Suburban Electrical Engineers/Contractors, Inc.
Appleton
Category C2 - Construction

Suburban Electrical Engineers/Contractors, Inc. is an employee owned electrical contractor with 180 employees working as electricians, data communications specialists, fiber optics specialists, security specialists and office support personnel. Suburban serves commercial, residential, institutional and industrial customers and is capable of handling any size project from a routine service call to the design and installation of controls that operate large industrial machinery. Suburban designs and installs customized security systems, is a source of engineering design, installation and maintenance of programmable logic controllers and electronic instrumentation.

Establishment and maintenance of a safe work environment are the shared responsibilities of both the company and its employees. In 2001, the company had no lost time injuries and credits its positive attitude toward safety. Suburban Electric is moving toward the goal of becoming an education-based company, and has a philosophy that through example, preventative maintenance, training, rewards and motivation-all accidents can be prevented. This year, Suburban hired a full-time safety director and safety coordinator.

Safety is an important element in performance appraisals and evaluations. With this information, safety-training needs are identified and completed before the next evaluation. Reverse evaluations are also included in Suburban's appraisal system, giving employees the opportunity to comment on how well the safety values of the company are reinforced by the foreman and project manager. Company management leads by example and displays aggressive leadership in the safety activities of assigned projects and ensures compliance by subordinates for accident prevention. Some 92% of Suburban's Project Managers have participated in OSHA's 10-hour Construction Outreach program.

Safety is a major consideration in planning jobs and tasks. The company identifies job site hazards and action steps and conducts either daily or weekly assessments depending on the size of the job. If an accident is deemed an employee's fault, the person is issued a written notice. However, the employee is given the opportunity to presenting the circumstances of the injury at the monthly safety meeting and discussing what could have been done to avoid the injury. This type of action may result in the removal of the warning from the employee's file.

Contact:
John Spielbauer, Vice President
jspielbauer@suburbanelectric.com
Jerry Walsh, Corporate Safety Director
jwalsh@suburbanelectric.com
Elly Heuring, Marketing Coordinator
eheuring@suburbanelectric.com
709 Hickory Farm Lane
Appleton WI 54914
(920) 739-5156