WVFA Mountain State Forestry Winter 2020-21

W V L O G G E R S C O U N C I L N E W S www.wvfa.org Winter 2020-2021 | West Virginia Forestry Association Mountain State Forestry 21 As I have traveled, and this program has grown, the biggest obstacle was the building of trust between the Timber Safe team and the loggers who signed up for this program. Now that trust has been established, we are always welcome to do these audits. We have been invited back on numerous occasions to offer assistance with any problems that have occurred within their safety management plan and will continue to do so in the future. There have been several advantages to this program for the loggers that signed up. The most important being that Timber Safe is a research study, we do not enforce or judge any work being done, or not, in terms of their site safety management. We provide the companies with the proper standards from the beginning with the training and visits they receive from us and the companies take it from there. We make ourselves available to answer any questions, and over the past year and a half we have answered many! The second is the freedom that the support of WVU extension offers this program. The trust this state has shown for the abilities of extension transfer over to this program as well. The members of this team have a strong logging background from working in the industry in the past. So as these audits are done, we can tell the effect the program has had on the companies involved. The last advantage I will mention is there have been instances where companies have had insurance audits and having a working safety management program has been a huge plus for them. There have been several programs like this in the past but none have ever went into the depth this one does. We hope the participants in this program continue with their safety management program in the future and continue to place a high regard for the program we call Timber Safe! If you have questions, please reach out to me at [email protected] . Thank you and stay safe! The program has been wonderful. We were in the dark with our safety program and Timber Safe has helped us get up to speed. Hunter Smallridge, Smallridge Excavating and Logging “