Cultivate Safety Culture, Not Personal Records For more than 10 years, the injury, illness and fatality rates for construction workers have declined dramatically. According to the latest federal data, construction’s injury and illness rate has been cut by more than half in 2008 from what it was 10 years earlier. The fatality rate was down 47% over the same period and hit an all-time low in 2008. Ask any contractor: The plan is to bring the rate down to zero. Credit for improved jobsite safety can be attributed to construction contractors that have committed to ensuring their workers go home
Bankruptcy Rebuttals I am writing to express my disappointment in the reporting offered concerning Schwing America and our Chapter 11 proceedings. As a longtime ENR reader and advertiser, I had respected your publication for getting facts correct and telling the whole story. This was not up to your standards. Wells Fargo presented objections to our motion for the continued use of cash collateral in the Nov. 27 filing, which you reference in your article. This motion was to be reviewed in Federal Bankruptcy Court on Dec. 2. Schwing America strongly disputed the logic used by Wells Fargo in its objections
This year, for the first time, ENR will not be mailing out printed copies of the ENR Top 100/400/500 survey forms. The surveys will be online and can be completed through our interactive online form. Survey participants already on our mailing list will receive a letter containing the company ID and password needed to complete the online form. Others also can file online or download and print out the survey from ENR.com in .pdf format or as a zipped set of .doc files. If you need a company ID and password or have other questions about the survey process, please
Too Early To Jump On Obama for Econ Woes I was greatly surprised by the recent editorial “Conflicting Obama Political Priorities Lead to Paralysis”. The writer of this contradictory editorial is obviously caught up in media-stoked emotion of partisan politics. Unfortunately, the several issues mentioned in this editorial are directly inter-related and linked to the economy. Any engineer worth his salt understands that our current economic problems cannot be adequately addressed without a comprehensive solution dealing with each of those issues. The previous and current administrations had no option but to prop up the large financial services companies, after seeing
When ENR's Technology Senior Editor Tom Sawyer picks up his video camera, something interesting is bound to happen. Browsers on ENR.com will not be disappointed by what he captured at the recent conference in Las Vegas of FIATECH, a group that concentrates on technology solutions to construction problems, including interoperability. Sawyer wondered if technology would take a lower profile in the middle of a recession. That is not the case, from what we see here. Golden-i, a verbally controlled Bluetooth computer interface, wowed the crowd at the FIATECH meeting. See how the device works on ENR.com this week. How does
Multidisciplinary Teams Provide Success My compliments to ENR for recognizing Bernard Amadei’s contribution to engineering pedagogy by plugging one hole in the education of the next generation of engineers with the creation of Engineers Without Borders-USA. The juxtaposition of EWB-USA’s story with Pat Galloway’s dialogue on the broad definition of what the 21st century will demand from the engineer-as-leader supports your selection of Bernard Amadei as this year’s Award of Excellence winner. However, one important contribution of EWB-USA that addresses both Bernard’s and Pat’s messages was not covered. Engineers in the Tufts University EWB program learned in their first assignment
Local Rules Will Help Curb Crane Mishaps The article “New York City Official Blasts Federal Standards for Cranes” was interesting. One of the first crane accidents I remember was a crane “tip-over” in New York City in the early 1980s. A contractor was unloading materials from a delivery truck during the noon hour. The sidewalk was not blocked off, and the public was able to walk between the crane that was unloading the materials and the construction project on the other side of the sidewalk. The person operating the crane tipped the crane over, pinning a woman both under the
Bernard Amadei, engineering professor at my alma mater, the University of Colorado-Boulder, was slowing down late last year to teach and write more after seven hectic years of trying to build the group he founded, Engineers Without Borders-USA. Then ENR called to tell him he was the 2009 Award of Excellence winner. But Amadei, his family, CU colleagues and industry associates were excited and gracious in allowing us to report his story and that of EWB-USA participants. Photo: Michael Goodman / ENR Rubin’s interviewing started at CU with Amadei. ENR takes home four Neals. Editor-at-Large Debra K. Rubin has covered
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