Safeopedia Podcasts

Last episode was about why AI matters in construction. This one is about what it is actually doing on job sites right now, and what it is not ready to do yet.

In episode 3 of Factor of Safety, Scott Cuthbert is joined again by Joe Stevenson, Senior Safety Consultant at Terracon. Joe has spent 22 years in EHS across manufacturing, oil and gas, and construction, working his way up from field safety tech to vice president and CEO. He walks through the detection technology showing up on sites today, the AI platforms that can vet a subcontractor in hours instead of weeks, and the honest economics of getting started.

What Joe covers:

🔹 Why he would advocate for wearables all day long, especially for heat stress, and why the vendor you choose matters

🔹 Why smart cameras work in fixed plants but are not ready for most construction sites, from built-in bias to false alarms to dusty lenses

🔹 How to bring your safety committee in early so workers do not read it as surveillance

🔹 How AI can review a subcontractor’s OSHA logs, insurance and safety programs in hours, and why it is only as good as the instructions you give it

🔹 Whether AI-driven virtual training can help close the skilled trades gap, and what to expect from the new hires who come through it

🔹 Why the return on AI is a long game, and where Joe would start if he could pick only one tool

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome back, and meet Joe Stevenson

01:20 From why AI matters to what is on site today

02:10 Wearables: from H2S monitors to heat stress and vitals

03:36 Smart cameras on fixed sites vs. construction sites

05:45 Bias, false alarms, and dusty lenses

08:59 Why Joe would not put cameras on a construction site yet

09:57 Worker data, surveillance concerns, and your safety committee

12:46 The case for wearables and heat stress

15:52 How reliable are wearables?

17:18 Choosing a trusted vendor

19:06 AI for subcontractor prequalification

22:07 The catch: you have to tell it what to look for

24:56 Ranking subcontractors and calculating TRIR

28:15 Could AI replace the prequalification clearinghouses?

34:09 Why you should not push AI aside while costs fall

37:46 AI will not replace safety professionals, but it will replace some

39:58 AI-driven virtual training and the skilled trades gap

45:16 What to expect from new hires trained this way

49:08 The business case, and why ROI takes time

54:53 Indirect injury costs, retention, and other savings

57:39 Implementation costs and the learning curve

60:49 Joe’s one recommendation for getting started

62:58 What is next in the AI series

Factor of Safety is a collaboration between Safeopedia and Terracon, bringing practical EHS conversations straight from the field.

Join the Safeopedia Community, free for safety professionals: https://join.safeopedia.com/signup

#SafetyProfessionals #ConstructionSafety #WorkplaceSafety #EHS #HeatStress #ArtificialIntelligence

Most organizations say they want learning, not blame. Then an incident happens and the old habits come right back.

Dr. Jake Mazulewicz has seen human error from every angle: as a volunteer firefighter, EMT, Army National Guard paratrooper, and Human Performance Lead for 3,600 experts at a major electric utility. He has spent the last 15 years helping technical experts and leaders prevent dangerous and expensive errors.

In this episode of Safeonomics, Scott Cuthbert talks with Jake about his book, Seven Practical Steps: How to Build Reliability, Safety, and Trust in Technical Teams. Jake keeps it practical throughout, with models and phrases you can try with your own team this week.

In this episode:

- The Seven Practical Steps, and why trust and learning come before technique

- What goes wrong when leaders manage adaptive work with mechanistic rules

- A four-layer decision-making model that connects work as imagined with work as done

- Scan & Focus, a model of situational awareness you can teach to any two-person team

- Weak signals, and how experts catch trouble before it becomes an incident

- Concrete ways to build psychological safety, starting with the words you use

- Why Jake prefers "errors are signals, not failures" to "errors are normal"

- What to do when your boss wants zero incidents and someone to hold accountable

Timestamps:

00:24 The $1 million switching error that started it all

07:46 The $1,000 mistake at the end of a 24-hour shift

11:57 The Seven Practical Steps

20:41 Mechanistic vs. adaptive work

25:14 The four-layer decision-making model

34:48 Situational awareness and the Scan & Focus model

45:28 Weak signals

55:14 Building psychological safety in practical terms

1:03:12 Where the new view of safety goes wrong

1:09:10 When your boss wants zero incidents

Connect with Jake:

Website: https://www.reliableorg.com

Free resources: https://www.reliableorg.com/videos

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Practical-Steps-Reliability-Technical/dp/B0FP99Z41N

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-mazulewicz/

Watch the video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HZLbP9QAGY

Join the Safeopedia Community, free for safety professionals: https://join.safeopedia.com/signup

Construction has a reputation as one of the slowest industries to adopt new technology. AI is starting to change that, though not in the way most vendors will tell you.

Scott Cuthbert sits down with Joe Stevenson, Senior Safety Consultant at Terracon, for an honest look at where AI genuinely helps EHS teams in construction and where it falls short. Joe has spent more than 20 years in the field and owned two construction companies, so this is a grounded conversation rather than a sales pitch. His point throughout: AI is an assistant to professional judgment, not a replacement for it.

In this episode:

🔹 How AI gives time back to safety professionals by cutting administrative work

🔹 Where camera systems and wearables genuinely help, from restricted zones to heat stress

🔹 How to handle Big Brother concerns without damaging the safety culture you built

🔹 The ROI argument that actually lands with leadership

🔹 Why a realistic pilot takes 2 to 3 years, and the vendor promises worth questioning

Timestamps:

00:00 Welcome, and why Safeopedia and Terracon teamed up

01:00 Meet Joe Stevenson

03:00 Why Joe started looking at AI

04:00 Giving time back to the safety professional

06:00 Construction's slow adoption problem, and what is changing it

09:00 From gut instinct to data-driven oversight

12:30 Camera systems and the limits of walking the site

15:00 Wearables, heat stress, and the crane operator example

18:00 Big Brother concerns, worker trust, and data privacy

20:30 Employee involvement and protecting your safety culture

24:00 What AI will not do for you

26:30 Making the case to leadership and building the ROI argument

30:00 Time savings, JHAs, and subcontractor prequalification

34:00 What management actually cares about

36:00 Realistic timelines and why a pilot takes 2 to 3 years

42:00 Vendor promises worth questioning, and the edge for early movers

44:30 Closing thoughts

About the guest

Joe Stevenson, GSP, ASHM, ECO, CQCM, is a Senior Safety Consultant at Terracon with more than 20 years across construction, manufacturing, and oil and gas. He has owned and operated two construction companies.

About the show

Factor of Safety is a collaboration between Safeopedia and Terracon, bringing practical EHS conversations straight from the field. Hosted by Scott Cuthbert, co-founder of Safeopedia.

Join the Safeopedia Community, free for safety professionals: https://join.safeopedia.com/signup

Prefer the video version? Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN5jO5w2DnY

Fines and shutdowns get plenty of attention. But do they actually change how people work?

In this episode of Safeonomics, Scott Cuthbert sits down with Mary P Foley, Expert Services Strategy Director at Enhesa, for a conversation about what enforcement really does inside an organization, and what it does not do.

Mary has spent close to 30 years in EHS and sustainability, starting as an environmental scientist on contaminated land sites and working across ISO certification, consultancy, and expert services. Her answer to whether enforcement drives change is refreshingly honest: it depends entirely on context.

She uses three pieces of driving legislation to make the point. Seat belts, speeding, and drink driving all carry similar penalties, and all three produced completely different outcomes. Nobody would dream of getting into a car without buckling up. Drink driving went from commonplace to shameful. Speeding is still treated as a joke, and still kills people. Same enforcement model, three very different results, because the social context around each one is different.

From there the conversation gets practical. How do you tell a company that has built a safety culture from one that is just afraid of getting caught? What does it take for a mid-sized organization without a compliance department to turn regulatory pressure into lasting change instead of a paperwork scramble? And what is the pitch that finally gets a skeptical CFO to take safety spend seriously?

Mary's answer to that last one is disarmingly simple, and it starts with reading your biggest customer's sustainability report.

What you will take away:

🔹 Why enforcement only works when it is paired with self-regulation and real engagement at every level

🔹 How to read a site in person, and why metrics only tell you part of the story

🔹 The difference between compliance theater and using enforcement as a catalyst to unlock investment

🔹 Applicability and materiality: how to figure out which regulations actually matter to your business and what non-compliance would cost you financially and reputationally

🔹 Why supply chain pressure has become one of the strongest forces for good in safety

🔹 Value protection versus value creation, and how safety becomes a competitive advantage instead of a cost centre

🔹 Who should own regulatory risk internally, and why responsibility without authority burns out good people

🔹 What happens to your reporting numbers when leadership finally starts taking safety seriously, and why a spike is good news

Chapters:

00:07 Welcome back to Safeonomics

01:08 Mary's background: 30 years in EHS and sustainability

02:17 Does enforcement actually change behavior, or is it just a cost of doing business?

03:53 Seat belts, speeding, and drink driving: three laws, three outcomes

09:14 Telling safety culture apart from fear of getting caught

11:56 Compliance theater, or a catalyst for genuine investment?

15:36 Mid-sized organizations without a compliance department

18:56 Personalizing it: tone at the top and why smaller companies show it faster

22:20 When enforcement backfires and reporting goes underground

24:03 Should safety metrics be tied to compensation?

26:42 Supply chain pressure as a force for good

29:31 Learning to speak the language of risk and financial impact

30:57 The pitch that wins over a skeptical CFO

33:46 Value protection versus value creation

35:34 Who should own regulatory risk: legal, safety, or the C-suite?

39:39 Risk appetite, then and now

45:26 The one thing to bring to your next budget meeting

About the guest:

Mary P Foley is Expert Services Strategy Director at Enhesa. She has spent close to 30 years in the EHS and sustainability space, beginning as an environmental scientist working on contaminated land sites, and going on to work in ISO certification and consultancy. Connect with Mary on LinkedIn, and find more of her work at enhesa.com.

About Safeonomics:

Safeonomics is a Safeopedia Community series about the business of safety. We help safety professionals learn to speak the language of the business, so they can make the case for the work that matters.

Links:

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJUynZ-MuDs

Enhesa: https://www.enhesa.com

Join the Safeopedia Community, free: https://join.safeopedia.com/signup

Safety Connect 2026, October 20-22: https://register.safetyconnect365.com/home

Your people say they feel safe to speak up, so why does critical information still go unspoken? Jen Long of The Accountability Lab joins Safeonomics to unpack the gap between knowing it's okay to speak up and being ready to do it in the moment. She introduces psychological readiness, reframes accountability as clarity and "having each other's back" rather than blame, and shares practical conversational tools safety leaders can bring to their teams this week, no big budget or corporate learning department required.

Jen Long: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifertlong/

Own Up!: https://jennifertlong.com/book/.

Website: https://dramafreeworkforce.com/

"Sometimes there is no low hanging fruit and you have to go climb the tree."

That is Josh Schroedter, CIH at Terracon, on Episode 01 of Factor of Safety, describing what actually separates the consultants who get called back from the ones who do not.

A few things from his 13 years in the field that anyone thinking about consulting should hear:

🔹 You will show up on site, on the day you agreed to, and find that nobody is expecting you. It happens constantly. You find someone, explain the work to a person with no safety background, and get moving anyway.

🔹 Early mornings and 12 hour shifts are part of it. Being willing to take the uncomfortable jobs is how you differentiate yourself.

🔹 The asbestos oversight years were not cushy. Fiery conversations with general contractors under schedule pressure, and a job that comes down to staying true to your data.

🔹 The thing he is proudest of is not a project. It is the peers who keep him sharp and keep the work enjoyable.

Worth an hour if you have ever wondered whether consulting is for you, or how industrial hygiene careers get built.

Joint Health and Safety Committees exist in every regulated Canadian workplace, yet most haven't changed since 1984.

Anna Matheson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-matheson/) and Heather Kahle (https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-kahle-71b2b613/) argue the most important function of a JHSC isn't reviewing incidents or checking compliance boxes, it's helping the organization learn.

They break down how committees can bridge the gap between work-as-imagined and work-as-done, ask better questions that unlock candor, and turn everyday workarounds into continuous improvement.

JHAC Course: https://jnprs1-1f.myshopify.com

Anna Matheson: [email protected]

Heather Kahle: [email protected]

Jen Ruggerio spent 25 years as a public educator before an unexpected career change brought her into the high-stakes world of live entertainment safety. What she found was a culture that mirrors the classroom more than people realize where psychological safety determines whether workers speak up about hazards or stay quiet to protect their paycheck.

Jen talks candidly about day laborers afraid to flag unsafe conditions, the "show must go on" mentality that drives shortcuts, and a close call she witnessed firsthand involving an unsecured structure at a festival. She also unpacks her book, Uncorporate Leadership, and makes the case backed by research that leadership development, not just compliance training, is what actually moves the needle on the roughly 5,000 preventable workplace deaths in the U.S. each year.

What does a history degree have to do with predicting safety failures? More than you'd think. In this episode, Corey Silverman, Safety Specialist at Highwire, breaks down the emerging discipline of "Safenomics" the intersection of financial health, cybersecurity, and physical risk in contractor management. If you're a VP or Director of Safety trying to earn budget, influence project teams, or get ahead of SIF-potential events before they become tragedies, this conversation is built for you.

What if preventing hearing loss wasn’t just about PPE… but about truly understanding how people experience it?

In this episode, we sit down with Jenn Holliday, CIH, to unpack a powerful real-world case study on occupational noise exposure, and how a shift in thinking led to measurable results.

Jenn walks us through a scenario many safety professionals know all too well: high noise environments, reliance on hearing protection, and the challenge of ensuring it actually works in practice, not just on paper.

In this conversation, we explore:

• Why traditional hearing protection approaches often fall short
• The difference between NRR and real-world protection
• How HPFT can proactively prevent hearing loss (even though it’s not required)
• Practical ways to integrate fit testing into your program
• And how small changes can unlock big cultural shifts

This is a must-listen for safety professionals who want to move beyond compliance and create real, measurable impact.

Jenn Holliday: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennholliday/