Happy Thanksgiving!

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Here in the USA it is Thanksgiving. We give thanks for all that we have and what we have accomplished. It started a long time ago when the pilgrims came to this region to settle. Now we should be doing it to look at all that is good in our lives. It is not easy because so many times we have so many problems that we look at the bad, not the good. Included myself, when times were tough and I had a ton of problems it is easy to complain. I mean I felt as if there were no good in the world. I remember friends would say, “You have your health” because that’s really all I had. Believe me, that was enough, I now know how lucky I am and that things get better. It is hard to look at the good when you feel like you are surrounded by problems. I want you to make a conscious effort to look at the positive.

So let’s all be thankful that there have been no fatalities for the past 60 days! At least to my knowledge, feel free to reach out and let me know if I am wrong. I feel pretty fortunate that we are doing much better. I don’t know of any serious accidents in the tower industry for over 30 days. I am so glad that things have been good. This is not the time to get lazy! This is the time to step up awareness. Why? So everyone stays alert. Remember that when we get lazy we get complacent and we overlook hazards. We should make it a challenge to finish the year without any incidents. If the wireless and tower industry can do that then it will be a better 2014.

It was a rough start to 2014, with 11 fatalities in the tower industry. So many if not all should have been avoided. What about all of the injuries we had this year where the people lived but their lives will be changed forever from an accident? We are so grateful that they are alive but they need to keep the faith to work their way back to health. Finally, there have been many publicized near misses where the crew could not help their own crew mates. So may near misses that should have been avoided. So we are at a place where we can work to make this industry better.

Let me tell you what I am grateful for this year in the industry. OSHA creates the communications tower website to keep the tower and wireless field industry updated on the work. The FCC and DOL came together to create TIRAP. NATE created the Tower Family Foundation. Hubble Foundation is doing more than ever for tower climber families. You see, there are good things happening in the industry that we should all be thankful for. We should be thankful for the above groups all coming together to help the tower industry. Wireless workers can celebrate these wins for 2014!

I am also thankful for NATE creating a common standard for the tower industry to follow. Climber’s harnesses are better than ever and constantly improving. Climbers learning more about their trade by keeping up to sate with hardware, safety gear, and techniques. Awareness of training, all kinds of training including safety and rescue and rigging.

We all have ideas how to make this better but so far we cannot unite. I am grateful that so many of you have reached out to me with your stories. So many have you have told me what is really going on out there. I can’t always write about it because so many stories may be incriminating or may need more proof to publicize. I don’t want to just make a company or a person look bad unless I have serious evidence to back it up.

As an industry I am not sure how we will ever unite for anything except that we want to end the death and accidents in this industry. The dividing factor is how to do that. We all have ideas, but it’s time we think outside the box. I do believe that we can all unite for common values, or at least most of us. The values and vision we could all agree on is that each of us practice the best safety practices along with good work ethic and proper training. These together will be the key factor to continued industry growth and success. You see that is where it will all start, good values and vision.

Let me ask you, what is your vision to make the industry better?

If you’re interested I wanted to share this on my Amazon! A great gift and helps out Gette working on Hubble. I interviewed Gette, who likes to talk so make sure to listen to part 1 and part 2.