The Safety Person of the Year Award recognizes an employee of a member railroad who works with management on effective safety programs, exhibits a high degree of safety awareness and contributes off-duty time to activities promoting safety awareness in the community. In other words, a safety person is someone who has multiple jobs or responsibilities, with safety being part of what they do.
The Safety Person of the Year is awarded to an employee of a member railroad, except those considered to be professional safety management employees, who demonstrate these criteria.
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Matthew Lane does not take a wait-and-see approach to safety at the Pioneer Valley Railroad (PVRR). As the PVRR’s General Manager, he actively looks for ways to improve safety, working with management at parent company Pinsly Railroad Company and general managers at other Pinsly railroads on safety programs while continuously collaborating with his PVRR team to improve day-to-day operations. “Matt is a pro-active leader, always looking around the bend to identify issues before they arise,” said Ryan Ratledge, CEO, Pinsly Railroad Company. “He does an excellent job communicating with the team and giving all the employees an opportunity to collaborate on safety-related topics, asking for feedback and soliciting suggestions. Matt’s leadership style and focus on safety creates a top-tiered safety culture at PVRR.” |
Lane holds monthly safety meetings with PVRR employees, focusing on the status of unsafe condition reports, conducting root-cause analysis of issues and discussing industry-wide safety alerts and safety preparedness. He recognizes employees for prioritizing safety and regularly seeks their input on safety-related topics. Lane also helped organize emergency responder training across all Pinsly railroads that involved local fire and police departments and railroad customers and contractors. After that training, Lane worked to provide guidance and templates to benefit the entire organization.
Building that sense of trust and camaraderie beyond the railroad is also important to Lane. He organized a community service project with nine individuals from PVRR and Pinsly subsidiary Railroad Distribution Services (RDS), preparing and serving meals at the Westfield Soup Kitchen. Lane has also traveled to El Progresso, Honduras to help build schools in low-income communities with the organization ChildHope.
