For Joseph Kopalek, it was natural to follow in his father’s footsteps and pursue a career in the energy industry. What might appear less natural is the path he took to get there.
“He worked his way up from a laborer into management,” Joseph says of his father in this episode of the No Accident podcast, presented by TRUCE. “I took the long route and went to college, played around in environmental consulting for about eight years, and then got into the natural gas industry.”
After his consulting work, Joseph spent a large portion of his career in operations management for various energy companies — primarily Columbia Gas Transmission — before realizing that safety was his true passion. So when he was offered his current position of Vice President Environmental, Health and Safety at UGI Utilities, Inc. a little over a year ago, he took it without hesitation.
The COO of the Denver, Pennsylvania-based natural gas and electric utility company told him he was perfect for the job because of his operational credibility.
“They won't question how you’re perceived or how you set up something from a safety standpoint because they know you know how to get the work done,” he recalls his boss telling him upon promoting him. “You've been there all the way from field supervisor up through director ranks.”
Since then, he’s proven his boss right by consistently valuing employee feedback/input and focusing on problem-solving rather than pointing fingers when safety issues arise. Some of his biggest lessons have come from working with Dupont Sustainable Solutions on an improved safety strategy following a fatality that happened within UGI in 2017.
“We realized that there were some improvements that needed to be made on how we respond to emergencies — the kind of equipment we use, and we need to preserve life as our first priority,” he said. “One of the things we changed is one of the metrics that we use … that is a make safe time, that's the time it takes to call an employee out .. into the field and making whatever situation they find safe.”
And it must be working because UGI has since been recognized by the American Gas Association for having some of the best emergency response times in the industry.
Featured Guest👉 Name: Joseph Kopalek
👉 What he does: As the Vice President Environmental, Health and Safety at UGI Utilities, Inc. a Denver, Pennsylvania-based natural gas and electric utility company, Joseph combines his background in both safety and operations management to get employees as involved in safety discussions as possible.
👉 Company: UGI Utilities
👉 Key quote: “We all have a responsibility to work safely and also support the work of others, making sure that they're working safe.”
👉 Where to find him: LinkedIn
Safe Takes⚠️ Safety is about accountability and responsibility. A company with a good safety strategy is one that recognizes safety isn’t just the safety department’s problem. It’s something everyone is responsible for.
⚠️ Managers need to be problem-solvers, not just finger pointers. If you only focus on correcting safety issues with discipline, you’re missing the larger problem of an inadequate safety culture. Look for the problem and try to solve it.
⚠️ Involved employees are safe employees. If you involve your employees in decision making, they’re more likely to respect management and do their job safely because they’ll see their input makes a difference.
Resources⛑️ Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Voluntary Protection Program — This is the comprehensive program that Joseph says the entire company he works for got behind and started implementing in 2017.
⛑️ Dupont Sustainable Solutions –– Joseph mentioned that his company’s safety strategy was developed from working with this operations management consulting firm.
⛑️ National Residential Customer Survey Results — Joseph says in this episode that UGI scores high in customer satisfaction, and this national survey has the data to prove it (it was named “Most Trusted Brand”).
Top quotes from the episode:“For an operations role ... be the solution maker. Find them a solution. Don't just be the safety police force that goes out there and says, ‘you shall do this and you shall do that.’”
“I would define safety as doing the right things at the right time. And, incorporated in that, safety just doesn't happen. It's everybody's responsibility.”
“We were just too disciplined, based on trying to correct safety with discipline rather than looking at our culture and trying to figure out how to improve our safety culture.”
“You can have communications people write up nice paragraphs and post them on your company newsletters and websites, but truly to develop the safety culture, you have to have everybody involved.”
“It's not just about safety. It's about how you develop the corporate culture. If you want to be successful … you've got to rely on your people and you've got to trust them.”