As the Denver Operating Group Safety Director, Damon is responsible for planning, developing, coordinating and administering the safety and health programs for Mortenson’s Denver Operating Group. He acts as a liaison with federal, state, local and insurance representatives on all safety-related areas, as well as team member training, safety inspections and accident investigation. Damon’s duties include analyzing the need for and determining specifications of protective safety processes and control of hazardous working conditions, ensuring all required records and reports are complete, accurate and submitted per established procedures.
Listening to lead
Any time you’re leading a project, I believe it’s your job to make sure you’re not only keeping everything on track and meeting the customer’s goals, you have to make sure you never lose that connection with the team members in the field every day, doing the work. When leaders listen properly, we can better understand the realities our teams face, we can be there for them and help them head off challenges and provide them with the tools they need to succeed. That requires open mind and the emotional intelligence to really hear what team members are saying, and then taking steps to ensure that their concerns are addressed and ideas are heard.
Purpose-driven team-building
At Mortenson, we have a great core group of team members, but we’re going to keep growing, and as we do, we’ll be deliberate in our on-boarding, coaching and mentoring, making sure that we instill our culture and our “Do the Right Thing” values. We’re actively making strides to include more diverse voices in our leadership team, which brings fresh ideas and makes our team and our projects even stronger. This intentional team- and culture-building are truly what sets us apart in the industry.
Safety first
The most important thing we can do is make sure that our job sites are as safe as possible. Every project we do begins with conversations and plans to safely execute the work. Not only do these conversations keep our team and our trades safe, but this level of planning also leads to a higher quality of work and better customer satisfaction. Engaging all team members in this way helps drive our safety culture beyond compliance to a higher level of ownership and commitment. This engagement is at the heart of doing the right thing and inspiring what’s possible in our quest to eliminate injuries on jobsites.
