Safety matters

'When we decided to add a seventh issue this year, the editorial team decided that September would be a great time to really focus on a topic that is crucial in the snow & ice management industry—safety.'

By Cheryl Higley
In the next few weeks, subscribers to Snow Business magazine will be receiving their first September issue. When we decided to add a seventh issue this year, the editorial team decided that September would be a great time to really focus on a topic that is crucial in the snow & ice management industry—safety. 

As we began planning, the results from our annual State of the Industry survey reinforced the importance. A startling statistic from our survey was that 60% of the respondents don’t have a formal safety training program in their company. 

Our goal was to look at different aspects of safety and training to get a feel for the stories, insights and solutions we could give to our readers to help make their businesses—and the properties they service—safer for their employees and their clients.

As we started brainstorming, we quickly realized there are so many safety touch points for a snow company that we couldn’t possibly do all of them justice. So we decided to focus on key points from three aspects for this first-ever Safety Issue: employee safety, operations safety and selling safety. The topics we chose cover many aspects and still barely scratch the surface, but I’m certain that the stories we’re presenting will provide solutions and get snow & ice contractors thinking about safety. Special thanks go to our Editorial Advisory Committee and our outstanding peer contributors for helping us get our safety issue off the ground. 

We’re going to follow up the September issue with a Snow Safety Week Oct. 28-31 with additional stories on GoPlow.com, videos and webinars. 

I am very excited for everyone to read the September issue and, as always, would love your feedback. As winter begins to creep in on us, my virtual door is always open and I welcome comments and story suggestions—on safety or any other topic in snow & ice management. 

Cheryl Higley is editorial director for Snow Business magazine. Contact her at chigley@mooserivermedia.com.