THOMASVILLE — it was a milestone worthy of a celebration at Cleaver-Brooks.

Friday, the Thomasville facility marked 1 million hours without any time lost to an incident. In recognition of the achievement, employees were treated to a barbecue lunch and gifts.

“For one person working 40 hours a week, that’s 480 years,” said Justin Holland, director of operations at Cleaver-Brooks. “It is a big achievement.”

There are about 250 employees total at Cleaver-Brooks, and around 170 in the plant, which makes boiler room products and systems.

“We have worked to continuously improve our safety culture and environment by implementing best practices,” Holland said. “We strive for operational excellence in our industry by focusing on health and safety.”

Holland also said that driving for that kind of standardization helps with the quality of the work.

Holland also credited the the safety culture that has been established. Beyond compliance with personal protective equipment, it includes: 

• conducting a “safety walk” the first hour of the first workday every week

• management safety committee investigating the smallest near-miss, implementing corrective action and conducting re-training as needed

• all near-misses are reviewed during monthly meetings with employees

“While we are extremely proud of this achievement, we take the greatest pride in safely returning every team member to their loved ones at the end of each day,” he said. “We are already looking ahead to meeting the 2-million-hour mark.”