More SAFETY

More Safety: Turning Insight Into Action for 2026

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Featuring Rob Belding, Corporate Safety Manager

As Loureiro’s projects grow in scale and complexity, our safety culture is evolving to meet the moment—guided by insights from the field and Rob Belding’s renewed focus for 2026. By creating more space for open conversations about safety and engaging earlier in planning for high-risk work, Rob is helping teams anticipate challenges before they arise. These efforts reflect a simple but powerful goal: ensuring safety is woven into how we plan, communicate, and execute every day.

As Loureiro’s work grows more complex, our approach to safety continues to evolve with it. This year, feedback from the field and lessons learned across projects gave us a clearer picture of where we can strengthen our safety culture and how we can better support teams across all divisions. For Corporate Safety Manager Rob Belding, two priorities stand out as he looks ahead to 2025: creating more space for honest conversations about safety and becoming involved earlier in planning for high-risk work.

Listening Better: Building Comfort Around Safety Conversations

One of the most helpful insights from this year came from the companywide RAVS 360 survey conducted for several of our major clients. While the results showed strong confidence in our existing protocols, Rob noticed an important theme in the comments. Several employees said they wanted more opportunities for one-on-one conversations about safety incidents and near misses, especially with field staff who see challenges firsthand.

For Rob, this reinforced something he has always believed. People need to feel comfortable raising concerns, asking questions, and sharing observations without worrying about negative consequences. Creating that environment takes trust, consistency, and reminders that safety is a shared responsibility.

In 2026, Rob will focus on creating more of these direct conversations, helping new hires and long-time employees alike understand that bringing something forward is always the right decision. When people feel safe speaking up, the entire company becomes safer.

Planning Earlier for High-Risk Work

The second priority builds on progress that began this year. Loureiro has long used Health and Safety Plans (HASPs) and Job Hazard Analyses (JHAs) to plan work safely. The process is in place and widely adopted, but as project complexity increases, Rob sees an opportunity to strengthen the front end of that process.

In 2025, he was brought into several major efforts early, including blasting work in Norwich and culvert installation in Agawam. These early discussions made a noticeable difference by allowing teams to think through excavation depth, shoring, fall exposure, equipment sequencing, and other potential hazards before work began.

Rob’s goal for 2026 is better communicate where Safety can add value during initial planning discussions. This includes activities such as deep excavations, crane picks, blasting, and other tasks that present elevated risks. The intent is not to add bottlenecks or create new approval layers. It is simply to encourage teams to loop Safety in early, when questions and ideas can make the biggest impact.

Looking Ahead

Both priorities share the same purpose. When people feel comfortable speaking up and when Safety is engaged early on complex work, we reduce risk, protect our teams, and improve project outcomes. Rob sees 2026 as a year to build on this momentum, strengthen consistent practices across all divisions, and continue shaping a culture where safety is part of how we plan, communicate, and work every day.

More Safety: Evaluating the Safety Reports App

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 04:00:00 +0000

Making Safety Reporting Faster, Easier, and More Accurate

Loureiro is piloting the Safety Reports app to make documenting safety observations simpler and more consistent across projects. By streamlining inspections, capturing near misses with photos, and even allowing anonymous submissions, the app reduces barriers to reporting and builds a more complete picture of jobsite conditions. This evaluation aims to improve data accuracy, support timely corrective actions, and ultimately strengthen Loureiro’s safety culture company-wide.

Safety reporting has always been a challenge in construction. Crews in the field are working long, demanding days on complex projects, and even with the best intentions, documenting safety observations can be overlooked. The result is often incomplete or inconsistent records. Without reliable data, it becomes difficult to identify trends, allocate resources, or measure whether our safety systems are working as intended.

To address this challenge, Loureiro is evaluating a mobile platform called Safety Reports. The app is designed to make reporting simpler, faster, and more accurate, reducing the barriers that can prevent important information from being captured.

Tools Within the App

Safety Reports offers a range of functions that can be tailored to project and company needs:

Inspections: Field staff can complete structured checklists on conditions such as PPE, tripping hazards, or fall protection. Each inspection is logged and stored, creating a database that highlights risks and positive trends across projects.
Observations: This feature captures near misses or good catches. Reports can include photos and corrective actions, and they can be submitted anonymously to encourage participation.
Safety Scan: Using QR codes, teams can quickly inspect equipment or assets such as fire extinguishers, vehicles, or power tools. For example, each fire extinguisher in an office can be labeled with a unique QR code, allowing staff to scan and confirm status in seconds rather than tracking paper logs.
Forms and Training: The platform also supports custom forms, toolbox talks, and training modules. While not the current focus, these tools represent potential future applications.

Why It Matters

Accurate safety data allows the company to identify patterns across multiple projects. For instance, if several job sites show recurring issues with extension cords or safety glasses, that information can guide corrective actions company-wide. Just as important, the app can highlight positive practices, not just risks, which reinforces the strong safety culture Loureiro is building.

The app also provides options that address long-standing barriers to reporting. Being able to submit an observation anonymously helps reduce the stigma some employees feel about calling out unsafe conditions. Built-in notifications and corrective action tracking ensure issues are not only reported but resolved.

According to Corporate Safety Manager Rob Belding, “The intent is to start small, piloting inspections and observations to see if this app is a feasible solution for Loureiro. If it proves successful, we can expand its use in the future.”

Evaluating For the Future

That evaluation includes testing ease of use, reviewing how data is stored and shared, and assessing whether the app makes reporting feel more like second nature than a burdensome task.

By lowering the barrier to entry and capturing more complete records, Safety Reports has the potential to improve both the accuracy of our data and the everyday experience of safety reporting. Loureiro’s evaluation is about more than adopting a new tool — it is about finding practical ways to support busy teams and build stronger, more reliable systems for keeping people safe.

More Safety: Safety in Layers

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 04:00:00 +0000

A Model from Missouri.

When Corporate Health and Safety Manager Rob Belding traveled to Missouri earlier this year, it wasn’t to issue a checklist or audit findings. It was to observe, to learn, and, ultimately, to bring back ideas for how safety can be more than an outcome; it can be a design principle.

The sites Rob visited—four in total near St. Louis, Missouri—represents some of Loureiro’s most complex remediation work. They also reflect a philosophy of safety that is built not just for compliance, but for the real people who operate, maintain, and live with these systems every day.

A Legacy of Trust and Safety

The Missouri remediation team—Technical Director Scott Crawford, Field Operations Manager Reggie Gardner, and Senior Project Manager Derek Ingram—bring decades of combined experience to Loureiro. That depth of knowledge doesn’t just guide what gets built—it shapes how it gets built, how it operates, and how it protects people.

Together, this trio forms a seamless design-build-operate chain. Scott develops the systems; Reggie builds them and trains the teams; Derek ensures ongoing compliance and client coordination. “It’s like a relay,” Rob reflected. “They pass the baton with such trust that each phase builds momentum instead of friction.”

Why the Technology Matters

At the heart of these projects are complex treatment systems for remediating legacy pollution from coal ash and industrial chemicals. These aren’t off-the-shelf solutions—they’re custom-designed systems that blend advanced ion exchange, groundwater recirculation, and soil vapor extraction technologies. The goal isn’t just to meet cleanup targets, but to protect critical resources like the Mississippi River while keeping hazardous materials safely contained.

That means the technology has to work—flawlessly, reliably, and often unmanned. And safety can’t be an afterthought. It must be part of the technology itself.

One Clear Pattern Across Four Sites

Rob’s tour spanned four distinct projects:

Rush Island – A coal ash cap-and-treat system that uses ion exchange to remove boron, arsenic, and molybdenum. This project pioneered a groundwater recirculation approach designed to protect the nearby Mississippi River—without displacing the hazardous ash itself.
Flexsys – A soil vapor extraction system designed by Scott and managed by Reggie. Seen as an internal benchmark for excellence, it demonstrated what’s possible when Loureiro controls both design and execution.
Roxanna – A cautionary comparison. As a subcontractor on this site, Loureiro had little control over system design or contractor selection. The result? A visibly less safe and less efficient work environment.
Sioux Plant – This site incorporated design refinements based on lessons learned from Rush Island: improved layout, upgraded safety systems, and even more automation to allow for unmanned operation.

Each site reinforced the same message: safety is most effective when it’s embedded from the beginning.

Engineered from the Start

These projects involve handling corrosive chemicals like hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, managing complex piping networks, and working with pressurized systems that operate 24/7. During construction, traditional laborers often push back on the additional layers of safety—"Why so many valves?"—but for this team, the answer is clear: because real people will operate these systems, and real safety demands thoughtful design.

Safety is layered into every element of the system:

Physical safety starts with design: epoxy-lined containment berms equipped with leak detection sumps, splash guards and motorized emergency shut-off valves, and gravity-fed or well-supplied safety showers where no potable water is available.
Chemical safety is prioritized through leak-free chemical hookups, maximum materials compatibility, automatic shutoffs, and a simple but firm rule: limit the chemical supplier from ever bringing more chemical on-site than our tanks can hold. This discipline, along with redundant tank overfill warning alarms, virtually eliminates the possibility of overfilling our tanks, and protects teams from spills and overexposure to the aggressive chemicals used during the resin regeneration process.
Operational safety is built into the control logic. Systems are programmed to override unsafe actions, and instrument placement is guided by ergonomics—so no one has to put their face near a gauge or a leak-prone fitting. In addition, all routine and non-routine maintenance tasks were thoroughly thought through during the design process to ensure that all appropriate isolation valves, pressure relief, drains, and guarding would be included in the system to ensure the operators were protected.
Training is treated as a safety system. Crews are cross-trained across buildings, able to move between systems with confidence. New employees are taught not just how the system works, but why it was built the way it was. "They may not understand it yet," Reggie says, "but when they work here, they will."

Built for the People Who Operate It

The systems are advanced, but they still rely on people. Reggie sees his job as protecting those people, even when they don’t yet know what they’re building:

“When you’re working with traditional laborers, the first thing they look for is shortcuts. But these aren’t traditional systems. We’re building them so a young scientist can walk in, shut a valve, bleed a line, and safely calibrate a sensor without ever being exposed. That’s why it matters.”

That mindset extends to automation, too. As Reggie puts it:

“The program has to be good enough to man the building when we’re not there—but it also has to be smarter than the operator. If someone tries to run a process that conflicts with another, the system has to say: ‘No. You can’t do that.'”

Where possible, the team handpicks contractors who already understand these expectations. But even then, it takes training, repetition, and clear leadership to hold the line. “There are no shortcuts here,” Reggie says. “Because we’re not building a jobsite—we’re building a legacy.”

And it works. To date, the team has logged thousands of hours without a single safety incident or environmental release. That’s not by accident. That’s by design.

A Model Worth Sharing

Rob’s takeaway? “This wasn’t just a tour. It was a masterclass.”

By integrating safety at every level—from engineering to ergonomics, from training to trust—the Missouri team has set a powerful example for how Loureiro can continue to elevate its safety culture across the board.

“These systems don’t just protect the environment,” Rob noted. “They protect the people who protect the environment. That’s what makes the difference.”

It’s also a model of design-build synergy. Scott, Reggie, and Derek move from one phase to the next with clarity, mutual respect, and the confidence that each will carry the baton forward. They don’t just design and build—they pass momentum. And in Missouri, that momentum has translated into safer sites, better systems, and a future-focused approach worth replicating.

SpeedPass: Fast-Tracking Safety & Efficiency on Loureiro Job Sites

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 04:00:00 +0000

Tight deadlines and unpredictable staffing needs are a reality in construction.

It’s not unusual for a superintendent to request workers for a Monday start and not have confirmation on final personnel assignments until that morning. To address these challenges, Loureiro is launching SpeedPass—an innovative pre-screening process utilizing eScreen by Abbott—to streamline hiring for temporary skilled labor. This efficient protocol allows crews to assess new workers on-site in real time, reducing delays and ensuring projects continue without unnecessary safety risks.

How It Works

SpeedPass utilizes eScreen's oral swab test, which delivers immediate results in approximately 10-15 minutes. Workers self-administer the swab under supervision, simplifying the process while upholding safety standards. If a secondary test is required, results are available within 24 hours through the company's existing lab network. The entire procedure is securely documented on a digital platform, ensuring data privacy and providing necessary personnel with timely notifications.

Why SpeedPass?

Traditionally, onboarding at Loureiro—including drug testing and background checks—can take up to a week, making it impractical for short-term labor needs. Alternative approaches, including the use of a dedicated employee to travel between job sites to administer rapid drug tests, offer their own logistical challenges such as coordinating travel schedules, ensuring availability, and keeping up with multiple projects throughout the region.

The SpeedPass process eliminates these inefficiencies by providing a simple and flexible screening method for last-minute hires who may only be on-site for a few days. Now, instead of waiting for lab results or depending on a single administrator’s availability, workers can be cleared immediately and safely before starting their tasks. This not only reduces onboarding delays but also ensures that all staff meet safety standards before stepping onto the job site.

Rolling it Out in the Field

Rob Belding, Corporate Health and Safety Manager, has led this initiative in collaboration with General Superintendent Andy Corsetti to ensure a smooth rollout. With SpeedPass nearly fully developed, the next step is implementation. Final considerations include establishing clear protocols for handling inconclusive or positive results and determining which personnel within the company should receive testing notifications.

The current focus is on training field teams, refining the process, and gathering feedback to maximize both efficiency and safety. The targeted launch is scheduled for mid-March to early April, aligning with Loureiro’s seasonal labor ramp-up. SpeedPass marks a significant improvement in Loureiro’s hiring practices, minimizing bottlenecks and maintaining uninterrupted site operations.

MORE Safety: Uncovering the Unexpected

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 05:00:00 +0000

It was a fairly typical morning in Raynham, Massachusetts in November, just about a week before Thanksgiving, and Project Manager / Assistant Superintendent Brett Anderson and his team had just rolled into the jobsite where Loureiro is engaged in the demolition and replacement of the Mill Street Bridge.

The team was addressing drainage issues and repaving the roadway surface while managing utility coordination - both above ground and below the surface. This requires extra attention to detail, reviewing drawings, making calls to utility service providers, and other meticulous site reconnaissance before any equipment even breaks ground.

On the morning in question, Loureiro Contractors, Inc. (LCI) was digging trenches for a catch basin structure when two members of the team, Operator John Douglas and Laborer Lenny Moniz, encountered what had been marked as a gas main line while digging out the trench.

Preventing damage to underground utility infrastructure is a priority for utility operators and contractors who excavate, drill, and bore in areas where there are existing utilities. When accidental strikes of underground utility lines happen they come with the interruption of essential services, expensive repair costs for damages, and potential injuries to individuals onsite or in surrounding areas. As utility easements become tighter due to increased populations and existing infrastructure, preventing damage to underground utility lines comes with its challenges, and it takes a team of seasoned and careful contractors to work carefully to avoid these pitfalls.

“John and Lenny were going about their work as they always do – carefully and safely – when they came across an unmarked line,” says Brett.

A majority of the time, any new site Brett and his team are working on is subject to a “Call Before You Dig” or CBYD report where anything under the ground is marked out by the utility company with different colors. For instance, a water line might be marked blue, a sewer line might be marked red, or a fiber optics line might be green. The goal is to clearly mark everything below the surface prior to commencing site work, ensuring that no utility lines are damaged during the process.

“We were digging for the catch basin, and we knew there was gas in the general vicinity. One side of the catch basin was marked out and the other side of the basin wasn’t,” says Brett. “John and Lenny came across the line during their dig and the line was marked yellow, which initially indicated a live gas main.”

Upon discovering this unmarked line, John and Lenny immediately notified the crew and work was stopped to ensure everyone’s safety. After analyzing the line further, it was found to be a power line for the rectifier.

“The line wasn’t part of the as-built plans,” says Brett. “So it could have been that someone forgot to mark the line or that it was a complete unknown. We didn’t get lucky but at the same time we did get lucky. Had it been a gas main, and had we struck it and caused a leak that could have been a very dangerous situation for our team.”

After work was stopped, the team notified Eversource, the utility owner, who came out to examine the trench where the line was found.

“In the end, the situation didn’t end up being as bad as it could have, and that’s truly a testament to the guys in the field being aware of the situation and the site and demonstrating safe practices,” says Brett. “John and Lenny are two veterans in the game and handled themselves with the type of professionalism you want in any work environment.”

MORE Safety: Looking at Projects Through the Lens of a Safety Professional

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Safety and risk management in the construction industry - one that is notoriously ranked among the most dangerous to work in - comes with inherent challenges.

Anyone tasked with these important responsibilities wants to avoid being labeled “The Safety Police” - an omnipresent, always over-the-shoulder presence whose existence hinges on pointing out wrongdoings and hindering productivity. After all, the goal is not to police, but rather to serve as a resource that helps the overall team get jobs done safely and efficiently.

Project safety audits present opportunities to identify deficiencies onsite and potential red flags. The objective is not to tell a seasoned, 30 year Union journeyman how to do his job; it’s about bringing suggestions and encouraging engagement amongst professionals in the field - blending a Health and Safety perspective with experience and knowledge of the trades.

Becoming familiar with the opportunities and constraints on any job site is a multi-pronged approach. The first step - the linchpin of all effective health and safety endeavors - revolves around earning and sustaining respect from the hardworking individuals on the ground, letting them know that you aren’t afraid of getting down in the trenches with them. Getting to know the staff is a major contributing factor to dodging that “Safety Police'' label, reinforcing the fact that everyone is on the same team and that any findings or recommendations are all about supporting the jobsite and making sure the team gets home safe.

At Loureiro, we are shifting towards a more comprehensive approach, emphasizing proactive safety management in the field. We strive for close collaboration with leadership and project personnel to offer a range of options for determining the optimal approach to hazard mitigation. Instead of simply identifying tasks as 'wrong' or 'unsafe,' we will empower teams by guiding them towards the safest and most effective practices.

An indispensable facet of a safety professional's responsibilities revolves around the art of subcontractor management. Given that subcontractors generally operate within the contractual sphere of Loureiro, it is imperative that we enhance our internal procedures concerning the selection and oversight of the companies we enlist to deliver alongside our team members. This entails a multi-faceted, forward-thinking process that encompasses various stages, including rigorous prequalification and evaluation of subcontractors, meticulous development and review of agreements, supervision of work performance, and diligent on-site audits.

The process also involves looking inward, and being clear about what Loureiro is requiring from our subcontractors to truly evaluate their ability to perform the work, looking at quantitative factors like OSHA records and EMR as well as safety culture, financial performance, and reputation.

“We need to be clear about what we’re requiring from our subcontractors to truly evaluate their ability to do the work, and to hold them accountable,” says James Prescott, a Senior Project Manager in our Industrial Services group. “There’s always room for improvement with vetting the firms we hire. LBC fully relies on subcontractors to perform 100% of their work, so it’s important that we take a good look at not only quantitative factors like OSHA records and EMR, but also safety culture, financial performance, and reputation.”

In the spirit of being proactive, subcontractors currently attend a Health and Safety kick off meeting in order to communicate expectations. Individual subcontractors will have unique requirements that are specific to each job site. The meetings are a time to review the schedule, order of operations, site specific constraints, and high hazard tasks, and also serve as a time to determine the level of support needed from Loureiro Project Managers or Site Superintendents – those who are typically responsible for on-site safety management.

At the end of the day, the responsibilities of a safety professional extend far beyond Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) usage by employees. While undeniably a crucial element in construction health and safety management, PPE should not be the primary focus of hazard mitigation efforts. Safety gear, such as safety glasses, vests, and hard hats, are really the final line of defense.

In the future, we see opportunities for the collective project, including subcontractors, to gather post-project for an After Action Review, pulling all internal, external partners to discuss the project, lessons learned, and how everyone can improve moving forward.

“It’s all in the spirit of finding ways to keep doing it better next time. Health and safety is an important part of gauging our performance as a company - not only on a per project basis, but in terms of making it part of our culture," says James. “A lot of people that work for Loureiro or with us have young kids. At the end of the day, we want to work safely for our children, families, and loved ones.”

Prioritizing safety isn't just a periodic checkmark for our company; it's ingrained in our DNA. Our commitment extends beyond individual projects, shaping the core of our organizational culture. At the end of the day, working safely for our children, families, and loved ones is what’s most important.

Safety & Quality: Using Data from Loureiro’s People to Take Us to the Next Level

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Safety and quality go together like peanut butter and jelly. But while that sweet and savory combo brings together two opposing flavors that enhance one another, safety and quality are actually very similar — and without the one, you simply can’t have the other. This is exactly why both of these teams within Loureiro have always collaborated to ensure continuous, mutually-beneficial improvement.

But now, our Safety and Quality teams are taking the “One Loureiro” mindset to the next level with a level of transparency and communication like never before.

We recently sat down with Karen Harris, Corporate Quality Manager, and Ryan Polizzo, Senior Vice President who is leading safety efforts, to learn more about how they’re working together to amplify everything we do to ensure industry-leading safety and quality.

How do Loureiro’s safety and quality efforts complement each other? And how have the two of you been collaborating in these areas?

KAREN: Their approaches are very much the same; you analyze the data to find a root cause and determine what an effective corrective action will be. We initially started the QUEST (Quality Environmental Safety Tool) program to encourage people across the company to be more engaged in our safety process and how it related to meeting our quality standards. Safety is something we always want to put before anything else, but there’s a lot to be learned from both of these areas when presented and analyzed together.

RYAN: In many safety and quality-related cases, the root cause may not be obvious. So the team sets their focus on using the existing data in QUEST to bring a more meaningful understanding to its interpretation. We’re using the information we have to see where risk is, what processes have the most risk, and what we can do to address it. Since we’ve been able to show everyone across departments this information and how the data supports the why behind the solutions more clearly, the things we may already know from an anecdotal perspective are now much more data-driven and actionable.

What are some of the most recent wins as a result of the collaboration?

RYAN: We’ve reformed an EHS council that meets quarterly to discuss the data being shared by team members and dive into potential solutions on a more granular level. As an ESOP, we really focus on listening to the feedback from our folks in the field, on sites, and in our labs. With our employees working on construction sites, handling hazardous materials, and conducting demolitions, these are the people we want bringing best practices, opportunities for improvement, or near-miss incidents to our attention. This allows us to identify where our risk is and take action accordingly through real-time data.. That’s the real value in QUEST.

We are also completing an overhaul in how we conduct our training and what our training curriculum entails. We’re using feedback from our internal customers to drive a more strategic training tool with a more specific curriculum tailored to our individual businesses, allowing us to be more purposeful in specific situations and activities that may have presented issues or misalignment in the past. These efforts will increase production as well as provide a more robust learning experience.

How are you sharing these learnings and calls-to-action with employees?

KAREN: There’s been much more communication around both safety and quality at every level of the company, which is really the key to success. We’ve been putting together a weekly Tool Box topic to help facilitate kick off meetings and discussions in regards to certain areas of safety and quality. We are always looking for new topics that people can use in conversation during these meetings and inviting them to share their own experiences. By providing these types of communication tools that team members can take with them into the field, we can facilitate a much greater level of awareness and reduce the risk of people repeating the same mistakes.

RYAN: When it comes to safety specifically, we really want to reinforce the message: if you don’t know, stop, and ask your supervisor. And if they don’t know, they’ll report it up the chain accordingly. We want everyone to constantly be talking, so this communication flows through the reporting chain. If an activity feels unsafe, or you’re not sure how to proceed, stop and raise your hand. We’re often in positions with a lot of uncertainty, and we need everyone in alignment to figure out the best way to move forward together.

What’s next in the safety and quality efforts?

RYAN: One of our biggest goals with QUEST is to let our internal customers know that they are being heard. We rely on their eyes and ears to help guide us in the right direction. Keep submitting your observations in QUEST, and keep sharing your learnings. In the future, we are considering ways in which we can recognize employees with high engagement in the platform.

As we continue to elevate this collaboration between quality and safety, we want everyone to feel inspired to play their part to move us all forward.

If you have any questions about how to report a QUEST event or have an idea for a toolbox topic, please contact Karen Harris (klharris@loureiro.com).