Heat Safety Essentials

Dylon Koch | Working Athlete

Raul Guardado | Sturgeon Electric CA

Dr. Kevin Rindal | Vimocity

Hello everyone, and, welcome to today's live event on heat safety essentials. My name is Dr. Kevin Rindal. I'm the cofounder and CEO of Vimocity, and really excited about this topic that we're gonna cover.

Some of you know I spent about fifteen years in sports medicine. I told those who were with the United States Olympic swim team as part of their sports medicine staff, and hydration, and heat, safety was a part of, the day to day life of these athletes. And so when I started working with utility workers, I just saw that this was such a an essential portion to helping these workforce athletes perform at their highest level.

As some of you as basically all of you know, heat safety is a huge topic right now with more intense heat and extreme, weather instances that are happening across, the country. We're seeing people work longer hours in more extreme conditions. And so having a plan on how to keep, the workforce, safe and healthy during those times is absolutely critical. And I'm, so excited to introduce the two guests that we have with us today, two people that I've really enjoyed getting through over the last couple years.

Raul Guardado is the Director of Operations of T and D at Sturgeon Electric, and just such a a trendsetter when it comes to embedding innovation into, the culture of their organization. I've just been so impressed from that perspective. And then Dylon Koch, who is a specialist in human performance, works with working athlete and just a wealth of knowledge. If if any of you wanna know in the science behind how hydration works and how it keeps workforce healthy, Dylon is just an absolute, terrific resource.

So, without further ado, we're gonna jump in. And I know that, what prompted this conversation was some new legislation, that, OSHA put out in in proposed legislation in July about heat safety standards.

Those still have some steps to go through before they're fully implemented. But in California, where roles based out of, I mean, this has been CalOSHA has had some of these standards since two thousand six, two thousand seven.

So, Raul, before we jump in with the first question, love you to give a quick introduction to yourself, and, and then we'll get going.

Yeah. No. I appreciate the opportunity, guys, today to have this conversation.

As you know, yeah, I'm I'm Raul. I'm the director for Sturgeon Electric California here. Yeah, and probably one of the hottest states.

Recently went to Texas and, it got actually a lot hotter there for sure. And our crews were were doing performing some emergency work there. So, yeah, it's definitely challenging. I'm alignment by trade. I've been, in the business twenty five plus years.

Had the fortunate, very, very fortunate opportunity to be, you know, work as a as a lineman and work my way up to the ranks. And now I'm the director, running this operation. So, again, appreciate it. Kevin, looking forward to having this. Both you and Dylon are both distinguished colleagues of mine.

Truly enjoy working around you and your guys' company. As you guys know, we partner in in specifically, being fit for duty and what it takes to achieve that, especially during the hot weather. So, yeah, that's me.

Thank you so much, Raul. And Yeah. I the first question that I'd like to, bring up is just from an operations perspective, what are some of the challenges for keeping your workforce, safe and healthy on the job and still, you know, maintaining that level of

Chapter

Inherent Challenges of Worker Heat Safety

operation to get the work done. There's always that tension that's there. So we'd love to hear a little bit more about, those inherent challenges with you.

Yeah. I think, you know, as a you know, coming from the field and understanding, this

work is not being performed by robots. We have human beings in the field that are vulnerable for the, you know, the the weather, the conditions that are out there. But more importantly, like, you know, we employ humans and with an understanding that humans are gonna make mistakes.

Like, nobody's perfect out there. And I think it's I think a challenge enough is working through working through those human performances, because when mistakes are made, you know, bad things happen, challenging things happen.

So that that that can I say, you know, you know, working through the human error reduction is is a is a key fundamental, point?

But you gotta have to understand that, you know, we have to do our part as leaders to ensure that our our our employees are equipped with the fundamental tools to overcome those challenges.

And also, you know, the inherent challenges of our workforce is, you know, guys in the field, guys and gals in the field, they take pride in their work.

And, you know, nobody wants to admit when it's time to take a break. Right? It's it's they wanna get the work done.

I came from the field. I understand that at times where it's really difficult to stop the work, to take a break, or to say you need to sell or to ask a question. There's always that perception that's out there. So I do think it's, you know, it's our our responsibility of leaders, to open open that line of communication, you know, and and really have a good plan when it comes when it comes to stopping the job, which nobody really wants to, at that times. And it's because of the pride they have in seeing the progression of the work and getting it done.

You know, there's always a challenge of self inflicted time pressures that we deal with, you know, as as our crew members are out in the field, whether it's to get a job done on time, is and we really have to put forth the effort to to to remove all those time pressures and put put our crews and and and and people in those positions of success, right, to have that open line of communication.

And, also, the challenges is we can't control, what our folks do the day before or the night before or two days prior. And I think when you're dealing with the challenge of the extreme amount of heat conditions and, you know, what our folks put their bodies through on a daily in all trades, not just line construction, but in any any trade out there, you really have to be prepared in my opinion that, you know, the fit for duty and well well, well hydrated, to overcome the challenge of your your responses, which I know Dylan's gonna get into the the reactions of the body, when this when this occurs, when you are dehydrated, it really makes it admit it's it's challenging.

Right? And sometimes that sometimes the way your body is feeling and when you start feeling those symptoms of fatigue, it's already too late. So I think that's the challenge as for us as operations is is really is really leaning in and stressing the fact that, you know, it's it's being fit for duty and ready to work. It it starts way before your day even starts.

So I think, to summarize it, that's kind of my thought and some of those challenges. I mean, I hit them high level, Kevin. But as you know, it's it's a collaborative effort between all of us, as leaders and down to the workforce. So, even even our vendors. So I think it's, something we all gotta work towards, improving. It's not easy, easy to say easy to say on this platform, obviously, but there's a whole ton of work that goes into it.

Thank you so much for that. And I did wanna note as well is that we do have a a chat where you can post questions as well, and we'll definitely get to some of those questions at the end. So, make sure to take advantage

of that. As a follow-up to your question though, Raul, what are, like, some real practical things that you put in place, from an operational perspective or to stop work?

Because you're exactly right. I mean, it's so hard. People take so much pride in the work that they're doing and especially in a storm type

Chapter

Practical & Successful Controls

setting where, you know, you're they're first responders. They have to, you know, get that work done as efficiently as possible.

What are some things that you put in place that have really allowed people to, you know, to be in a situation where they do stop work.

I think, you know, some practical things to do or some success that we found and, you know, like I said, it's easy to say it here on this platform.

But, you know, our our men and women in the field, they do a a great job at this.

You know, we're we we are students of extreme ownership.

I think it starts, you know, fundamentally having a good leadership program. We found a lot of success in extreme ownership and and and the principles within that, within that leadership program.

And, you know, there's a lot to say, when leadership is the solution. There is there's a lot to say in that. You know, I think the leadership drives the performance of our crews and our individuals, you know, constantly bringing open communication to the forefront.

How are you feeling today? How's things going today? Just that open line of conversation, which is a lot like this platform. It's just having the conversation surrounding the real situations that are going on, you know, with our crews.

So I would say that's a good start is a a good leadership program we found, and always investing in the leaders.

A good a job briefing in the morning that really states, hey. Let's you know, we're gonna here's the heat index for today. We constantly drive heat heat indexes and how your body's gonna be feeling, the time of day we're gonna stop as far as lunches and breaks to ensure our guys get the, the the appropriate, break, so the fatigue doesn't sit in. Because I think once fatigue sits in, like I said, Dylon's gonna start you know, he's really, really, knowledgeable in that in that space.

And we gotta build these controls in as leaders too. Right? Those controls have to be there and be have a good cadence of, you know, the guys getting used to what is gonna be expected of them throughout the day.

There's some good there's some good, good cooling PPE we found out there too. Some some of our underground crews are using. I wanted to mention that, you know, with your different suppliers.

Some definitely some good, shades, cooling vests, supplements.

Really getting your guys, as a culture and having a good safe culture of of a of a fit for duty program is is very critical.

That's great. And, you know, I was fortunate to join your leadership conference where the extreme ownership, component was talked about, and that's Jocko Winlick's. Some of you may have heard the book that you wrote about extreme ownership just to bring some context there. One of the the principles is decentralized command and really empowering, you know, people across the organization to to be able to step up and make decisions and and help call some of those shots when they see the need for work to stop or they see a colleague who maybe they can tell is struggling. Can you maybe speak to a little bit more about that leadership component of how you've empowered the workforce to to help step up, in those situation?

Yeah. So, you know, in in as far as the main principle of extreme ownerships, everyone leads. Right? Everyone everyone's a leader on the crew.

You know, from the from the management all the way through the organization, you know, you own your own part.

But like I said, I'm a student, but by any means, it's it's really it's really showed us that, we've assigned what we call hydration coaches to our crews as well. So it it's another layer outside of the foreman that says, hey. You know, you've been assigned this responsibility today to ensure that, you know, we're getting the right intake of of supplements and water and breaks.

So that's a that's a key fundamental piece that we found success in, that really drives a safe culture throughout the whole organization. It's not just, you know, my responsibility or the general foreman's responsibility or the foreman's responsibility. It's everybody. It's everybody's responsibility to ensure everyone's safety, and everybody has a voice. So I I I truly you know, I'm passionate about leadership. I think a a lot of the folks that know me, and under know know that.

And it's I think there's there's a lot to say in, how successful you can be when the leader of the organization is driving the performance of the company.

And everybody everybody can feel it. It really builds a strong culture.

So Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate that. And I wanna shift gears. You mentioned something earlier. Like, if you start hydrating, you know, halfway through the day, you're already way too late.

I mean, the hide dehydration process starts before we even, realize that it's in full swing. And so I think that's a great segue into understanding a little bit more of the science of that and how we can really think about hydration. Again, from the moment you have that pre job briefing or your

Chapter

Dylon's Connection To Heat Stress

JSA or you're just talking about what work is happening, hydration is a part of that. So I'd like to invite, Dylon up so that he can share a little bit more about the science of hydration and how we can incorporate, you know, a science based approach to hydration to the workforce to keep, the workforce safe and healthy.

So, Dylon, before you jump in, maybe, provide a little more context on your background, and, then we'd love to hear a little bit more about the science aspect of that.

Absolutely.

Kevin, thanks for having me again. And, Raul, fantastic safety culture out there. So highly respect both of these, professionals and what they do. But, a little bit of background about myself.

I came from a blue collar family, a military family, my dad being a marine, and I quickly learned the value of the dollar doing a lot of blue collar work. Once my dad got him in the marine corps, he owned a landscaping business, and I quickly got thrown into the fire, in the hot Phoenix, weather doing outside labor.

Was an athlete all the way through college,

became passionate about performance and how what you do on a daily basis can affect your performance.

And, coming from both of those worlds, now in my position professionally, you know, we're talking about people. We're not talking about, compliance. Yes. This is a very important topic with OSHA and, the new ANSI standard and some of the, you know, some of these regulations that are out there.

But at the end of the day, no matter what side you are on on the argument here, there there is a problem that is out there. And the problem is is that seventy five percent of Americans are chronically dehydrated, and we're made up of around eighty percent water. So we can all do math here. That's not lining up very well.

So we will discuss a little bit further into why that's important for your safety culture.

So I think it's something that, you know, maybe we can shed some light and and help, help out down the line.

Great. Thank you so much. Well, we'd like to, have you walk us through what happens to the body when it is exposed to warm environments and why it poses such a risk, know, for the overall health of the individual plus, I mean, there are multiple if we follow that, that thread even further, I mean, it increases our risk of soft tissue injuries, cognitive function is impacted, all these other things. So I would love to have you share some of those, concepts

Chapter

Factors That Contribute to Poor Thermoregulation

with us.

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, our bodies, as I mentioned, we're essentially walking water, and we'll discuss that a little bit, later. But we're metabolic machines.

And, on average, you know, your your blood plasma is about fifty percent water. So if you just imagine the the water being the oil to your machine, kinda like the oil to your vehicle is, is is supposed to cool down your body, etcetera. So I know I jumped forward a little bit, but back to the previous slide here.

There are talk about transferring ownership as Raul mentioned.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to poor thermoregulation. At and at the end of the day, your body is trying to keep homeostasis right around ninety eight point six degrees.

And when you have outside elements like hot weather or working around hot surfaces or machines that are putting off heat, you know, or the PPE that you're wearing, there are plenty of factors that we have to educate on. And the most important thing we can focus on if we're trying to talk about industrial cultural shift, we have to educate, and we have to educate on the right information. And if you you don't know what you don't know and I've I've trained a lot of workers over the last five years.

And when you walk into the room and you're talking heat safety, it's, oh, well, here comes rest water shade talk. You know, let's roll out the big box TV and the VCR machine, and let's get to our training. It's it's not like that anymore. We have to help them understand why they play a vital role.

And oftentimes, then it becomes less compliant because we're establishing a why. But some of those things are, you know, dehydration being a massive piece, but drug and alcohol usage, prescription medications, fitness levels, your PPE, whether the the color of the PPE or the breathability of the PPE, their age, their gender, prior heat related illness. Your your body it's it's an amazing thing what your body can do. But when you go through a heat impact injury, your hypothalamus in your brain actually says, woah.

I don't want this to happen again. That was a close call. And your tolerance actually begins to lower. So that's why you hear a lot of people say, I was never able to work the same after that time.

So now we're talking about performance, productivity, right, more than just, falling out due to heat illness. So, help educate your crews on help them understand that there's there are a lot of factors out there and how can we, continue to move forward. And I we believe that this is a great system to do that with.

Great. Thank you, Dylon.

You know, I was just talking with someone earlier today, and they talked about, the impact that alcohol may have on dehydration as well. And, again, we we talked about even starting into the workday, you know, already a step behind. Can you maybe expand on that just a little bit more?

Yeah. So at the end of the day, industry trends or cultural, you know, cultural components there to each industry. Unfortunately, you know, there's a lot there are some things, decisions being made at home that we cannot control.

As employers, as managers, as leaders, all we can do is, you know, coming from the athletic world is building we can build in margin or, you know, the terminology being used now is building in capacity.

Because as rule Raul mentioned, you know, we're humans. People are gonna make mistakes. We're not always gonna do the right things. And, we can't control what happens at home. But the saying is hydration starts at home. It's completely true as cliche as it is. But the overarching theme on that note is seventy five percent of us on this call here are chronically dehydrated.

And as we get into the next question, you know, you'll kinda understand why that is so important to quality of life and and importance to performance.

Yeah. Thank you so much. And you you briefly talked about, capacity, and that kind of follows that same line of, like, hazard recognition, the energy wheel, serious injury, and fatality prevention. And I know you and I and even Raul have had, multiple conversations where we've talked about how, you know, even one percent dehydration can impact cognitive function, which very well could start to lead to tunnel vision and the inability to actually see those, you know, potential hazards, high energy hazards that could lead to serious injuries and fatalities. Can you expand a little bit more on, the increased risk for injury associated with, dehydration?

Yes. Absolutely. So,

Chapter

How Heat Affects Hazard Recognition

you know,

the main thing that I believe is the the problem out there is it heat illness, if I come to a safety manager and ask them how many heat related illnesses they had last year, and let's just say they had zero recordables, they'll come to me and say, oh, we had zero. And I will quickly say, I don't believe that that's true. That's fantastic.

But we believe there are root cause underlying, impact on other injuries, whether that be a fall or laceration or hand injury or slip or sprain and strain.

If you if you look at the chart here, your brain is around seventy five percent water. Your lungs, your heart, your skin, muscles, k, we're then whenever I mentioned we're walking water, this really shows you here how important water is to the body. And now we talk about cognitive function or hazard recognition.

They say on a good day, you can you can, identify about fifty percent of the hazards in your workplace.

Now looking at the math here, seventy five percent of us are chronically dehydrated. Well, my brain's seventy five percent water. That probably means that we're not identifying as many hazards that we could if we were on a high level hydration plan. Right? That I'm not saying we're gonna fix all in you know, identify every hazard, but I believe that that percentage would go up, which means safety is gonna improve. So when we talk about cognitive function, you know, a lot of these trades that that I'm supporting, it's split seconds that that, can mean a life or can mean a serious injury.

And not all the time is it just, oh, well, they had a heat exhaustion or a heat stroke. No. It's somebody fell from height because they made a bad decision because they were in a brain fog. It won't get recorded as heat. It's gonna get recorded as a fall, but at the end of the day, the underlying can the underlying root cause, in our opinion, is early onset stages of heat illness that are impacting all injuries. And this is something that is becoming a little bit wider accepted from these industries, and it's just hard to identify and pinpoint all the time, but it is very, very important. Now looking at musculoskeletal, injuries and coming from the athletic space, you know, when we were training athletes, professional collegiate athletes in their off season, it was if we had somebody that was injury prone, soft tissue injury prone, they were pulling their hammies, they were cramping, strains, the very first thing we would address is their hydration protocol.

And that's because around eighty percent of their muscle tissue is water. So I like to use the sponge as an analogy. You take a dehydrated sponge and you take a hydrated sponge, which one moves more freely? Which one seems more prone to tears and breaks and more rigid and doesn't wanna move, you know, more freely over the joints? So, take that analogy and help understand that we have, we have to be able to, look at this from a wider scope.

Hey. Thank you so much, Dylon. Well, we're getting close to rounding out our time, so I'd like to invite Raul back on stage. And we have a question from Angela.

Chapter

Q&A

With all that employers are building into our HIP programs to counteract extreme heat exposure, can you talk a little bit about climatization and thoughts approaches to try to ensure our exposed workforce can, build the heat resilience with the demands of operations?

Raul, I'm gonna send this one over to you. I know that you just had a crew that, was working in a different state in a totally different environment. What are some practical things that you've done in that type of a situation?

Well, let's see here. So I think, you know, just from my perspective, you know, to counteract these ex the this exposure, I think you gotta you gotta, you know, really tap into as many resources as you can possibly.

We we obviously partner with with working athlete and Kevin's group, and, you know, we really gotta have a fundamental base of, hey. Do we have enough supplements for our guys to get started? Right? Do we have a plan as we get out there to make sure that we're that we're counteracting these these ex this exposure?

But I I do think it, you know, it it you definitely have to have further observations too. I think you gotta make sure that the best way to see what's going on, I learned a long time ago with with our crew resources or or field conditions is is simply you gotta go and see. You gotta go and see what's going on. Don't don't hide away from the problem. You know, wedge yourself right in there. So, I think you gotta get as leaders, you gotta get involved.

And and I'm pretty sure most of us are talented enough on this call that once we see something, we say something and we act on it. Right? And it's you know, what do the guys need? Do they need is there more supplements do we need? Do we need some more cooling shades? Do we need you know, what are we looking for? You know, do we have the appropriate PPE?

And I think there's a ton of PPE out there as much as, you know, our our folks don't like wearing FR or don't like getting in those conditions. I mean, the technology from when I started is by far I mean, there's it it it's it's not bad.

You know, they're always gonna have those conditions where it's not perfect conditions.

You know? We have to make we have to be resilient in that, and it's not easy. You know? We're not we're not working in always, you know, perfect weather.

And as as I say that in my office, of course, but there's always, you know, our we have to be considerate of our of our of our resources and get the best for our people. You know, whether it's a supplement, whether it's PPE, I think you gotta you gotta you gotta tap into that and and invest. Like, you purely do. You have to invest in what's good for them.

And I think once the folks see that you're investing in them, I think the performance will outweigh the investment. You know, you'll start seeing you'll start seeing the the our crews and people perform better. I truly believe that in all aspects, you know, from training, from everything. If if you believe in it, our guys our our guys will and gals are are better off and and, you know, it's it's it improves our culture.

You know, it improves any any culture that's out there.

Hey, Kevin. I wanna jump in. I know we're getting towards the end here, but I wanted to jump because this is a very, magnified section of the new regulation proposal is the acclimatization section and the effects on performance and productivity, etcetera.

Speaking with a lot of our customers that have reached out about the regulation, that's probably the first thing they're asking. It's like, how am I actually gonna implement a program to acclimate my crew when work has to get done, especially in storm. Right? This is probably a section that's gonna go under review.

I'm sure the public's gonna give their opinion on it. It's something they'll have to look at. But, really, back to the my beginning thought is there is a problem here. You can't throw workers into the fire, right away.

You know? Physiologically, your body has to adapt. It's built to adapt, but it doesn't happen overnight.

That's like taking somebody that sat on the couch in a sedentary lifestyle for three months and bringing them into the gym and say, hey. We're maxing out on squat today. Throat four twenty five on the bar. Let's go.

It doesn't work like that. We have to have progressive overload, in the workplace just like we do in the athletic space. So that means twenty percent workload and then forty percent and sixty and eighty, and let's gradually get them into work. If not, we will have increased risk.

Hey. Thank you so much, Dylon and Raul. This was a fantastic conversation. You know, we're we're committed to having these, type of conversations pretty much on a monthly basis and also keeping it at a thirty minute time frame so that it can fit in people's days, pretty easily. But, if you have additional questions, that you'd like to pose or you would like more resources, we will be following up, with, this a recording of this conversation.

You can also, send us some additional questions, and we're happy to get back to you. But, again, so appreciate both of you for joining this conversation and for those of you who took time out of your day, to be a part of this event. And, we look forward to continuing the conversation again, in the near future. Thanks so much.

Thank you, guys.

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