Recently, I had the pleasure of working with one of my international clients at several locations. This is in thanks to Paul A. for putting his trust in me throughout my career. Paul and I met in Omaha, NE, in the late 90s and formed a professional and personal friendship as he is ALL ABOUT SAFETY guiding business decisions. We worked for a man I have mentioned numerous times, Dale F, who was an unbelievable safety leader. He was the Plant Manager, and “Paul” was the Engineering/Maintenance Manager. We built one hell of a process safety management system at Great Lakes Chemical. Unfortunately, GLCC decided to close the Omaha facility, and we all went our separate ways. It was tough to leave Dale and Paul, but having grown up in Western TN, I was not a fan of Memphis, and that was the opportunity offered to me, so I chose to leave GLCC for General Electric Plastics in AL. However, we all remained close and always tried to come back together in all our future assignments with different organizations. When I decided to begin consulting in 2004, these two men filled up my year, and I have never looked back, doing work for them still today. My decision to slow down and begin planning for retirement was heavily based on these two men coming of age to retire. It is just a special time around them, as I still learn so much in their presence. I always leave their facilities energized with a fresh perspective that safety is alive and well in some organizations. This leads me to my recent time with Paul. I was doing some ER planning and training and process safety engineering work at two of his high-risk facilities. At the end of my time, he invited me to a town hall with their CEO, Chairman of the Board, and their 50 largest customers. After dinner, there was an open floor for questions, and the first question asked by one of the customers was,
“What motivates you the most as a CEO?”
