Hammons left the company in 2004, after putting four years, and went on to design and engineering firm Parsons Corp.

“The previous administration struggled seeing the value that a risk manager brought to the company,” he says. “Richard Bard [owner of Bard Capital], Frank Bardonaro [AmQuip president], they realise the value safely achieving tasks every day. They embrace the value of risk management, they expect it. That’s why I’m back.”

He adds, later: “Success in risk management is not made overnight; you are changing a culture, building a culture where risk management, operations, service, financials, meeting customer expectations are all equal key business aspects. This takes time. AmQuip has been in operation for 40 years, and we are not going to change 40 years of experience in the way they are doing business overnight. We didn’t do it in the three and a half years when I was here before, and we will not be able to do it in only a year or two now. It will take time, we’ll learn from our opportunities for improvement, and get better.”

Hammons says that part of his job is to raise the awareness of crane operators to operate AmQuip’s assets safely, instead of just operating them. He says he is helping operators cope with dealing with customers, with changes in work environments, or in ground conditions, help them to educate the customer on technical specifications, help them make sure that customer staff are rigging loads properly, and signals are being communicated effectively.

“I like to say that the operator is the captain of the ship, nobody can tell them how to sail the ship but them. That’s the mindset. But it is still effectively communicating with the customer, who is asking us to provide a service.”

For bare rentals, risk management is more about making sure contracts are understood and that they cover company assets. But the biggest challenge, he says, is the customer understanding how much space and what kind of ground conditions are necessary to erect the crane for them, or operate them in, especially when dealing with lattice-boom equipment. “We are dealing with equipment that takes 12 tractor-trailer loads or more to put together. That needs space, and space for the assist crane, and the assist crane needs to be of proper capacity. The operator needs to be there during the erection – that way they get to understand everything about that crane while the crane owner is there to help them.”

Another big part of Hammons’ job is getting the best out of its property and casualty, equipment, general liability and umbrella coverage insurance carriers. “It is important that any insurer that we develop a relationship with recognises the investments that we make to protect the assets of the company,” Hammons says. “We don’t want a carrier to insure us just to insure us, and, regardless of our performance, raise our premium by 12% at the end of the year. We want insurers to recognise that we are investing our revenue in being safer. But if we don’t perform, we don’t expect to be rewarded.”

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I have been there in organisations that achieve zero accidents in a year. But it is extremely hard work, and it takes buy-in from everybody: all of the employees, all of the managers. That’s why I think it is a value, not a priority.

Hammons tracks lagging indicators – “all of those statistics at the end of a year about how you did”: OSHA recordable injuries, how many claims you have, lost work day rate, average cost per claim. He also tracks leading indicators: “those elements that we put into core processes that help manage operations more safely, analyse risk and reduce or eliminate them”: weekly safety meetings with recorded attendance, and requiring all operators to be NCCCO-certified (“we believe that CCO processes are good processes in today’s industry”).

He admits that it is much easier for a large company such as AmQuip—which he claims is the fifth largest crane rental company in the USA—to put money into reducing risk than smaller companies. He advises small companies to send their safety manager to conferences to learn best practice in the industry. “It is important for companies to realise the most valuable of asset of an equipment rental company is the employees. Cranes do not wash themselves, fix themselves, drive themselves or operate themselves, it must be done by employees.”

“Then give them the support, the freedom to implement the best practice. That is the tough thing for a small company. If they can’t do that, they should align themselves with a broker who has that staff, who has a vice president of risk management. They are out there.” He suggests Florida’s USI and Pennsylvania’s Wells Fargo.

Hammons says that while corporate safety managers spend their time managing, risk managers spend more time dealing with the claim procedure, legal issues, insurers and claims adjustors. He now manages former corporate safety manager Scott Elsing, who will now be responsible for the northeastern USA. Another corporate safety manager, yet to be recruited, will manage operations in the midwest and southeastern USA.

He says that it is possible for crane and constructon companies to have zero accidents. First, it requires belief. “I have been there in organisations that achieve zero accidents in a year. But it is extremely hard work, and it takes buy-in from everybody: all of the employees, all of the managers. That’s why I think it is a value, not a priority. Companies set priorities, which are relative. Priorities change. Values do not. You value your children. They do things you don’t like, but at the end of the day you still love them.” He argues that the same rule applies with safety culture, regardless of the current circumstances, the commitment to perform safely never changes.

Second, it requires realism. “The company can’t go magically from having incidents to nothing next year. You have to meet with your management teams and identify and implement realistic reduction of goals and objectives, and ratchet it down 15-20% per year. Then revisit every year to see how you are doing.”