As part of our ongoing "Getting to
Know Your Local Businesses" series, this week we sat down with Paul
Johnson, owner and president of Reliant Safety Solutions, LLC.
Tell us a bit about your business: What does your business offer, and how long have you been around?
Established
in July 2015, Reliant Safety Solutions (RSS) has been helping companies
and organizations to reduce safety incidents, mitigate risk and provide
solutions to protect human lives and safeguard business viability. RSS
offers comprehensive health, safety, and environmental programs; we
provide knowledgeable and reliable safety support to companies and
organizations that trust us to step in and, without delay, get to work
keeping their most vital resources safe on the job without downtime.
24
hours a day, seven days a week, RSS provides onsite safety staffing,
audits and inspections, construction and oil & gas safety training
and onsite medical services. RSS works dynamically to meet a wide
variety of client safety needs, all designed to reduce risks and save
lives.
How did you decide to get involved in this line of work?
As
a third-generation iron worker, I started working for Herrick Corp, a
structural steel company, in California out of Local 377 in 1994.
In
2005, I started teaching for the apprenticeship school for Local 377
and 378 on the weekends, conducting safety training for new iron workers
that wanted to get into a trade. In 2007, I relocated to Texas where I
was hired as a safety manager for a local construction company here in
Houston.
In January 2012, I became a safety consultant for Kuwait
Oil. I lived in the Middle East for a year and I even learned the local
dialect. After my contract was completed, I returned back home to
Houston to work for an oil & gas engineering firm. At the firm, I
was a risk manager and was given the great opportunity to expand the
business into other areas such as oil & gas safety training, program
development, risk assessments and much more.
In 2015, I started my
safety training services business, RSS, here in Kingwood. In addition to
working with clients in Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and other
Texas cities, RSS branched out to Las Vegas in May 2018 to meet client
demands in that market.
Tell us a couple things you are proud of about your businesses. What are you known for? What separates you from the competition?
I
am very proud of our highly skilled team of industry safety consulting
professionals. We have more than 50 years of combined industry
experience and we are always ready to mitigate multiple risks in any
construction, industrial, and oil & gas work environment.
Certified
as both a Minority and Small Business Enterprise by the City of
Houston, RSS has also won numerous awards over the years, including the
honor of receiving the Associated General Contractors (AGC) Safety Stand
Down Participation Award multiple times, receiving The Ray Lambright
Excellence in Safety Award in 2016 and being recognized as the AGC
Safety Director of the Year in 2017.
In 2018, we had another banner
year when our company was honored with the AGC Safety Excellence Award,
along with the Texas Building Branch Safety Excellence Award and the AGC
Safety Vendor of the Year Houston Award.
For the past two years,
we have also been conducting safety training at Houston Community
College (HCC) for students including Forklift and Scaffold training.
What is your favorite part of running this business?
I am very proud that we continually develop and implement new innovative
ideas for safety training. Our instruction is hands-on and technology
driven. For example, RSS just fabricated a fall protection drop test
simulator out of our company vehicle … where students experience a
simulation of what it’s like to fall in their harness with different
attachments and the forces that it generates on their body during a
fall. The vehicle is also equipped with a 65” TV monitor for training in
the field on construction projects that don’t have classrooms
available.
My team and I have seen workers get hurt or worse, not
survive. We have seen how these incidents change a family forever. We
educate to save lives. It is the core belief of RSS that adapting to
constant changes and the pursuit of life-long learning are the keys to
success and sustainability.
Who is your ideal customer/client? Who do you serve best?
Any
company that wants to reduce workplace injuries and identify, prevent
and control exposure to safety hazards is our ideal customer. We serve
companies that want to make a difference with their employees and want
to change or enhance their safety culture.
Is there any other information you'd like your potential customers/clients to know about your business?
Throughout
the year, we periodically offer free first aid/CPR/AED/BBP classes,
rigging, OSHA 10 and 30-hour classes at our training facility. We also
offer free safety training for workers who are unemployed and need a
safety class to get a job.
Our training classes and videos feature
real people safely doing their jobs. Produced to align with today’s
video standards, RSS creates custom safety videos in-house that captures
the employee’s attention and meet today’s industry safety practices and
standards. We produce modular-based videos that can be easily updated
when needs, messages or content changes.
In addition, our office
location has spacious rooms, adjustable classrooms, and comfortable
conference rooms that are available for rent for business meetings,
training or company orientations. Rental includes video conferencing,
phone and Internet services and any other business services that may be
needed.
To learn more about our custom and standard training solutions and industry events, visit our
website.
To contact our safety experts, find out about upcoming training classes
and view informative videos about our training services, visit our
Facebook page.
How do you see your business growing and improving over the next couple of years?
Beginning
this summer, RSS will offer online safety training classes, giving our
clients another way to achieve or supplement their training goals and
needs.
We are also in the process of being approved by the
International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET).
With this global accreditation, RSS will award continuing education
(CEU’s) credits for all of our training classes, further recognizing our
training and our Kingwood training facility as an industry leader.
To learn more about Reliant Safety Solutions, visit our profile at
Atascocita.com.