I'm Your Buffer Between the Company and OSHA: Kim Pierce on Safety That Works

Why Safety Feels So Hard

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The younglings, them young gutlings coming out of university may never have busted a grape on the job site. I've worked with a bunch of them. They come out gun hole, convinced that they're gonna fix everybody, and and they get a real quick dose of reality. What is going on, LM family? I've got another special treat for me, and it may be a treat for you. I say special treat for me because this industry influencer, this is the first conversation I'm having with her. And I'm excited because 14 years in the industry, in the field as a carpenter and ironworker, published some 20 plus books and not small books, like novels and other things. She now serves in the safety world and has been in that space for about 20 years, still in the industry, which is we're gonna get into that for sure because I spent a little bit of time there. I have opinions, I have questions. She's the author of the hands that built this restoring respect. There it is. Restoring respect and rebuilding the future of the trade. So, folks, y'all already know Kindred Spirit. You're gonna get to know Kim Pierce here in a few. But if this is your first time here, this is the Learnings and Missteps podcast, where you get a behind-the-scenes view of how amazing human beings, just like you, are sharing their gifts and talents to lead the world better than they found it. My name is Jesse, your selfish servant, and we about to get to know Kim. How are you doing, Kim?

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Hi, Jesse. Hello, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Oh my goodness this is this is so awesome because I think I got an email from somebody, and I read the thing, and I probably took two years to reply because I'm not great, like on purpose. You ever have those things that you're not good at on purpose? Yeah, say I'm not good at email on purpose. Anyhow, I finally read it. I was like, Oh, yeah, trades, author, safety. Yes, let's get this doing. And so now here we are family having this conversation. And so, Kim, I like to start off with a super easy question. Are you okay with that? Okay, okay, so simple softball question why is safety so hard?

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Because everybody wants to do things their way, they don't want to have to follow rules, and it is an ongoing problem. You would think 40 years into this now, 50 years into OSHA, that people would follow the rules. Yeah, it doesn't happen. We still have guys that want to shortcut the foreman, it's okay, you don't need that. Just hurry up and get it done as the safety guy and the project manager are walking through. Not good looks.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Oh my god. You know, well, I wonder, did you experience pressure to produce over to maintain quality and safety when you were out on your tools?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Definitely. Yep. We got to get it done because this is coming, or they're gonna move in here, just get in there, get it done. I mean, I can honestly say that when I was on my tools and working, yeah, I would skirt it. I won't lie. I'm I was working to get it done. And my the problem I have as a safety person now is that my risk tolerance is very high. So what looks normal and okay for me, that's okay. It's yeah, it's not a problem. People that don't understand what they're looking for, looking at are just in major panic mode. And so I have to continually remind myself that these people don't understand that it's all right. We don't have an issue. So you just take them, lead them away, and explain it to them. Oh, I mean I'm sure you've seen that.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

I mean, you just you just described it so beautifully. And I think that's for me, right? Back when I was out there, a big part of the problem was some people would overreact. We were very diligent about putting countermeasures in place to minimize the risk, to mitigate and control the conditions for a confined period of time. This is the best we can do, it's the best I know how to do, and it's somebody's just losing their mind, and it's like, but it's like this now on the other side of it, so that's an extreme, right? On the other side, I also have told somebody, hey man, go out, stick your head out the door and knock if you see them coming, because I gotta get up here and get on the top steps, top run of the ladder to do this thing real quick, right? Yeah, extremely risky, but in the moment, yeah, I go get a 12-foot ladder, it's gonna take me 20 minutes or so, or I could just knock it out real quick. And so my tolerance for risk is extreme. Like to me, risk is is an invitation for fun, right? Like it's not a decurrent, and so you have these competing um that exacerbate a problem and create a divide. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Right. Oh, yeah, definitely. I am fortunate enough that I spent enough time on my tools and in various industries when I was on my tools to be able to come on a job, pretty much any job, and look at it and see what they're doing and automatically know okay, what steps are gonna go and how they're gonna do it. And I'm a big picture person. Some superintendents get really upset with me because you're safety. Yeah, but I want to know what's coming up, I want to know the gist of everything that's coming up so I can plan in my head for what these guys need

Risk Tolerance And Overreactions

SPEAKER_02 6:30

to do. Because I tell the guys, if you're thinking twice about it and are hesitating, yeah, call me time out. I've been there, I've been on that, yep, I've been on that side of the fence, and I don't want you to do anything that is not legal or compliant, but we can still do things a little creatively and still be within the letter of the law. You're not gonna get hurt. The contractor you're working for is not gonna get an OSHA violation, and we're all good and it gets done. So I've had a lot of success.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

So I think I'll just say this right now: you are my kind of safety professional, and what I mean by that is you're anticipating what's gonna be coming, you want to know that so that you can contribute to executing the work in compliance and in the safest way possible. Which I will say is rare. I think you probably know that, because the majority of the safety professionals that I've come across all over the country are reactive, they come in after the fact, in the middle of the violation, screaming, yell and point at the violation, but offer no support, insight, or resolution to the violation. Am I lying?

SPEAKER_02 7:57

Or is it exactly no? You're not lying at all. That's exactly what happens. I've got a friend of mine, I've known him since he was a baby, and we I lived near there, him and his parents, and he was always fascinated by my job because I travel all over the US and I've been to Alaska many times, I've been to Puerto Rico, so I'm all over the place. And when he was about 12 years old, he started telling his dad, I want to do what Kim does. And his dad has his own company, does repair work in big industries. And I told him, I said, you go to work for your dad growing up, summers, while you're getting your degree. Get your degree because and then as you're still working and doing that stuff, you are seeing how everything can apply and not go into the safety field completely clueless and book learned.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

I like that book learned, says the author.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Yeah. I didn't get my safety degree until I was in my mid-30s. I was the mom in the class. I think I was one of the oldest ones in my graduating class. And I was able to bring some insight to those kids of this is what you're gonna face. I was on one job, we had a severe accident. A guy was de-gloved. Ended up, yeah, ended up losing his index finger, but that's all he lost. They were able to graph the rest, but I mean, he was it was ugly. And I talked to the instructor before class started, and I said, I have these pictures, and it was an accident investigation class, and I said, I think these guys need to see the real world, and this is what you yeah, and this is what you need to be prepared for. This is what you're gonna see if you go into construction or even manufacturing, those things can happen, general industry. And so I did, I taught, I brought it and I talked about it and went through the whole thing, did the whole accident investigation and everything for them. And they're like, oh wow, that was so cool. I mean, they're 18, 19, 20 years old, so it is what it is, but at least they were able to actually see some real life, real world situations.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Yes. So it was it was the, I mean, you know, we used to have um we had something, this was way, way back, where we shared pictures of the impact of people's human body. Um I call it scare tactic, but that wasn't it wasn't a scare tactic. Like, this is for real, this can happen. This is what's happening to our people. Kind of got on a hipp uh almost a HIPAA violation because, right? It's like so we got in trouble. We the guys, some of the guys really liked it because it was cool. Some of the guys were like terrified, like, okay, I'm gonna wear my Kevlar sleeves from now on because I don't want that to happen to me.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

It does, it is impactful, but we weren't able to do that all the time. Well, we got in trouble with HR. We're gonna do the LM Family Member shout-out. And this one goes to Mr. Kurt B. He says, great eye opener about how you can unintentionally make yourself other people's crutch when it comes to solving problems for them. And what he's talking about, he he's a most one of my most recent victims in a training we did around communication. And so, Kurt, I appreciate you, brother, for taking the time to leave the review. Folks out there, you already know I love me some attention.

Proactive Safety Versus Policing

SPEAKER_01 12:10

So whenever you take the time to leave me a comment on a post or give me a review, five stars, one star, doesn't matter. Share the episode with your friends. It is extremely meaningful to me, and it gives me an excuse to shout you out in the future. Now, one thing you said where that I think is critical is like you spent over a decade on the tools before going down the safety path. And so what I'm correct assuming is that helped you build an empathy for the workers and what they're going through, what that experience is, so that you can kind of be the translator or mediator between compliance and actually effectively executing the work.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Yeah. So what I when I have problem guys, oh, sure, and I do have them, I I tell them, I said, look, you want me to catch things and to help you navigate before the superintendent, your foreman, the project manager, or even the client comes out and does a walkthrough and sees you doing something, and there's no going back. And if I've told you more than if I'm on my third time telling you, we're gonna have a problem, but this is why. And I always try to explain to them why they need to do it, not just do it, because they don't understand that. I mean, we all know in the safety world, and and you do too, having touched on that a little bit, is OSHA is a nightmare to read and interpret. And you'll never get a direct answer. No, never. And the process is slow. And so trying to be able to tell them, okay, this is what the rule is, this shall, this is what we shall do, this is mandatory, this is what they say, but we don't necessarily have to do it that way. Now, if the company says thou shalt, then we have to do it that way. But so I tell them, I'm your buffer between the company you're working for and OSHA.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Yes. Remember when I was in the, like I was technically a safety professional for about eight months of my life. Um, and I took, I can remember, it was a week-long training that I had to take. I don't remember what it was, the three something or other, uh, OSHA 300, I thought it was. And I remember going and I'm like trying to find the answer. It was a thing, right? After we did all the digging, it's like manufacturer recommendation. I'm like, okay, so the answer is not in the OSHA. Like, I always thought all the answers were in the OSHA guidelines, and they're not. Like sometimes they defer to exactly what you said is the organization's policy. What's the company policy? What does the manufacturer recommendation do? What is the ANSI standard? Like it references like all over the world. It's like oh, exactly. It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Yeah, because OSHA automatically defers to this is what you have to do if it's just this is what you're dealing with. But then you have to look at what the manufacturer says, and you have to follow what they say, and in that is ANSI. So your starting point is always ocean. I mean, it's convoluted. I do expert witness work for safety, and that's exactly it. I mean, you have to are every little regulatory agency, and I find myself I need a whiteboard to write down, okay, who starts this and then go from there, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Actually, it's like a serial killer CSI kind of track nerd, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Yeah, exactly. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Okay, so yeah. I want uh I I think you you've done this, right? You already said when you were going getting your school in, you were the mother of the group, you have a massive advantage having been in the trades, been in the field doing the work, and now a safety professional that you can connect with people, you understand what they're experiencing. The younglings, them young gutlings coming out of university may never have busted a grape on the job site. I've worked with a bunch of them. They come out gun hole, convinced that they're gonna fix everybody,

Training New Safety Pros In The Field

SPEAKER_01 17:05

and and they get a real quick dose of reality. What advice do you have for those young ducklings?

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Get out in the field somehow, whether it's in a manufacturing, get an internship where you are immersed in the industry, whether it's construction, manufacturing, general industry. If you are gung-ho for the airlines, try and get an internship with the through the FAA or the NTSB, because you're gonna get a lot of insight because the rules are different. I mean, the nuances are there. It's only two books. It's Ocean 1910 and Ocean 1926. But then if you go into Maritime, it's 1915, I believe. So there are nuances. A lot of the the rules are the same, but there's a lot of tweaks in there, and you really have to study it. But I thoroughly believe that part of the curriculum for anybody going into safety, I don't care what area you want to be in, they should have mandatory job site six weeks on a job site so they can see exactly what it is you're gonna be doing. We had this one kid come out on a one of my jobs and we needed somebody, and it was not a difficult job. We just had to have a lot of people. We were basically glorified hole watches for confined space. All he had to do was stand there. Yeah, sign in, sign out, check the monitor, check the monitor, stay in one place.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

No, all no.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

He would be all over the place, and it was a big site, and you could see everybody. Sometimes you were right next to a location, but we had to have someone at every location, and we were only 130 feet apart, but you had to have somebody at each location, and he swore up and down. He'd come out of university, never did a day of internship that I'm aware of. Tried to tell a 30-year safety person that he didn't have a degree, so he wasn't looking he didn't know anything.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

This guy worked for an aeronautics company. He had a nuclear background, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

So yeah, you know, yeah, it's that, right? There's some of these, and I get it, like I gotta confess, I was an arrogant freaking know-it all tooth when I first started, right? I understand, I'm not standing in judgment, but all that is gonna do is make your life miserable. Okay, if you start demeaning people because they don't have a certificate, whatever, if they have more, I mean, well, I'll say it a different way. I learned that if I honor the years and the experience that people have, they are more likely to invite me back to the party. And if I get invited to the party, I can help and contribute to their safety, to their efficiency, or whatever it is. If I diminish and dismiss their experience and their tenure and all the things, I don't get invited back to the party. And then it's just a compliance fight, which doesn't really help anybody.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

No, and it's amazing what you can learn. I've been doing this for going into 21 years now, and I learned something new on every job site. I'm going back to another project, and things have changed. What's been a year since we've been there? It's the same people, it's the same process, but some of the rules have changed. So we have to go in and relearn the safety list for lack of a better term. But anybody that says they know everything. Yeah, no, I walk away.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

I I'm just like that's some wisdom, that's an easy filter. I know it all. Oh, I don't need any of that energy. Just go on over there with it. Oh my goodness. Okay, so yeah, I mean, you've been at it. I mean, oh, you're an expert witness, so like for real, you got really. Real real safety chops. I saw a thing that I think is important, but I don't know if it's just me being a snobby judgy boy because I'm not like safety, safety, true blood safety person. So let me describe it to you. When I went to that

OSHA Reality And Being The Buffer

SPEAKER_01 22:20

OSHA 300, whatever it was, the week-long class, what I noticed it was like 20, and it was in Minnesota, actually. You started your career, yeah. So I'm in this training, and there's about 20-something of us. Three of us were like the oddballs. Me, Dan, and the way we talked about the work was very different. And I'll categorize it in this way. We were trying to figure out how to support people and create a safety, a safe forward environment or culture. Everybody else in there was pretty much saying, can we fire people for that? Do we terminate them? Do we suspend them? Like it was very um punitive, compliance focused. The majority of the people, that's all they wanted to talk about. It's like, well, we need a policy where we need to fire them. Like, does OSHA tell you that? Is like, no, OSHA doesn't tell you that. That's a company policy. And then when I started talking to those guys, none of them were in the role because they wanted to be a safety person. They all kind of had the same story is, you know, we needed a safety person. We had a big problem, so I was always good at filling out the paperwork and like keeping on people. So they made me a safety profession. That's kind of the backdrop. My observation was this. I know that my boss picked me to be in the safety role because he wanted help with the cultural transformation. He wanted it to be uh the experience of serving the business, serving our teams out there in the field, not compliant and writing people up for not wearing safety glasses. Whereas those other guys, based on what I gathered from them, their bosses saw it simply as a compliance function because they got in hot water and their carrier, their insurance carrier, probably said, Well, if you have a safety professional and you do these things, then you're gonna be like it'll minimize your liability. What do you think about that? Like the difference in terms of the leader selecting or why and how they select the person to be the safety representative.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

The biggest problem I have, excuse me, with pulling guys straight from the field is with no training, no background, they are wanting to get back into the world. Oh and that's what it sounds like those guys were kind of in that boat. Hey, they're gonna make me do this. Well, I'm gonna make sure. And the problem with that type of safety person is you have no retention, you have no employees that want to stay and work. You you have an older generation right now that is like, yeah, forget this. I can retire, I'm out of here, you figure it out on your own. That is not conducive to a good work culture at all, let alone a safety culture. So anybody that from the field, I've had quite a few come up to me and say, Hey, how do you how would I go about doing that? I don't want to work on my tools anymore. I just I can't. My knees are bad, my back's bad, but I want to still work and contribute. So I I lead them down a path to to get that and encourage them to take certain credentials, credentialing exams first and to get their Ocean 500 to start with, get in with the BCSP and take their safety train supervisor courses and get those tests because that's that'll get you started to get to your CHST and eventually your CSP if you want that. I went the SMP route, which is the safety management professional, which it is the exact same thing as the CSP. The only difference is is it's for somebody, it's technically for people that have 10 years of experience and no college degree.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Well, you're covered all the way around.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

I took yeah, yeah. I just didn't want to take the CSP. I I didn't want the CSP behind my name. Personal reasons for that. I've worked with several CSPs over the years.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

They're really good test takers, and that's all I'll say. I love it. I hear you loud and clear.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

I've been able to and then I've worked with, yeah, and then I've worked with some that are absolutely fantastic and they know their stuff, and they're going, they're moving up in the chain of command, and you can rely on them. But it there's such a missed mixed bag of safety professionals out there. And one of the things that I talk about in my book, yeah, in my book, is the gener the generation gap, the the tribal knowledge loss that we have from people retiring, even in the safety profession. We have a lot of people retiring. I had one of my mentors retired a few years ago. And I mean, when we met, we just absolutely clicked. Finishing sentences, job, job scope stuff. And I mean it was amazing. I mean, I was married at the time, and my husband and his wife were like, when did these two meet? And it's like 10 minutes ago. I mean, even we we worked for the same company. So even my boss was like, Okay, right. How long have you guys known each other? Yeah, an hour. But he was fantastic. And he, I mean, he knew TD work, transmission and distribution work, wow, power plants. I mean, just it was great working with him. And then he retired. And once in a while, I still give him a call and he checks up and see what's going on. Hey, I need to run something by you. But we're losing those people in the safety field too, not just plumbers, electricians, iron workers, carpenters. You get to that point and you're done. But if the younger generation coming up is not worthy of passing on these little tips and tricks, we're not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Yeah. Yeah, no, I think there's a few things, and I've this conver and this conversation around mentoring and all of the things, like it's just gonna get louder and louder. Um, I think you you touched on one thing that I agree with 100%. And I've seen many big firms that have a mentorship program, right? It's an official corporate mentoring program, and you know, Cam, they suck because the mentor 90% of the time doesn't want to mentor anybody, definitely doesn't have the damn time and bandwidth to mentor anybody, then the mentality and it's a total right, totally like total mismatch.

Fixing Punitive Safety Culture

SPEAKER_01 30:10

We'll just call it that. And then the mentee I'll say 50% of the time is a space cadet. And like, why am I like this fool? Why am I gonna be mentored? Like, they only know what they did two minutes ago and they just did it, or they don't like engage or they don't have a direction that they're working towards. But hey, we have this mentor thing, which is just administrative stuff, like I don't see it providing any value. I now I say all of that, yeah, and also know that I've had I gotta credit there's like four mentors I've had in my career that are hugely responsible for my growth in the business and to where I am today, but it wasn't the result of the company making us for that connection, right? And some of them, if I was exactly a ding-dong as I used to be, they would not have mentored me. It's a it's not a it's not a small thing, it's a really important thing. Um also complicated, very complicated. Now, your energy, I feel like, I mean, I already said it, right? You're my kind of safety professional. I feel like out on the job, like I might get it, yeah, I might get some attention because I'm violating or pushing the edges, but I feel like it would be a positive outcome because working towards a common goal. Now, yeah, why did you choose that approach? Because I feel like it's a choice. I can either choose to be compliance focused, write people up, tell them what they're doing wrong. And I've had safety preference, like use these exact words. I'm like, okay, man, then I don't know how to do it better. Can you help me? And the exact words from them was, well, that's your job to figure out. Talk to your supervisor. And I'm like, what is what what value are you bringing? And I I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but I don't think you're that type of safety professional, am I wrong?

SPEAKER_02 32:17

No, you're not wrong. When I was on my tools, we had, I mean, we would call the safety person bird dog because he would stand up over what we were doing and just stand there all day and watch, would not come down and engage, would see something, walk off, tattletale, and then we hear it from the foreman at the end of the day, and it's like, well, why didn't he come and tell us? Why didn't he say something then? You know, we whatever. And I absolutely hated that. And having been on that side of the fence, it was just a natural thing for me to ex start explaining why we can't do it that way. So that they understood. Because when I was in that position, they would say, Don't do that, just like you. And we would say the same thing. Why? How can we do it differently? No answer, no resolution, no solution, no nothing. Yeah, and I never wanted to be that person. And the funny thing is, I was on a job with a bunch of pipe fitters. They were putting up fuel racks in a powerhouse and had pipe fitters and iron workers. And I knew the iron workers because I had worked with them, it was my local. And the B and the BA's son was on that job. And I had the pipe fitters telling me, we're not gonna do anything you say. We don't like safety people. Okay, no problem. So I would go out there and I'd stand around and I'd watch, and I'd just shoot the breeze with them. I'd ask them how their kids, what are they gonna do for the weekend? Oh, and by the way, be sure you block this off over here and then turn around and walk away. About three weeks of that. Okay, you're not so bad. And it finally got to where they would ask me. In fact, the BA's son, he's like, because they had this big rule about get up as high as you can go, but you can't get out of the basket when you're on a boom lift. Okay. Well, where he had to go, he couldn't get the boom lift in there. So he had to get out. He could reach over, tie off where he needed to go, unhook from the basket, and get out. And I'm like, okay. I had a good relationship with the plant safety that was over our project. And I said, Look, this is what he has to do. He can't get there. And he came out and he walked it with me, and we looked and looked and looked. He's like, Okay, no problem. You do what you think is right. Yeah, he turned around and left. I told him, Come down, this is what we're gonna do. You're gonna tie off, get up there as tight as you can, tie off, unhook, get out, do what you need to do, because it only took him 10 minutes to do it, and it's in this little tiny space, and get back in and it's all done. No two ways about it, all good.

Earning Trust With Tough Crews

SPEAKER_02 35:55

We're all barricaded on the bottom, nobody. And so that that went a long way with my relationship with that particular individual because he was a pain.

SPEAKER_04 36:08

I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

I'm sure we would go toe-to-toe sometimes, and I knew I was okay and had a thick enough skin when I would be.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

I think some of the best relationships I've had in the industry, we had some drag out, knockdown, drag out conflicts about stuff, but because we could do that and come up with a plan forward to the shared goal that we have, it was fine. Like we're just I just we're gonna argue a little bit. Um, I think what what's really important in in that scenario is like, okay, we looked at every other option. This is the option, the safest option. Is it in compliance? No. We know that is it within the letter of the law, and exposure has been minimized. And risk, there's some risk mitigation. Like, look, dude, you're gonna have to freaking tie off before you untie and before you exit the basket. And it's only okay in this situation under these circumstances, like in that, like, that's what I'm talking about. Like, yes, please, let's have that. Instead of, oh no, you're just gonna have to find another way. Like, what's the other way, bro? Like, help me out. Like, so I applaud you for doing that. And if there's any other safety professionals out there, you need to replay this 10 times if all you ever do is tell people they're doing something wrong. Because in turn, like I hear it too, where it's like, we need to take care of our brothers and our sisters out there in the field, but then the safety professional treats us like they're infants. Well, what happened to brothers and sisters here, right? Like, how are you gonna develop a relationship or any kind of human connection if all you ever do is belittle and dismiss me? Instead of working together as a partner, I think. I think that's the that's one of the keys in terms of safety professionals specifically.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

Yeah, it's not all rainbows and roses on jobs. I've had crews that are infantile, and it is like herding kittens, and I'm babysitting kindergartners that are 45 years old. And I've there's been a few times I've had to come down on them on things. And it's just one of those things. It's like, guys, look, I have told you and told you and told you why can't you do this? And when I have yeah, I don't sugarcoat it. And my French comes out.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Yeah. They know I've had it. Yeah, I mean, you got, you know, I think nowadays there's a lot of this talk about psychological safety and inclusiveness, and which I I agree are very valuable. And you also gotta be able to drop the hammer when it's appropriate. Yes. Okay, you sound like the ideal safety professional.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

How did uh I'm not perfect, I am powerful.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

But two things like you've written a bazillion books, and you're a safety expert witness, which sounds like court and litigation, and that's a whole other level of expertise.

Expert Witness Work Explained

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Like, and you did this all at the same time. Like, how did you do all of that?

SPEAKER_02 39:46

I travel a lot. I am on the road probably 90-95% of the year. I get really bored in the hotel rooms. I need to have something to do, and I'm at that age now where I have to I gotta think about retirement because I am not gonna do the safety thing forever, maybe another 10 years. Um maybe only six, we'll see. But that's why I have these other irons in the fire, and I want to stay doing something with safety, but if I can't, if I I have bad knees, I have a bad back, all comes from being in the rod patch. It just the expert witness stuff keeps me in the game, and it allows me to still keep up with my credentials and help people out and educate not only the attorneys out there, but other people, juries that maybe have no idea, and to be able to explain why or why not that this situation happened and why or why not their loved one may be in the wrong, or they may be in the right, but this is how the play out. So it's it's interesting, it's it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Well, here's what I think I understood. As a safety expert witness, you have testified for the company andor for the individual. So, like you're an expert witness on either side of the prosecution or the defense. Did I get that right?

SPEAKER_02 41:39

Correct. Yeah. So I am not, I am totally independent of the case. I look at strictly the facts and the documentation and render an opinion to whatever the case is about. And then write a report. Fortunately, I have not had to be deposed yet or go to trial. That may change here in the next few months. I have two cases pending where I may be doing both.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

So that's awesome. And how did you in like how did you find that being a safety expert witness? That be they just come and hunt you out, or how does somebody do that?

SPEAKER_02 43:09

No, there was a seminar at the P annual conference, PDC. The yeah, this annual safety conference. And they had a speaker on the last day that was talking about the need for safety expert witnesses. And I'm like, I think I'm far enough along in my career now that I think I could do that. I'm considered an SME anyway, so why not? It's been slow getting started. I've been doing it for two years now. I've had under 10 cases, but things are starting to look up. So there are not a lot of construction safety expert witnesses out there. I mean, we're few and far between. And even those people are an aging workforce.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Oh my goodness okay. So we got the story, we got the details on the safety expert witness. We touched on a little the the book writing. That's hotel time. I totally understand that life. But the the the hand that built this or the hands that built this, and then the like act the subline is restoring respect and rebuilding the future of the trades. Why did what was it that you felt like because it feels like this book was like something you You had to put out. Like you were compelled to do it. What was that?

Restoring Respect For The Trades

SPEAKER_02 44:46

Back in 2024, end of 23 and pretty much all of 24, Mike Rowe was really coming out talking about the trades and the scholarships he gives to students that want to pursue those kind of industries and get their background and do their apprenticeship. And he had made the comment, or someone in his foundation around him or whatever, he agreed with it, that we have signing days for these kids that choose an apprenticeship. Totally agree with that. And I started dabbling with it a little bit. And of course, I used Chat GPT to help me get my thoughts organized because I was on the place. But I knew what I wanted to say. I ended up in Puerto Rico for six weeks. And another job where I can look out the window and watch what everybody's doing.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

And it was just one of those things. And I did probably three rewrites of the 10 chapters.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

During those six weeks. Adding, going through, reading, okay, no, I don't like that. Let me word it this way. Okay, this would be a good spot for a story that makes sense, that helps explain it, workforce and all of that, and how how badly short we are of people coming into the trades. And so I have a chapter in there about what the tools really need to do, and they really need to bring those um arts classes back somehow, whether they partner with a local vocational trade school or with the apprenticeship, something to get those kids. Because college is not for everyone. And unfortunately, construction still has that connotation that, oh my God, if you're working construction, you're not smart enough to do anything else. Well, no, that is such a misconception and a myth, because some of the best engineers and fabricators I have worked with had an eighth-grade education or a 12-year education, 12th grade education, and they could cipher like nobody's business. And I would trust their models over some you know 20-year-old just out of college and running a CAD machine. But you can check his work if you want, but he's gonna be right. And it's crazy because kids coming in nowadays, I mean, by 28, 30 years old, these kids can have their apprenticeship done, be a journeyman, own a new vehicle, and maybe even own a house because the trades do pay well. And if you are a good worker, you show up on time, you do your job, you ask questions, they're gonna keep you on, or you're gonna be called back, especially if you're in the union, you know, call backs all the time. For a little mom and pop place, man, you can move up the ranks quick. And they're gonna be willing to teach you and train you and keep you. Retention is a big thing, and we don't have a lot of that. And unfortunately, with women in construction right now, is it's retention, trying to keep women in the trades because it's still such a male-dominated industry that it's having growing pains realizing that women are really good workers and they show up and they can get things done and they don't go off in a huff. I know a lot of women welders, and they get called back all the time because they're slow and methodical. And I've had guy welders even tell me, yeah, let her do it. She's really good, you know.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

Yeah. No, I I I love it, and yes, I agree on all the points. One of my arguments, or you know, I like to talk smack about is all this energy right now around marketing to attract the next generation. Like, first of all, this exodus of experience is not new. Like, people are acting like, oh my God, it just started happening. In 1995, when I decided to like, I'm not gonna go to college, I am going to start my career as a plumber. I signed up for apprenticeship program on the orientation or whatever it was, they showed a number. They said in the state of Texas, this was just Texas, in 1995. The average age of a journeyman plumber was 46. And for every one that was retiring or leaving the industry, for every four that were leaving, there was only one entering the trade. So I knew, like, man, I'm 18. In 10 years, I'm gonna make a lot of money because there's gonna be less of them and fewer of me. Like it was super, super easy. Now, back to the marketing point, is like, sure, market to women, market to everybody, get them in here, but we have too many companies that don't know how to treat people worth a damn. And so you're gonna get them in, and if you treat them like garbage, they're not gonna stay. Period. And especially nowadays, that's not to say there are some phenomenal, like there really are some phenomenal organizations, some phenomenal leaders within companies that man, if you land one of those jobs, stay there because, like you said, the opportunity is limitless. And I think like one of the things that I love about your story is you're an example of that. Right? You started off as a carpenter, iron worker, out in the field, moved into safety. Now you're a safety expert witness and a very accomplished author. And that all started with you putting your hands on tools. And I believe, I mean, my path is very similar to yours. Had I not taken that step of getting into apprenticeship and starting my career in the trades, I would have been in a job I hated. Like absolutely hated with very little option. Exactly. Yeah, I'll just say that, very little option in terms of expanding my understanding and my ability to earn etc. Uh, and I think it's unique to our industry that you can come in in the trades, you can go to BIM, you can go to finance, you can go to safety. Like, there's so many pathways you can take after you've entered. Yeah, but we really gotta do something about the retention thing. Like, absolutely, like business owners, yeah, they need to do better in terms of the we'll say their values around the type of people they hire. Because it's the type of people they hire that are either going to treat newcomers like garbage or treat them with respect. It's easy to blame the field, but that starts with the hiring manager. And that from the hiring manager, it's whoever the department head and the business owner that allows that crap to happen that is contributing to their super expensive turnover rate. What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 52:46

Oh, definitely, definitely. I was in the private sector with my dad and my brother. We did home remodels, and I was the license holder for the company. And that was

Retention Problems And Women In Trades

SPEAKER_02 53:01

back in '94, '95. I took that test, the general contractor's test. I think I was the only woman in that auditorium. And believe me, I got some looks. Because one, I was only 25 years old at the time, and I'm sitting in there with these guys that have been doing it for 20 years, you know, and they're just looking at me like, what do you know? Granted, I had to take it three times because I kept messing up on one thing, but I took it and I got it. And my dad had skills. I grew up knowing how to fix things. And it was just one of those things, it was a natural fit for all of us to work together. Of course, then we went our separate ways, and I was able to get into the union. And until I passed my journeyman's test, the BA and I had a love-hate relationship. But here's the funny thing. I had a lot of already hands-on experience over the rest of the apprentices. So that contributed a lot to my time served. So I served eight months formal in the classroom.

SPEAKER_03 54:26

Oh, dang, okay.

SPEAKER_02 54:29

So December of '97 or December of 98, I was sitting for the journeyman's test. I was a nervous wreck. I was, I was a wreck. We we were all waiting and I got told I passed. Well, come to find out, they scored a 98 test. Oh, and that was that was better than the boys that came in at 18 and had done all four years. It was so fulfilling for me. It was such a proud moment for me. And then the BA was okay because I passed it the first time.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

Oh, some people, some people, you know, it's gonna be like that sometimes, right? Like we all have our battle. We have those people out there that you just they just make them get it. But you'll get them. You will get them.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

Well, Miss Kim, are you ready for the grand slam question?

SPEAKER_03 55:42

Oh, well, before that, let's have it.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

You're an awesome person. I love your energy. You're a fantastic safety professional. Where do we send people if they want to get the book, if they want to connect with you, if they need you to be their witness, where do we send them, Kim?

SPEAKER_02 55:58

So I have my author website, and that is at K A Pierce P-I-E-R-C-E books.com. That's my author website. You can find you can find the hands that built this under on there. I don't know if you can see that or not, because I have no family. And then as far as expert witness work, if there's any attorneys listening, I have my expert witness site, and that is cagelegacy.com, and it's k-a jegacy.com.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

Perfect. Perfect. We'll make sure and have those links in the show notes. And actually, I have a friend who is a construction attorney that I might need to connect y'all, Kim.

SPEAKER_00 56:49

Oh, wonderful. She's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

Like you, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

That'd be great. I travel all over. Good, good.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

She's out in California, so at least there's decent half decent weather.

SPEAKER_02 57:01

Well, I'm gonna be out there for a while.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Excellent. All right. Well, I'm super excited for your answer to this question because you've oh, I mean, you it it didn't come, you didn't say anything about it, but you've been through a lot. You started your career in the industry in a time where there was way fewer women than there are to now. Now there's like a lot, compared comparatively speaking.

SPEAKER_02 57:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:33

And so you went through the friction and you've maintained a positive energy, positive attitude about things. The same thing got into Satan, the empathy for the work. And I feel like you lead and support in a way that it makes it very hard to not comply and be consumed by your awesomeness. And you've accomplished so many things. I feel like you're a constant learner, always giving back. And so, for all of those things, I am excited about what your response to this question is going to be. And so here it is. Kim, what is the promise you are intended to be?

SPEAKER_02 58:14

Hmm. I don't know how to answer that. I really don't.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Wow, you stumped me up. The little background.

SPEAKER_02 58:29

Maybe a little more context.

SPEAKER_01 58:31

So I too have published a book, but I've only done well, I I've co-authored one and the other one's just me. The name of the book is Becoming the Promise You're Intended to Be. But happen, I was in rehab because I wrestled with addiction the majority of my life, and it was the third or fourth time I was in rehab. I was looking at my

Becoming The Promise You’re Intended To Be

SPEAKER_01 58:56

fourth DWI, which was a felony. Anyways, I'm in there and I'm manipulating my way through the program so that I could show the judge, look, I went to rehab, I'm good. Please don't put me in prison. One of the counselors in there called me out. He said, Jesse, your problem is not admitting, your problem is accepting. And I said, What the hell are you talking about? Like you're just playing with words. And he says, No, you don't have a problem admitting that you're an alcoholic, that you're an addict. Your problem is you haven't accepted that if you continue to live life the way you're living it, you will never become the promise you are intended to be. And when he said that to me, Kim, I was like, it was like a bolt of lightning went through my bones because I knew exactly what he was talking about. The aspirations that I had, the dreams that I had that I either said I was not worthy of or that scared me, all the times I let people down, all the disappointment I planted in people, all of that came rushing through. And in that moment, I knew I had there is I am here to fulfill a purpose. And my job is to figure out what that is and how to do that every single day until until I leave this rock. So that's the background behind the question. Does that help?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:23

Yes. I have been on the road for the last 20 years. I'm always have, even when I was a teenager, I was the one taking care of things. I was the survivor. Anything happened, nobody said, how's Kim handling this? It was, oh my gosh, how's your brother? Is he doing okay? You know, your dad, your mom. It was never me. I was the I'm a firstborn daughter, and so, you know, and a Sagittarius on top of it. So I am a take charge and do it and go. And I've always done that. I lead from behind, and I don't mind that because I don't like to be in the spotlight. But I want to be able to finish out this chapter of my career and have something fantastic going forward with my books and with my expert witness work where I can finally work on my terms and just take care of myself the way I want to. I love to travel. I travel a lot. I've got over the next three years, I or two years, I have got four trips planned internationally. And then my daughter and grandkids live in northern Minnesota, and I want to be able to spend more time with them. I see them as much as I can, but I want to be there with them. This is my promise, is this is gonna work. I'm going to make this stuff work. This is my dream, this is my thing. This is God's helping me do this, and continually things come up, and so I can do this. I've got one book that is being shopped for a streaming series. Okay. So I'm not gonna tell you which one, but because it's not an official deal yet, but I have so much hope and promise in that event happening that you know you don't even want to bring it up because you don't want to jinx it in any way. Can you tell I'm Gen X?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

Oh that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:58

So but yeah, I'm taking care of my mom. I share a house with her because she's by herself, she's still able to do things on her own. But you know, when I'm that's where I'm at. I'm in Florida with her. In fact, she's going to Las Vegas with me next month. So, and then I'm taking her to Minnesota in October.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:20

Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:21

So being able to do that stuff, help to my friends too, if they need anything. I'm able to step in and help is just very rewarding for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:36

I hope that answered your question.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:37

Absolutely did. I think the road ahead is just gonna be magnificent. It needs to be because of all the impact and the focus to service and supporting that you've already done. Like you've made so many deposits into the universe. You gotta get that series. We're not gonna say which book it is, but if when it we need to talk again because that that sounds exciting. Okay, there you go. I'll have David reach out. Phenomenal. Oh, I'm I'm excited for you. Then we'll send you all the positive energy to make that happen. Did you have fun?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:16

Yes, I did. I had a lot of fun. This was great. It's been really great talking to you. We can do it again anytime.