Safety Star Award Recipient - Iron Maple Constructors - Chad Tupper, Safety Manager

In this engaging podcast, Chad Tupper, Safety Manager at Iron Maple Constructors, shares how the company earned the 2025 Safety Star Award from WorkSafeNB. From rigorous onboarding and union training standards to digital inspections and proactive leadership, Iron Maple’s safety-first approach is setting a high bar in construction across New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Tune in to hear how their culture of “walking the walk” is making a real impact on job sites.

Transcript

Perley Brewer
Welcome to today's podcast. My name is Pearly Brewer and I will be your host. New Brunswick is are the heart and soul of safety in our province. Individuals and organizations lead the way to safe and healthy workplaces. They help develop a culture where everyone participates, encourages and supports.
Towards one another in health and safety to recognize these outstanding New Brunswick leaders, Worksafe NB presents Safety Star Awards annually at their health and Safety conference. Recipients are honored for their initiative, hard work, and profound effect on health and safety.
Among other health and safety champions, one of the four Safety Star Awards this year went to iron Maple constructors. We are honored to have with us for today's podcast, Chad Tupper, safety Manager for Iron Maple, Welcome Chad.

Chad Tupper   1:10
Thanks, pearly. It's an honor to be here.

Perley Brewer   1:13
First of all, I'd like to congratulate iron Maple on your award. Certainly well deserved at the conference. They share a video on your health and safety for folks who weren't able to see that video, here are some of the comments from the video from your coworkers.
From Devon or from excuse me from Dirk to winter president and Co, founder of iron Maple constructors. We want our employees to come home and or to come and leave our job sites just as safe and healthy as when they arrive in the morning.
From our Affleck safety manager at Iron Maple constructors, the award is an award for the whole company from the management group down to the carpenters on the job site and from yourself Chad to me, an excellent safety culture means walking the walk and not just talking the talk.
So Chad, let's talk about your culture by linking culture to everyday activities that companies perform. But first tell us about iron Maple contractors. Who are they? Where are you located? How many employees do you have? And so on.

Chad Tupper   2:19
Sure. Yeah. So we're a relatively young company. We just celebrated our fifth year in operation, but we get some some deep roots in the construction industry. So initially we were kind of set up with the goal of.
Being one of the most respected contractors in the industry and so you can't really do that without a strong safety program. So we set to work.
Bringing in Earl Affleck, he was key in kind of making sure that we got our safety program established and set up early on getting the company core certified.
Making sure that we've got everything in motion to kind of be successful. So we're a general contracting company. We've got about 150 employees right now spread out between New Brunswick.
In Nova Scotia, so we've got a an office in Sussex as well as one in Dartmouth, NS.

Perley Brewer   3:32
So what kind of projects would you have on the go right now?

Chad Tupper   3:36
Right now we've got a couple.
Pretty big.
Multi Res apartment buildings in Saint John area. We're doing one right on water St. there for another client right on the the cruise ship terminal central there. So we've got kind of a high profile.
Build there. We've got a dealership up in Fredericton. We've got some strip malls in Moncton area. We're kind of spread out all over the map of New Brunswick.
So.
Kind of from one end of the province to the other, you might say.

Perley Brewer   4:27
So health and safety, obviously to anybody involved in it doesn't just happen, it's it's a result of a lot of a lot of hard work and a lot of activities performed by people like yourself. Let's go through a few of the things that organizations often talk about, but it's always good to hear different perspectives.
Let's start with your new employee onboarding. What do you govern? How do you go about to or give an orientation or an onboarding to to a new employee?

Chad Tupper   4:57
Yeah. So I guess it it kind of depends on the role that they're coming into. Essentially all of our new employees that come on go through the same orientation and it's kind of tailored.
A little bit to what their duties are going to be. So we'll go through our company policies and rules and tie off all that sort of thing. PPE requirements, same as anybody else would.
And then of course, we'll we'll discuss any of their training that they might have coming into the role, making sure that we're not sending them out to do a job that they're not adequately trained to do. And then.
Subsequently, if they don't have the training in place that they need, then we'll make sure that we get them lined up for that training.
So I would say.
Also in that, making sure that they understand their requirements for safety. So kind of we.
We would hold a a high standard, I would say for what we expect for them. So if they're coming in, they've got to be able to assess the hazards and if they don't know how to do that, then we're going to give them that education to kind of.
Set them up for success so.
Maybe that's a hazard assessment course or something to that nature.
Yeah.

Perley Brewer   6:40
Now, some people would say, you know, training, you know, takes time, costs money in a very results oriented business like yours where you know we're seeing results and and moving your project along is obviously critical. Help you respond to to someone that says well look, you don't really we don't have time for training.

Chad Tupper   7:01
Yeah, that's a that's a hard one to kind of navigate around. So for US, training is important. We work all of our carpenters are in the Union. So we set up an agreement that when we get a new Carpenter.
Under dispatch from the Union, we've got a list of prerequisites that we expect them to come in with, so all of our employees that come from the Union, they've got to have wemis, they've got to have fall protection.
They've got to have a mobile elevator work platform, confined space, all these kind of benchmark training before they even come to our site. They've got to have that or else they can't be dispatched. So that I think helps a lot.
And.
I guess another part to that is.
You know, proving that not only you have the training, but you have an understanding of it, right? So big thing for us is the competency. So we want to make sure that you don't just have the ticket, but you know what it means, right? You know how to put on a harness properly. You know how to safely operate.
An aerial left or a Tele handler. So big part of that is observing the the workers.
Using the the equipment and making sure that they know how to do that safely.

Perley Brewer   8:39
Do you find your supervisors are committed to health and safety, or do you have to keep on?

Chad Tupper   8:45
No, I I would say we've been pretty fortunate with that.
Our supervisors are fantastic. They all kind of they buy into our safety program very early on and typically the ones that don't don't tend to last because they just don't fit the culture I guess.
So I'll say like our our superintendents and our our foreman and our project teams in general are really good at enforcing.
Safety culture and building that within the company.
We have safety is always number one on all of our meetings from sub trade meetings all the way up. We do a monthly newsletter and a monthly.
Safety meeting that kind of goes through high level, get a sense of everything that's going on within the company where we stand on projects, on a safety basis, making sure that we keep on top of things like inspections and.
Oh.
Everything alike hazard assessments, right? So I think our supervisors.
Are they do a fantastic job doing that?

Perley Brewer   10:18
So obviously you excuse me. Obviously you have a number of projects on the go which you mentioned earlier in the podcast, in both in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. How do you make sure health and safety is coordinated and kept moving along?
From a point of view, do you do regular checks on your on your different sites? How to how do you manage that?

Chad Tupper   10:44
Yeah, well, you know, probably it the the expression of it takes a village really stands true on this. So I'm only one person. I can only be in so many places at one time. But.
Having a team around, that's the kind of like having our superintendents do a regular weekly inspections on the job site is key. I try to get to all the New Brunswick job sites at least once a month for check in.
Nova Scotia. We've got fantastic safety consultant there that we use Kimber and Tucker that kind of helps us along for site visits there and support. Plus we've got our old Aflac kind of as a safety advisor with an iron Maple that.
That keeps us all accountable, but I think a huge part of that is is utilizing like a a digital format for our inspections. And so I can kind of keep my finger on the pulse of the day-to-day goings on.
Remotely for for a large part, making sure that Fla JS are being done and being updated properly. There's always photos and.
Stuff like that. That's on our inspection. So it's pretty easy to get a general broad scope view of how we're doing and then?
Not a big surprise when I go to site and see that things are getting done the way that we say that we're going to do them right.

Perley Brewer   12:32
So what kind of software do you use to help you achieve that?

Chad Tupper   12:36
Right now we're using procore for all of our inspections. We were using site docs. We just this year made the switch over to procore. We were using procore for.
All of our RF is and and I'll call it project management. And so we just recently got into using it for more quality and safety as well. So putting all of our forms on there, all of our documentation of training records.
All of that so easy access for if a compliance officer comes on site or if one of our new workers comes on board, we upload all of their training on procore. We can easily manage when training is coming due, get them scheduled in for.
For those courses and and also distribute that information over to our superintendents to know that Carpenter, AB and C have training on these dates and they can see it as a tangible visual representation.
On their schedule. So I think that's been kind of a key.
Tool that we're using now that is helping us along.

Perley Brewer   14:06
So as a general contractor, obviously you use a lot of Subs on your projects. How do you make sure that they're working safely and that they're following your organization's health and safety program?

Chad Tupper   14:22
Yeah, I think again, that's a, that's a good question. It's a challenge as any company can attest to the deals with stubs. But I think we've done a great job as a company kind of.
Screening out and we use a lot of the same subcontractors that we've built a rapport with that know our policies and maybe have dealt with us in a past life.
And know our reputation, but I think in general they buy into it.
Kind of automatically, but then with our orientation we we we drive home that importance and making sure right from the front end with their letter of award, we're sending out all the information that we expect from them. We send out an orientation video that kind of goes through our.
Our company policies and what we expect from them, so they can kind of review all that before they even come to site. And then once they're on site, of course they've got to do their site orientation where we go through all the hazards on the job site that they could expect to see.
And.
Where we go from there.

Perley Brewer   15:48
So how does your senior management show their commitment to health and safety?

Chad Tupper   15:53
Our senior management, I think they invest in safety, so.
I think anybody that's ever met any of our our owner group can attest to it that and I guess that goes back to what I said in the video about.
Walking the walk and not just talking the talk like our our it's not uncommon to see our senior management out walking the site. Full PPE, they're invested in the people on the job site, so they're invested in all the people that.
Come and go. They want to know what's going on. I've got our safety team and our and our senior management staff. We we have weekly meetings to kind of keep on top of things and see where we're sitting. We'll go through all the stats.
Incidents, anything that might be going on, they want to know about it so.
They're they're very proactive, I guess would be a good, good way to put it.
Yeah. They sit in on all the the the joint Health and Safety Committee meetings and kind of they want to know. They're listening to suggestions and ways to always improve our safety program.
You know right from the start, they wanted to make sure that the safety program was in place, but every year we kind of review it with their guidance and and kind of make sure that we're still.
Staying relevant and we're doing things most efficiently and best way to to to handle things.

Perley Brewer   17:50
So one question I always like asking people when I visit their organization is what's your biggest challenge today from a point of view of health and safety, what's what's a topic or something that you're really keeping a sharp eye on, maybe just because you're either just a little concerned or or you feel it's just important and you want to.
Want to show staff there?

Chad Tupper   18:13
I think one of the challenges that.
I think everybody's kind of seeing right now is the.
The influx of foreign workers and making sure that.
Not necessarily the competency, but the understanding when they come on the job site, maybe they don't speak English and need a translator, so making sure that they understand what's being asked of them. I think that's a huge.
Issue right now.
As well as what I'm noticing a lot of on our job sites, when these workers are coming in, we had we had a work crew that came in. They were doing roofing and.
They were all from, I believe, Jordan. So their English was not fantastic, but through their forum and they had a a good understanding of what was required of them.
But then.
Once we asked for training records, one of the workers said. Well, I don't have all protection training so.
Obviously he wasn't able to go on the roof, so he was sent away and an hour later he came back with a training certificate with that day's date on it. An hour later, right?
So is he trained? He's got a a training certificate there that says he is. But how do we prove that he's?
Umm.
Properly trained I guess is. So all these, all these online training.

Perley Brewer   20:11
Yeah.

Chad Tupper   20:17
Courses and and and what what not. They're great and I think with the pandemic they were a necessity. And now what we're seeing is this huge amount of.
Training that's getting done virtually.
Which makes it difficult to.
And if you've never put that harness on and you've never actually adjusted the straps properly, right, which is one of the things that you would do in a in person class, it's it's hard to prove that they're actually competent to use that equipment, right. So.

Perley Brewer   20:57
Yeah.

Chad Tupper   21:00
I guess those are a few of the the kind of common issues that we're seeing.

Perley Brewer   21:07
So in general, are you finding it difficult to find workers for your various projects?

Chad Tupper   21:12
Yeah, yeah, I think the the general pool of of carpenters is decreasing, I think and having the Union.

Perley Brewer   21:14
Hmm.
Yeah.

Chad Tupper   21:29
Carpenters, it's been a huge help with that.
But even that you can only do so much, right? If there's no people there to work, then there's no pool to pull pull from. So I think that.

Perley Brewer   21:42
Yeah.

Chad Tupper   21:47
Probably across the board, everybody's kind of noticing the same thing.

Perley Brewer   21:52
So last question, a lot of organizations talk about safety culture and they say, oh, wow, we have a great safety culture. If I were to visit one of your site, anyone either in Brunswick or Nova Scotia, how would I know that that your company does indeed have a good safety culture?
What kind of things would I look for? What kind of things would I see?

Chad Tupper   22:14
Well, I'd I'd like to think that you'd go in and you would see, First off all the signage, right, you'd see PPE requirements, you'd see the muster points and you'd see designated smoking areas you'd be meet met by.
Our Superintendent that's going to give you a very thorough orientation. Make sure you know where everything is. But I think above all of that, you're going to see workers engaged. You're going to see people actively trying to be safe. And I think you're going to see.
A clean and organized job site. I think you can tell a lot about a company's safety standpoint by how they keep the job site it's taking the I'll call it a proactive approach to safety.
Making sure that unnecessary tripping hazards aren't there. Making sure that things like debris and nails and all that stuff is getting cleaned up efficiently and and in a timely manner.
I think you're gonna see.
Workers wearing all their PPE, hopefully and happy to be there.

Perley Brewer   23:35
Yeah. You mentioned housekeeping a number of years ago I asked one of the work safe and B officers what the number one order that he wrote during the past year and the number one order for him was housekeeping. And as you just indicated, it's it's a big indicator of how the works, I just managed.

Chad Tupper   23:37
Hmm.
Hmm.

Perley Brewer   23:55
I remember a few years ago there was a fatality at a work site at an an apartment building in Halifax and they showed on the news and you know the the the, the film that they showed and you know, it was only a clip of of 30 seconds, 45 seconds.
It looked like dynamite had gone off and had sort of blown the hole in the side, the building and you know that's that's an indicator, no doubt about it. Look, I'd like to thank you very much Chad, for agreeing to be on our podcast today.

Chad Tupper   24:15
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.

Perley Brewer   24:29
Again, a big congratulations to iron Maple for your award that you did win at the at the workshop NBA conference just past couple weeks now, I guess, and thank you very much for taking the time. I know you're very busy and to our listeners.
Stay safe. Have a good week.

Chad Tupper   24:54
Thanks pearly.