Jessica Goodhue, a seasoned EH&S Manager at Channel Fish Processing, discusses her extensive experience spanning from the manufacturing floors of Massachusetts to the remote and challenging environments of the Alaskan seafood industry. Jessica emphasizes that effective communication is the single most critical lesson from her career, detailing how it builds trust, overcomes significant language and cultural barriers with a diverse international workforce, and fosters true collaboration. She shares powerful stories of creating an inclusive and safe environment for employees from countries like Mexico, Somalia, Ukraine, and Fiji, which required adapting everything from housing and dietary plans to daily operational training.
The conversation explores the unique complexities of working in remote locations, including logistical hurdles like planning around volcanic ash, adapting to life on processing vessels that operate as "small floating towns," and implementing robust safety programs where no municipal fire or police services exist. Jessica shares her core EHS philosophy: a program is only successful if it's visible, actively implemented, and genuinely helps employees in their daily tasks. Using real-world examples, she illustrates the power of "thinking outside the box" to automate processes, reduce human error, and solve complex environmental challenges like improving wastewater quality by examining the entire upstream chemical handling lifecycle.
Takeaways:
- Prioritize Communication to Build Trust: Make yourself an approachable resource for everyone, regardless of their department. When employees feel comfortable asking questions—even ones they think they should know the answer to—mistakes and accidents are prevented.
- Use Visuals to Bridge Language Gaps: In a multicultural workplace with diverse languages, simple pictures, diagrams, and hands-on scenarios are often more effective than text-heavy documents. Show, don't just tell.
- Be Visible and Engaged: An effective safety program isn't just a binder on a shelf. Walk the floor, talk to employees, and observe processes to understand their real-world challenges and confirm that your programs are helping, not hindering.
- Think Beyond Your Immediate Resources: When faced with a challenge, involve people from different disciplines (operators, engineers, electricians). A fresh perspective can lead to creative and often automated solutions that eliminate risks.
- Aim for Elimination, Not Just Mitigation: When addressing a hazard, always push to engineer it out of the process entirely (like automating chlorine monitoring) rather than defaulting to PPE and procedures as the only solution.
- Investigate Problems Holistically: When a parameter is off or an issue arises, look at the entire upstream process. The root cause is often found in an unexpected place, such as chemical handling procedures impacting wastewater quality.
- Embrace an "It's All Experience" Mindset: Say yes to opportunities that push you out of your comfort zone. Whether the outcome is good or bad, every experience is a chance to learn, adapt, and grow your skills.
Quote of the Show:
- ”I always believe in going for it, because at the end of the day, good experience, bad experience, it's experience, and it's gonna help you no matter what.”
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