A Letter from John McCarthy

Founder & President, Pro Safety Services, LLC

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since we first opened the doors to Pro Safety…and it’s been an unbelievable ride! I started this business with a simple goalkeeping people from getting hurt. After two decades I am still passionate about keeping people safe, and I come to work every day with that one thought in mind.

It’s an honorable profession, but at the same time, it’s a tremendous responsibility. I’m driven every day by a fear of failure, knowing that when your job is the safety of others, there’s no margin for error. We all – collectively – have to get it right, otherwise people can get hurt, or die.

That’s why, when I stop to reflect on the past two decades at Pro Safety, and all of the changes in our industry, what strikes me most is how far we’ve come in regards to the well-being of people. When we first started on this journey, safety was something our clients had to do to get insurance. Safety was about checking a box. Today, we’ve taken safety to a whole new level, going from a requirement to a learned behavior.

Today, safety is about establishing a mindset…where each and every worker needs to take care of themselves, as well as the people around them; where companies must not be willing to accept shortcuts in safety in order to increase production; and where safety is addressed up front, by conducting the proper training and safety analysis at the start of a project, and not waiting until something happens.

This mindset is what I’m most proud of over the past 20 years – spreading the safety message, getting people behind that message, and knowing the impact we’ve had on the industry. By shining a spotlight on the growing number of injuries, and the costs and losses associated with accidents, we’ve been able to change people’s behavior.

We’ve made a lot of progress in the past 20 years, but we have so much more to do. It makes no sense to me that people are still getting hurt in this industry. Especially when a lot of the accidents occur due to carelessness and can be addressed with the proper training…it’s a mindset. The struggle will be to continue to change people’s behavior so everyone, workers and managers alike, are on the same page when it comes to safety.

I’ve hired a lot of young people, who’ve been with the company for years, and now they have a passion and have made a career out of keeping people safe. My goal is to see the next generation continue this mission and keep getting out the safety message. If we do this right, in a way, our clients won’t need us anymore…our greatest accomplishment will be when all of our clients achieve and maintain a safety culture.

Our mission always has, and always will be, keeping people safe. Over the past two decades we’ve helped our clients to save millions, but safety has to be more than that. The real sign of success isn’t measured in dollars…it’s achieving and maintaining a safety culture, measured by lowering OSHA incidents and the experience modification rate (EMR). It’s about people going to work in the morning and coming home safe at night.

Thank you for twenty wonderful years…for your business, and for your trust. And most of all, thank you for being part of an important journey.

Always be safe,

John McCarthy