Performance in Safety Award

The 2016 Achievement of Excellence award for Performance in Safety was awarded to Sangre de Cristo Electric Association by the Colorado Rural Electric Association.

During the annual CREA Loss Control Conference in July, each co-op’s safety performance for the prior year is evaluated and reviewed.

Only co-ops that did not have any lost time accidents during the prior year qualify for CREA’s Achievement of Excellence Award. Of the co-ops that did not have a lost-time accident during the year, (12 statewide in 2016), only one Achievement of Excellence award is presented.

SDCEA was chosen for the award because it met and/or exceeded several other criteria, including not only no lost-time accidents, but also no vehicle accidents. Judges also looked at the culture of safety throughout the co-op. Is management staff involved in the safety program? Does the CEO attend safety meetings? Is the board of directors involved in promoting safety throughout the co-op? Is safety a priority with, not just the outside crews, but the entire office staff and everyone who works for the co-op? A variety of measures are used to determine how pervasive the culture of safety is at the co-op and how successful the co-op has been at implementing safety measures throughout the organization.

Sangre has been recognized with no lost time awards for the years 2012-2016. That means that during the entire year no employees had to take time away from work because of an accident on the job.

“Safety is a priority from the Board of Directors down,” Chief Operations Officer Pat Bernhardt said. “It takes the whole company working with safety in mind to get an award like this.”

Sangre worked through several dangerous winter storms last winter, including a Christmas Day wind event that knocked power out throughout the region and several substantial southern Colorado snow storms.

“Even through the storms last year our guys stayed safe,” Bernhardt said.