Safety did not start as the headline for Jeff Mulligan, it became the mission. In this episode of Safety Spotlight, Jeff, COO of Astec Safety and an early catalyst behind Utility Safety Partners, explains how risk management evolved from a back-office function into a leadership priority. He also exposes the next big challenge facing safety leaders everywhere: aging, hidden infrastructure.

How does a finance and public policy veteran become a champion for prevention and safety leadership in Alberta? Jeff connects boardroom strategy with field realities, drawing on his experience in politics, banking, and early fiber optic deployments to show how business discipline and on-site insight can coexist.

Jeff’s message is clear: treating safety as compliance leaves value on the table, while treating it as strategy protects people, assets, and communities. The stakes are growing as experienced hands retire and institutional knowledge fades. If organizations fail to capture and share that expertise, preventable failures will follow.

He reflects on a catastrophic explosion in Sherwood Park that galvanized Alberta’s damage prevention movement, as well as Astec’s turnaround from deep losses to durable performance. His perspective is grounded yet optimistic: tough problems yield to clear ownership, good data, and consistent follow-through.

What You’ll Learn:

• Quiet risks in rural and legacy utilities where maps and markings lag the work

• Why safety leadership belongs at the executive table, not buried in HR or finance

• How AI and digital tools can amplify expert trainers rather than replace them

• The coming knowledge transfer crunch as veteran tradespeople and safety leaders retire

For organizations ready to move beyond audits and slogans, Jeff offers a blueprint: make safety personal, elevate it to strategy, and stop underestimating what is underground.

See Jeff’s story and many more at https://bissafety.ca/safety-spotlight-podcasts.