NGFA's Harvest Safety Week with Jess McCluer [Podcast]

Steven Kilger - 00:01

Hi everyone. Thank you for listening. My name is Steven Kilger and I'm the managing editor of Feed & Grain Magazine and the host of the Feed & Grain Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today as we dive deep into the issues affecting feed manufacturing, grain handling, and allied industries.

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Kilger - 00:32

Today I'm talking to the National Grain and Feed Association's Senior Vice President of Safety and Regulatory, Jess McCluer. And he's here to talk about NGFA's upcoming Harvest Safety Week.

Jess talks about this year's theme, participate, prepare, protect, and... How companies can get access to the association's free safety education materials and what Harvest Safety Week hopes to achieve both this year and in the future. I hope you enjoy the interview. If you want to help out with the podcast and are listening to this in a podcasting app, wait for us and subscribe. If you're listening online, sign up for the Feed & Grain newsletter, Industry Watch. There you see all the newest podcasts.

Kilger - 01:10

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Kilger - 01:17

Hi Jess, thank you so much for joining me today. This is actually your second time on the podcast. So we really appreciate you coming back.

Jess McCluer - 01:24

Well, hi Steven. Great. It's great to be here and I appreciate the invitation.

Kilger - 01:29

Yeah. Well, I see you at every trade show I go to and I feel like all over the place, but for anyone who might not know, you are even NGFA in this mission. Can you tell me a little bit more about yourself and NGFA?

McCluer - 01:43

Sure, so I am Jess McCluer, I'm the senior vice president of safety and regulatory with the National Grain and Feed Association or National Trade Association headquartered here in Washington DC. We represent members within the grain feed and processing industry that operate over 8,000 facilities nationwide and we have 27 regional state affiliates nationwide as well.

Kilger - 02:12

Yeah, NGFA is, I mean, we love NGFA because you're kind of the organization that perfectly aligns with our magazine. You are fed and you are grain, which is awesome. So we always really love having you guys on.

McCluer - 02:26

Well, and it's great. It's great to be here. We love talking about a lot of our resources, especially when it comes to safety. And I think how they all tie into our upcoming harvest safety week.

Kilger - 02:38

Yeah, that's why you're here today. You guys have your upcoming, I don't know why, but harvest safety week doesn't roll off my tongue as it should, you guys have your upcoming harvest safety week and can you tell me a little bit about kind of its significance because this is what your third year doing fourth year?

McCluer - 02:59

It's actually, so this is our fifth annual harvest safety For August 19th through the 23rd and when we initially launched this five years ago, it was an effort to more widely share all the resources, the grand handling safety resources that we have on our webpage at ngfa.org forward slash safety.

This is such a hectic time of year for a lot of the grand handling facilities our this is a great opportunity to make sure that all of these facilities are aware of how their employees can be adequately prepared.

Kilger - 03:46

Yeah, and it might be especially important this year because at least so far here in Wisconsin it has been a wet year. I know the wetter the grain is coming in. The more safety issues you have.

McCluer - 04:04

Correct, and I think the important part too is that a lot of this information, well basically the entire event's virtual, right? So we're going to be having, we're going to be introducing some new training videos on these important topics and we're also going to be having a webinar or a presentation offered each day. So every facility is different, they all have different types of needs and we want to make sure that with all the training tools that we have, we can help to address If you have any questions, please post them in the comment section below.

Kilger - 04:54

Yeah, well that's the nature of the business, right? Like 50 miles away you could have completely different conditions than you have here, so you really have to be prepared for all situations. And this year's theme kind of reflects that. It's participate, prepare, and protect. Can you explain a little bit about these three aspects and how they're crucial to ensuring, you know, that everyone stays safe during the harvest season?

McCluer - 05:18

Sure, so the theme as you said, is participate, prepare, and protect. That is, the theme is participating and sharing Harvest Safety Week resources, preparing for hazards during the harvest season, and protecting the employees who transform America's harvest into food, fuel, and fiber. I think it's also, it's important to point out that the free resources are made possible by the support of the National Grain And Feed Foundation, which is fully funded by donations and values, grain, and employee safety as part of its mission.

Kilger - 05:57

Yeah, definitely. And also what I really like is I believe a lot of your resources are free to everyone. And that includes, I mean, you know, grain facilities, we deal with this all the time, but for someone who has, you know, just a lot of onsite storage or something like that, they might probably not Have the education and training that's been drilled in our own industry. So the fact that these can also be, you know like this can be harvest safety for everyone, not just grain facilities. This is also harvest safety for farmers and our producers and partners out there.

McCluer - 06:30

You're right, I mean this information is, we don't have it separated member or non-member, it's available to anybody that wants to use it. So for a lot of our members, if they would like to forward this to their customers, the producers, they're more than welcome to, we would encourage that. And I think as we all know with Everybody that's out there, there's so many workers at facilities now that maybe didn't have an agricultural background growing up and so there's a lot of this is new to them and so the more information that's out there for them to use, I think that's very important.

I think it's also important the videos, right? A lot of the videos that we're going to be Can you talk a little bit about the training videos and resources you're going to have available, especially the new ones that are coming up this year? Sure, so our new safety training videos will be on shuttle loading and rental safety and bin site entanglement hazards. As I mentioned, they're going to be designed easily to watch in a couple of minutes and they're based on our safety tip sheets, which are also available on the safety section of our web page.

McCluer - 08:00

So basically, these short two-minute videos Two to three-minute videos, I should say. We already have one posted, a lockout, tagout, and these others will be very similar. And they're like I said, they could be watched on a phone, tablet, on the website, and it will be for both members and non-members.

Kilger - 08:24

Yeah. Well, you mentioned new employees, right? So if you have new employees, this is the perfect time to really be drilling all that safety. Information is best to get these good habits in early in their careers versus waiting until they've learned the wrong way how to do things.

McCluer - 08:41

Yep. And I think it's also, you know, in addition to the videos that we have, which are just trying, like I said, they're based on. We are going to have a live webinar with People Spark Consulting, which is going to be focusing on employee onboarding. Since we are going to have so many new employees, as I previously mentioned, many may not have an agricultural background. That is going to be on Tuesday, August 20th. We are also going to be having a recorded video presentation with M&M Specialty Service A list of keywords relevant to topics that may occur during the meeting.

Kilger - 09:36

Yeah, well, and PeopleSpark Consulting, they're a great team over there. And we've had them on the podcast before and they're very friendly, very easy to understand. So, I mean, their webinars going to be great. M&M, like great as well. So it sounds like a really good kind of lineup that you guys have, especially with webinars, which I always like because people can ask questions. And this is a, you know, this is a situation where people will have questions.

McCluer - 10:05

Exactly. I was going to say that PeopleSpark, spoke at our Convey24 conference in Omaha last week and it was a great session, very interactive.

Kilger - 10:19

Yeah, I didn't make it to Convey this year, but it sounded like you guys had another great lineup, which is always nice to see. Yep.

McCluer - 10:26

It was very well, it was one of the highest-attended events that we had in at least the last 10 years as far as attendees and exhibitors, so it went great.

Kilger - 10:37

Yeah, that is exciting. I'll have to come back again. I happened to be on vacation during that week in July this year, so I didn't get to come.

McCluer - 10:44

That's a good excuse.

Kilger - 10:47

So, what are some of the long-term benefits you hope to achieve through initiatives like Harvest Safety Week?

McCluer - 10:55

I was going to say the long term, I mean benefits, I think obviously it's just making everyone aware of the resources that we have. I think obviously safety is a pillar of NGFA of our organization and I think continuing to work and develop training resources and to make everyone aware of what is available and the benefits of the membership. Within the organization we not only have these safety tip sheets and videos, but we have guidance documents and compliance with federal OSHA regulations. We also do a lot of training sessions with our state and regional affiliates. So there are a lot of resources that we have and having an event like this is a great opportunity for those that may not be as familiar with it to utilize those services.

Kilger - 11:44

Yeah well especially with everything changing right already we just had a ruling from OSHA about heat illness at workplaces and walk-around rules so stuff's always changing and always updating so it's really that they kind of stay on top of this stuff.

McCluer - 11:59

Exactly.

Kilger - 12:01

So people who want information about Harvest Safety Week want to be in the know what should they do to kind of get that information?

McCluer - 12:10

So anyone can sign up to receive our marketing emails from NGFA at ngfa.org you can create an account with us and you'll get all the Harvest Safety week emails I would just suggest you do it at least a week ahead of time so you can ensure you get the registration link for the Live webinars that I mentioned and we encourage everyone to share this information so if you're already receiving this and you know there's some employees or others that aren't getting it please forward to them encourage them to sign up for it and there's also on social media we share a lot of the tools and safety resources that are that members value with it's the hashtag it's a hashtag harvest safety week and tag and GFA Excellent and I encourage everyone to do that.

Kilger - 12:58

There will be a link to sign up for their newsletter and their marketing in our little podcast description plus the website if you want to go and kind of check out what they have for safety resources.

McCluer - 13:11

I would just ask one other item to add that you know this year keep an eye out as you drive and ear out as you listen to your local station. So we're actually working with Lamar Outdoor Advertising and there are several regions across the Midwest that we're going to have billboards that'll be dedicated to Harvest Safety Week and we also will have radio ads airing on farm broadcaster networks.

Kilger - 13:39

Well, it's great to hear that you guys are trying to reach people in every way possible, especially because, you know, only so many people are going to go for email marketing, but it's, it's hard to ignore a billboard on your drive.

McCluer - 13:50

And we're very fortunate, exactly, you know, NGFA, GEAPS, and the Grain Handling Safety Council, we have an alliance with OSHA and through the alliance with OSHA that we have, you know, one of the opportunities we have is to work with organizations like Lamar Outdoor Advertising that also has an alliance with OSHA. That's part of the safety outreach effort. So that's a great opportunity as part of the relationship that we have with the agency and how that allows us to work with other groups like Lamar Outdoor Advertising.

Kilger - 14:23

Yeah, definitely. It is good to hear you guys taking advantage of those opportunities. So I know you haven't even done this harvest safety week yet, but what are you guys planning on to continue to grow this?

McCluer - 14:38

So obviously I think our ultimate goal is So the more we can boost awareness and encourage the use of safety best practices, the more workers are going to arrive home safely at the end of the day. That's our ultimate goal and so we hope by doing this harvest safety week we hope to continue to increase the marketing efforts for this event each year so more people are aware of the tools that are available we hope every one of our member companies will be aware of harvest safety week and incorporate the safety training and insights in each harvest.

Kilger - 15:14

Yeah, definitely. I mean, as someone who has to write up a story every single time someone gets hurt in our industry, it's not fun, it's not pleasant, and it is, I imagine, very, very hard to have that conversation with an employee's family after something happens. So staying safe is the most admirable goal I think we can have in our industry.

McCluer - 15:37

Yes, it is. Staying safe and making everyone aware of the resources that are out there if there are any questions and utilizing those tools and resources are very important.

Kilger - 15:49

Yes, yes. Well, Jess, thank you so much for talking with me today. I really appreciate it.

McCluer - 15:55

We appreciate the opportunity and appreciate Feed & Grain for promoting this event and making these resources available to your subscribers and to those within the industry.

Kilger - 16:15

Yeah, of course. Always happy to do it. And we'll have to have you on again to talk about some other safety issues, especially, you know, heat prevention, all these things that are coming down the pipeline that people are going to have to have plans for.

McCluer - 16:26

Correct. There are a lot of current issues out there, a lot of proposed rules and we're working on addressing them.

Kilger - 16:38

Sounds great. Well, thank you, Jess. Thank you everyone out there for listening. Until next time, stay safe.