Exelon Chairman’s Safety Awards
In 2004, Exelon established the Exelon Chairman’s Environment and Safety Awards. These annual awards recognize individual employees (or small groups of employees) who have significantly contributed to Exelon’s commitment to safety. The categories are:
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Workplace Safety Performance Improvement and Operational Excellence to recognize successful efforts that improve safety performance while reducing operational costs; and
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Public Safety for employees who took action to promote the safety of our customers and the general public.
Workplace Safety Performance Improvement and Operational Excellence:
2008: Bob Pakidis of Exelon Nuclear developed a simple resolution to a continuing problem regarding the durability of outdoor safety signage. Bob learned of this problem from his co-workers and began developing possible solutions on his own. His solution was the development of a stencil for spray-painting the appropriate warnings directly on confined spaces instead of using signs.
2006: Santo Scalzo, a Reactor Services Supervisor at Exelon Nuclear’s Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, took it upon himself to develop an in-house bolt capture tool after a significant injury occurred during the September 2005 Peach Bottom outage. The injury occurred when a technician was performing a de-torquing operation and a bolt fell striking the technician in the mouth. The capture tool design received great praise from the technicians and solved the industrial safety issue and helped control the risk of injury while performing this operation. The tool is now being used throughout the Exelon fleet to ensure that the future de-torquing operations are performed in safely.
2005: Thurston Harris, a Shift Foreman in Power’s Peaking Division Lamokin Station, has taken on the role of Peaking Division Safety Chairperson with a passion. His drive and innovative approach to safety were recognized. One of the actions he initiated was the creation of safety captains for all the work groups – craft and management - throughout the division thereby engaging all employees in safety. His energy in this role has helped to change the culture within the Peaking Division, leading to improved safety performance, reduced human errors, and increased employee involvement.
2004: Dresden’s Radiation Protection Technician (RPTs), Dave Sylvester, developed a new method of conducting radwaste shipment surveys that lowers radiation exposure from 50-100 millirem (mrem) to approximately 2-5 mrem (based on the dose rates of the radwaste liners). Dave worked with the RP instrument group to provide the necessary survey instruments and personally built a portable remote monitoring device. He also worked with Exelon Nuclear’s radwaste processing vendor to include the new remote survey method into its loading plan. In addition, Dave developed an alternate means of affixing classification labels to the liner lids that reduces radiation exposure by 5-10 mrem per liner for the vendor’s employees. Dave’s ingenuity is not only making Dresden a safer place to work, but is helping to position Exelon as an industry leader in the area of environmental and radiological safety.
Public Safety:
2008: Rich Cassetto, Dave Holman, Bill Huston, Bob Stewart, Deb Whites and Jenna Williams of ComEd were recognized for their commitment to delivering the ComEd Public Safety Outreach program. The purpose of the ComEd Public Safety Outreach program is to increase and maintain public awareness of the dangers of overhead and underground power lines to prevent electrical contact incidents to the extent possible. Company employees volunteer to give presentations to the public to educate and reinforce the importance of safety. These individuals went above and beyond by giving their personal time to make these presentations.
2006: High Visibility Truck Project Team composed of the The North Operations Safety Council (Jerry Wickey, Terry Baldocchi, Bob McCall, Mike Larriuz, Daniel Barrie, Roy Farris, Tim Griseto, Rod Hammond, Martin Koelper, James Stokes) developed an enhanced nighttime lighting system for Overhead Electrician Specialist’s vehicles that improves work area protection for our employees and the general public. After two near misses in the Region where civilian vehicles entered the employee’s work area, the team investigated the incidents and determined that additional lighting on our trucks would provide increased advance warning to motorists. An enhanced lighting system was installed on an Mt Prospect Overhead Electrician Specialist truck and piloted for 6 months. During this period, the Overhead Electrician Specialists reported no vehicular incidents and received positive comments from motorists. Based on the success of the pilot, approximately 200 Overhead Electrician Specialists vehicles will be outfitted with the enhanced lighting.
2005: Jim Walcher, an Exelon Nuclear who works at Braidwood Station is a true hero. He saved the life of a member of the public. While off duty, Jim responded when he saw a woman collapse. He immediately began providing CPR and continued for 10 minutes until EMTs arrived. Once the paramedics arrived and took over, the woman’s pulse returned – all as a result of Jim’s efforts. Jim accompanied the victim’s husband to the hospital. Thanks to Jim’s quick response and use of his CPR skills learned at Exelon, the victim recovered with no complications.
2004: Robert G. White who works in Exelon Energy Delivery has provided safety training to the public through presentations of the Dangers From Above program. The training is valuable to the public in understanding how to cope with downed power lines and what precautions to take against injury. The training is typically given to fire departments, public works groups and municipal officials, much of it done after hours, at the customer’s location, on Robert’s own time. The training not only enhances public safety, but it has also positively impacted customer satisfaction.