, you know, the business to really to strive in that level. So putting someone, you know, trying to match up a skill set with that, you know, with someone that's in charge of safety that truly has a passion that cares about it. And you know, I think is part of making a program that will be vibrant.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [01:04:31] Yeah, passion is a huge part. And you know, I wish I had recognized that when I was first starting out, that safety is not just all about the data. There's a lot of personal drive and commitment that's going to make it successful. So great. Thank you for that insight, Brian. Elise, what about you? What's the one thing that you wish you had known when you started out about workplace safety?</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [01:04:55] Well, I gave my answer away already when I talked about the nice curve [01:05:00] that Randy gave us with our data. But here is another thing, and that is that I wish I had understood better how much mental health is such a critical part of safety. And COVID has just made it altogether clear that workplace safety is every bit as centered around mental health as it is around physical health and safety. I think that would have been beneficial for us had we realized and incorporated that sooner.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [01:05:31] Yeah. So can I follow up on that a little bit? I think we've talked about a number of threads throughout this podcast around that will address mental health. But so what are some of the learnings that COVID has brought up that you've implemented to help employees with that mental health that would pay dividends in safety later on?</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [01:05:50] I don't think we have the answers yet. I think this is all pretty new territory. But you know, I think as a small, sort of family oriented [01:06:00] company, we've always understood that, you know, people's personal lives matter and that you kind of bring a certain amount of your mental equilibrium or lack thereof to work on a daily basis. But the stresses of COVID, you know, really brought out that some people have a lot of instability at home and that that can have an effect on the team esprit de corps. It can have an effect on how patient people are and how willing they are to proceed cautiously. You know, it can make people maybe drive more erratically. Who knows? You know, there are all kinds of ways in which mental health stress can make it harder for a company's safety culture to be successful. And so, you know, just kind of trying to create a place where we're much more aware of that and we're kind of got our radar, you know, kind of out to sense how people [01:07:00] are doing from a mental standpoint so that we can maybe talk to the supervisors or help them. I mean, they're not immune, either, you know, it's a big thing and we don't know yet. We're really at the very beginning of learning about this.</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [01:07:15] And that's a whole other podcast.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [01:07:16] Good. All right. We'll talk about that maybe in a few months when we get some learning, but I think the awareness that's a really insightful again, another really insightful part that mental health has a lot to do with the success of your safety program. And when I think about safety is being the foundation of what you build, your productivity and quality on mental health and the ability of the person to really understand the impact of their choices on their safety. And then especially when you're working in a tight space with a couple other team members, somebody else's safety. That's huge. And so recognizing that if my mental health isn't where it needs to be, if [01:08:00] I'm not focused on what my job steps are, I could easily put somebody else at substantial risk for injury, especially working in a tight space and with some of the hazards that you guys have to manage on the job.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [01:08:13]  Here's a quick example. Brian Schortz, you said this to me just the other day, he said. I realize that I have to come to any kind of meeting, you know, with a certain amount of confidence and convey that to people because it really impacts people. And when you think about COVID, you know, when we were trying to figure out our protocols for how we work in homes, you know, we wanted to be really upfront and convey the exposures and the risks and be very clear about what the hazards were. But at the same time, we had to convey confidence that we could manage this. We were all in it together. You know, there was a way to be safe and still be productive, you know, so that we didn't create more stress in their lives. But, you know, give them a path [01:09:00] where they could feel successful, feel safe and feel confident that they could earn a living and not bring some illness home to their family. So it's tricky.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [01:09:10] Yeah, it is tricky. And I don't think just from our conversations today and just previous to this, I don't think you could have been successful in that conversation had you not laid the groundwork for the open communication, for the support, for the understanding of the employees about that. Yeah, the company's got my back. So I trust them because that's really essentially what you're talking about, that confidence. You can come up with confidence. You can be falsely confident in front of a group of people and they will smell you out like a 10 day old rat and that won't go well and won't go well at all. So you not only have to be confident, but you have to be genuinely confident. And that comes from all the prep work that you've done for all these years of building the company and building [01:10:00] the safety culture through a lot of trial and error. I mean, you've said it from the beginning that, you know, you're not perfect and this is it's a process of becoming not just a statement of being right. Well, we are right here at the end of our podcast. Believe it or not, it's been a little over an hour. It's gone by pretty fast, but a fantastic conversation with you guys. Thank you very much for sharing your expertise with us or myself and all of our listeners out there. So thanks for that.</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [01:10:28] Thank you, Peter, for the opportunity. It's always humbling to talk about safety because it's always a work in progress and it's so easy to focus on the failures. But the conversation has helped get me excited about some next steps for Evergreen. So thanks a lot. Awesome.</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [01:10:45] Appreciate that. So where can our where can our listeners find out more about Evergreen Home Performance? If they are interested in more about that or about who your company is and what they do? Where can they find out more about you?</p> <p><strong>Brian Schortz:</strong> [01:10:57] Well, you know, we have a YouTube [01:11:00] channel that's Evergreen Home Performance, and there's a YouTube channel which talks about the exciting career opportunities that evergreen straight from the, you know, straight from the employees mouths. It's not something that we helped put the put it together, but this is all their own dialogue and, you know. Some good ideas about what it would be like to work in evergreen. And you know, our website, Elise for, you know, for us all to look at Evergreen as a business is where should folks go</p> <p><strong>Elise Brown:</strong> [01:11:31] And visit us at WWW.Evergreenyourhome.com Or visit us on our Facebook page. Evergreen Home Performance</p> <p><strong>Peter Koch:</strong> [01:11:39] Perfect. And we'll put those links into the show notes so people can grab those and they just have to write them down when they're listening, because that's not good if you're listening while you're driving. So we'll put them in the show notes for you guys. So thank you again for joining us and then to all of our listeners out there. Thank you so much for sticking with us today on the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast. We've been speaking about [01:12:00] safety leadership in a small business with Elise Brown and Brian Schortz from Evergreen Home Performance. If you have any questions about safety leadership, or would you like to hear more about our particular topic on our podcast? Email me at podcast@MEMIC.com. Also, check out our show notes at MEMIC.com/ 56podcast, where you can find a. Additional resources, links to other podcasts, as well as our entire podcast archive, and while you're there, sign up for our safety net blog so you never miss any of our articles or safety news updates. If you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it. If you took a minute or two to subscribe and review us on Spotify, iTunes or whichever podcast service that you found us on. If you've already done that, thank you. Thank you very much because it really helps us spread the word. Please consider sharing the show with a business associate friend or family member who you think will get something out of it. And as always, thank you for the continued support and until next time. This is Peter Koch reminding you that listening to the MEMIC Safety Experts [01:13:00] podcast is good, but using what you learned here is even better.</p> <p> </p>