Within the concrete construction industry there are several avenues for recognition for Los Angeles commercial concrete contractors, such as for the design, scope, or execution of a project. And while an award for outstanding concrete work on a restoration project is impressive, awards garnered for the safety of a project or overall operations are particularly important to the industry. One such award is the Albert H. Atwood Safety Achievement Award which seeks to recognize a significant contribution to safety and accident prevention by a company or individual of the Southern California Contractor’s Association (SCCA). For 2019, SCCA announced that the Conco Companies were selected as the winners of Atwood Safety Achievement Award.
The award is presented in recognition of distinctive achievement by a company, individual, or crew that made a substantial contribution to safety and accident prevention.Pictured left to right: Mike Martinez – Conco Pump Sales; Jon “JP” Madigan – Conco Pump Service Manager; Dora Veronica – Conco SoCal Office Manager; Doug Marquis – Conco Pumping SoCal GM; Gary Brandt – Conco Pump Sales; Robert Thacker – Conco Safety
Conco’s Innovations in Safety Practices
In order to be considered for the Albert H. Atwood Safety Achievement Award, candidates must submit an application to the award committee that outlines the safety issue they worked to address and the practices or initiatives the candidate employed to mitigate the issue, along with the impact of those efforts. As a prominent commercial concrete contractor offering a range of concrete services, Conco Pumping recognized a gap in safety measures with concrete pumping and belting technologies: there was a general absence of fall protection systems on concrete boom pumps, separate placing booms, and Telebelt mobile conveyors. Conco’s concrete pumping safety team worked diligently over the course of four years to address this significant and unnecessary safety risk by partnering with manufacturers to provide fall protection systems on its equipment.
Years of Work to Increase Safety
Conco’s concrete pumping safety team used a combination of approaches to shift the safety provisions of concrete pump and conveyor manufacturers. For new equipment, they ordered and purchased the technology with the contingency that fall protection systems would be provided with the delivered equipment, which was already a common practice in Europe for standard boom pump models. Conco also worked with engineers and manufacturers to develop and test new fall protection systems, and then required that they be installed on the concrete boom and placing pumps and conveyors they utilize. Conco has shared their work openly with the industry at large, leading to a increased adoption of these fall protection systems in the industry.
