Late April marked National Work Zone Awareness Week, to coincide with the uptick in roadway construction zones across the country as the weather warms up.
Remember to always respect work zones, following along with road barriers and signage. While we've all had the frustrating feeling of seeing a construction zone up ahead, there are lives at stake when we don't comply.
According to the National Safety Council (source) there were almost 900 fatalities and about 40,000 injuries in work zones in the year 2023. All preventable!
There are very few, if any, activities we do on a daily basis that are more dangerous than driving, and the risk is elevated in work zones. Pay attention, follow the signs, and keep everyone safe.
We tend to hammer a lot on trenching and shoring safety, but sometimes we worry it still doesn't get enough attention. So we wanted to highlight an incident shared by OSHA that claimed the life of one worker and left another with serious injuries. Overall the company involved was fined $4.6 million.
The workers were actually not IN the trench at the time of the incident but working close by when the trench collapsed causing them to fall inside and become trapped. This incident underlines a common misconception: even if you don't have employees inside a trench, you still need to ensure the trench is not in danger of collapse using all the skills a trenching competent person would normally use: soil classification, controls implementation, and constant site inspection.
Guaranteed, you've seen examples of distracted driving before. A driver next to you scrolling on their phone. A vehicle weaving in front of you and when you pass, you see they're having an angry phone conversation.
It can even seem pretty benign. A parent reaching back to adjust a car seat strap or retrieve a kid's favorite toy.
But that's distraction too.
According to the NHTSA (National Highway Safety Administration) there were 3,275 fatalities due to distracted driving just in 2023. These fatalities were preventable.
When we think about avoiding distracted driving, we all know what we're supposed to do. Put phones away. Adjust seats before you go. Make sure children and pets are well situated before starting out.
Rather than focusing on these, take some time to hear about someone's story in losing a child due to distracted driving with this video below. Your small decision while driving can affect someone for the rest of their lives, or even end their life.
The time of year is upon us when we start getting antsy to go out there and get some construction and trenching done, let alone being ready to start up those home projects again.
Did you know that OSHA has identified four particular hazards to pay attention to in the construction world? They're serious enough that OSHA has even called them the Fatal Four: falls, caught-in or -between, struck-by, and electrocution.
A couple years ago we released blog posts on each of these hazards, and it would be a good idea to brush up on these this time of year, especially if you have had any close calls with one of these hazards:
Sometimes we can get pretty heavy-handed with our blog posts, talking about how to develop a positive safety culture, help supervisors encourage safe behaviors, and set organization-wide safety goals. But sometimes it's best to back it up and go back to the basics to review we've got everything in line. And there's not much more basic than fire extinguishers, although some of the rules surrounding them might seem... less than simple.
Here's the quick and dirty on fire extinguisher requirements.
1. Make sure you have the right extinguisher for your hazards
There are different types of fire extinguishers for different hazards, so it's important to review your hazards before purchasing fire extinguishers. Here are common types of fire extinguisher classes:
Class A: For paper, cloth, wood, rubber and many plastics
Class B: For flammable liquids and gases like gasoline, oil, paint, solvents and propane
Class C: For electrical equipment like wiring, fuse boxes, computers and motors
Class D: For combustible metals like magnesium, sodium, aluminum and other alloys that can react explosively to water
Class K: For cooking oils and lipids like grease or fat
For most businesses, placing combination ABC fire extinguishers throughout the business is appropriate, but if you have any special circumstances, such as combustible metals, cooking oils, or very common in the broadband world, lead-acid or lithium ion battery rooms, then make sure you're getting the appropriate fire extinguisher for your particular hazards.
2. Place them correctly
There are several rules of thumb for placing fire extinguishers correctly.
In general, fire extinguisher placement should not exceed 50 feet for class B hazards and 75 feet for class A hazards.
They must also be accessible and visible, so think about the easiest access points for fire extinguishers that make the most sense with your building layout.
Placing them in areas where items tend to accumulate sometimes doesn't end well. If you have shipping drop off points right next to an exit, it is not uncommon to see fire extinguishers covered by incoming inventory, so try to anticipate these hangups beforehand.
Overall, making sure there are never any obstructions to fire extinguisher access is extremely important.
3. Follow inspection requirements
Fire extinguisher inspection requirements come in several flavors: monthly, annual, and then more in-depth over several years, based on the type of fire extinguisher.
Each fire extinguisher should have a tag that allows documentation of both annual and monthly inspections for documentation.
Monthly inspection requirements include:
- Ensuring there are no obstructions and that fire extinguisher is accessible
- Ensure no obvious physical damage or corrosion to the outer metal surface
- Check the gauge on top of the extinguisher and make sure the needle is in the green range
- Look down the fire extinguisher hose to ensure no obstructions
- If a powder-based extinguisher (most basic ones are), then take off mount, turn upside down, and tap on the bottom with a rubbet mallet to ensure powder does not become compacted over time.
Here's a great and short video going over all the basics for monthly inspections:
Annual inspections must be done by a professional, and they will also be able to tell you when the more in-depth discharge and inspection must be done for your fire extinguishers as well. This is often needed in a range of every 2 - 6 years, depending on your fire extinguisher type.
4. Keep up with required training for employees
If employees are instructed to fight small fires with fire extinguishers in your company's emergency plan (this is common, although some companies instead have a policy of everyone evacuating and having the fire department take care of any fire), then you must have annual fire extinguisher trainings for employees. Training needs to include when it's appropriate to attempt to put out a fire with a fire extinguisher and the steps to use the fire extinguisher. If you are a member of TT&S, this is a service we already provide for you.
This is a basic primer to get anyone started on their fire extinguisher program. If you have any questions on specifics or would like to get a fire extinguisher training set up for your employees, please reach out!
Oof, bold words coming from a safety professional.
But it's true, when safety gets exciting, that's usually when something has gone very wrong. It usually means you're responding to an incident that should not have happened. Someone might have gotten injured.
The truth is, much like IT and the maintenance world, when safety is working, it's easy to forget about. If you've got a good system in place, with controls that include training and engineering controls and the correct PPE, paired with a robust risk analysis and management program, you're probably doing pretty well.
It can feel easy to take your eye off the road and your foot off the pedal then.
We're always preaching not to fall victim to complacency and stay vigilant, but if you're doing things right, safety can start to feel, well, a little boring.
If you've gone through the huge effort it takes to get your safety culture in place, you've got not only supervisors but front line employees on board with safety initiatives, having everyone watch out for each other, then you've got good reason to pat yourself on the back.
Keep doing what you're doing. Do those housekeeping inspections in your facilities. Make sure you have a training plan (TT&S can of course help!) and stick to it.
Maybe it's even accepted in your organization that good safety is good business: the practices that keep employees safe are almost always the same practices that make them efficient and help to prevent frustration and turnover.
In that case, you've created a self-sustaining system, and you just need to keep on making sure you're evaluating for new risks and that the system is being followed.
And it might seem, yeah, a little boring.
Congratulations, if you're there, you've won the safety jackpot!
A word of caution though: If you're here, sometimes an organization can start to question what the purpose is of all those little actions that make up your system. Why do our routine inspections, someone might ask, since nothing is ever found wrong? Why keep up with training if we're training on the same topics? These small, routine actions are the bedrock of your system: when they start to crumble, that's when safety might start getting exciting again. In a bad way. With incidents and injuries starting to ramp up again.
Congratulate yourself, and then get right back to work reminding others why you're all doing what you're doing. It's all part of a system, and if you start losing pieces, then the system will start to fail too.
Keep safety boring, that's when you know you've got a few things taken care of.
The 2026 TT&S Annual Conference & Vendor Showcase took over the Bismarck Hotel from February 17-19. Attendees came from across the state and adjoining states for a mix of training from industry professionals.
Our registration table had new faces this year. The Bismarck-Mandan CVB is always helpful with providing assistance for check-in. In addition, this year TT&S decided to partner with a local food bank to support our communities throughout the state outside the normal broadband services. Because of their reach, we chose Great Plains Food Bank and welcomed Ashleigh Brown, the Community Engagement Coordinator, to assist us with collecting donations. Orange tickets were given out for each item for the food bank for an extra drawing. At the Wednesday social, one lucky winner was drawn for a $250 Visa gift card.
Tuesday Opening:
Our conference started with a brief opening by Seth Arndorfer, CEO of Dakota Carrier Network, introducing the keynote speaker, Brian D. Newby, Broadband Program Director of NDIT. Brian spoke about partnering with North Dakota’s carriers on delivering last-mile broadband to 100% of all North Dakotans. All employees of broadband cooperatives within the state are affected by what happens with federal grants and he presented that to our attendees.
After the keynote, long-time networking trainer Andrew Walding explained a new contest for this year, a Wireshark "Capture the Flag" contest that he set up and would be monitoring through the day Wednesday. Participants were given a brief overview of how the contest would run.
Afterwards, it was off to the Tuesday social for drinks, appetizers, socializing with vendors...
And prizes! We were inundated with door prizes. TT&S provides many, but we're immensely grateful to our exhibitors and sponsors who support the fun with their own giveaways, from branded items to gift cards. To make it easier to know what numbers were drawn, this year we had a projector and screen to display numbers.
Wednesday prizes were just as many as Tuesday. Attendees who didn't claim their prize within a reasonable time missed out. At the end of each social, we gave away a high-quality cooler, a Yeti on Tuesday and a YKO (see in picture) on Wednesday.
Wednesday Breakout Sessions:
Wednesday is always the busiest day of the conference. It started out with a breakfast buffet and two-hour sessions in all the rooms. Those sessions included some new topics - project management, Ubiquiti, and access control. Returning with the XGS PON and OTDR session from last year were Calix and Viavi representatives. These two-hour sessions packed a lot of information first thing in the morning.
For managers and office staff, we brought Lisa Parry back with new topics for all levels of employees for workplace skills from leadership to staying positive in the face of challenges. She is an engaging speaker with experience and anecdotes applicable to many situations in the workplace.
Technicians had a great range of sessions to advance their skills continuing throughout the day. Sean Kelly of Light Brigade, our fiber optics training partner, talked about air-blown fiber. NISC hosted sessions on the latest features of Appsuite and iVue Connect. And Ryan Schmaltz from ND One Call returned after several years away from our conference. Attendees packed into the room to learn the latest of what excavators and utilities need to know.
Sometimes things go wrong, but we try to be prepared. Various issues sometimes come up, whether due to personal, weather, or technical issues, and we're always grateful when another vendor is available to step into those places. We had one last minute change in the morning sessions but had a fill-in ready of Matt Kautter of Precision Group. Due to technical issues, we replaced a fiber session with Matt's session on Lithium Ion vs. Lead Acid Batteries.
This year, AI continues to be a hot topic. It has changed the way we work, and people want to learn more about the tools available. Faith Harron presented twice on her topic of AI in the workplace. We also had Dr. Terry Pilling from the University of Mary present a session on how AI learns. This provided an insight into understanding why AI works the way it does.
Andrew Walding of Cellstream, one of our training partners, is always a popular presenter. This year, we kept him busy. He started with a network troubleshooting fundamentals workshop on Tuesday before the conference. On Wednesday, aside from his Wireshark Capture the Flag contest, he presented for a group of high school students, then held two sessions in the afternoon for technicians, one on troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks and the other on speed tests. He closed out the day at the social announcing the winners of the Capture the Flag contest, who each took home recognition medals and technology prizes (1st and 2nd place winners seen in the picture).
Other sessions in the afternoon included new faces and old. Andrew Degidio of Sumitomo Electric hosted a session in the Dakota Ballroom on ribbon fiber after finishing with his hands-on fiber with the students. Across the hotel, sessions included locating from Jack Rupp with Ditch Witch of ND, a fiber session with Justin Foth of Clearfield, and cybersecurity with Kyle Emmel and Ariel Jablonow of NDIT.
Ending the day on a fun note... Our Wednesday social included our third annual cornhole tournament, which attracted 15 mixed teams. Many were partnered with coworkers, but two of the teams included vendor representatives. Our official referee, Jeff Tweten, was on hand to prep everyone and monitor the contest, which ran smoothly. A fun time was had by all and the winners took home trophies and bag sets.
Student Mini-Conference:
Aside from the main conference, the Connecting the World: Introduction to the Broadband Industry Mini-Conference for Students ran throughout Wednesday, despite some of the out-of-town students not traveling due to bad weather that blew in Tuesday night into Wednesday early morning. A few students and chaperones from out of town managed to make it, but most of the students were local Bismarck Career Academy and Technical Center students.
Students started with a presentation from Andrew Walding explaining how information travels across the internet and then experienced hands-on fiber optics at three stations hosted by JeffHarmon of Viavi, Andrew Degidio of Sumitomo Electric, and Sean Kelly of Light Brigade. At the end of the day, students had the option to travel across town for a tour of the Dakota Carrier Network building before heading home.
Students left with new knowledge about the different types of work in the industry and gift bags with swag and information packets about working at our many member companies throughout the state.
Thursday Closing:
On Thursday morning, attendees were treated to a breakfast burrito buffet and sat through closing sessions on safety. If you thought safety was boring, you haven't heard these two ladies speak!
We couldn't have planned the closing better given the rain and snow that had come in during the conference than we did with Lt. Jenna Clawson Huibregtse of the ND Highway Patrol speaking about safe driving. It was an eye-opening and engaging presentation.
Following her was Dawn Chisholm, a wife and mother who lost her first husband due to a grain-bin accident that could have been prevented "If Only" a few safety precautions had been taken. Her story packed a punch that left barely a dry eye in the room.
TT&S is focused on keeping our member company employees safe. It's our hope that these closing presentations left attendees more aware of their actions and the lasting effects their decisions can have.
The 2026 TT&S Annual Conference & Vendor Showcase was another great event. We'd like to thank everyone who contributed and participated and look forward to seeing you next year!
We spend a lot of time in the safety world finding ways to prevent incidents. We try to anticipate them, categorize them in degrees of potential severity, and control for them. Focus on prevention is very important, but it means that training on what to do immediately after an incident can sometimes be missed. While those first few steps might seem common sense, it can seem less that way when you're actually facing a situation. There may be a lot of moving pieces, adrenaline, and concern for someone who may be injured. Let's break this all down in order of what you should do and when.
1. Deal with any immediate hazards - making sure that whatever caused the incident is not going to immediately be a hazard for anyone else. This means taking quick steps to rectify the situation, including evacuating an area if that makes sense and securing it so no one else enters.
2. Administer first aid. If you're dealing with an injury, follow first aid protocol. OSHA states that you must have a first aid plan in place. If you're extremely close to a healthcare facility, that could maybe mean relying on their support, but for most employers that will mean making sure enough employees have first aid training to cover any emergencies.
3. Involve more healthcare professionals as necessary. Does the person require a 911 call and ambulance transportation? Again, it's important to rely on your employees' first aid training, which will include how to assess a situation like this. Also, if you already have a relationship with an occupational health provider, they may offer more resources to assist.
4. Once these steps are taken, make sure to document the scene as soon and thoroughly as possible. Pictures, videos, and interviews of those who witnessed the event are all important. Documentation is described more deeply in TT&S' Incident Investigations training, so feel free to reach out if you would like more resources. Make sure the scene is preserved as well in case a more thorough investigation is required.
5. Determine whether you will need to report the incident to authorities, such as OSHA or the EPA, as well as your worker's compensation insurance.
6. If a major incident has occurred, consider retaining legal counsel. This is a step that not only protects the company, but also any involved individuals.
-------- The following steps are not immediate and are longer-term
7. If you will be supporting an individual coming back to work after an injury, work closely with the individual and your worker's compensation insurer, who may provide a case manager. Consider ways to accommodate their recovery beyond what is required by their healthcare team.
8. If you are able to continue on with a simple internal investigation (for less severe incidents), use the documentation gathered after the incident to conduct an investigation. Your goal is to uncover the root cause(s) of the incident, and to do so in a way where no employees feel they are being blamed for the incident.
9. Have a plan for whatever action items come up as a result of the investigation. Make sure someone is tracking whether these action items are completed, and that they are all assigned to a specific person or team.
10. Consider the best way to communicate with the rest of the company about the incident. You can craft an overarching plan for how incidents will be communicated to employees, or looser guidelines that allow some case-by-case flexibility. Consider issues like respecting involved employees' privacy, how to not point fingers after an incident, and ways to communicate what changes are taking place to prevent a repeat incident.
There's a lot of other considerations embedded in these steps, but these are a great start. Consider holding a team training for managers or even an all hands training so expectations are clear on what to do after an incident. We hope it never comes in handy, but we can hope you will be prepared if it does.
We're so excited to have
spent another year partnering with our member companies to keep your
employees safe and provide them with training opportunities. We hope you
can take this time to catch a breath and enjoy time with friends and
family before the rush of the new year begins.
It's coming! The next TT&S Annual Conference & Vendor Showcase takes place on February 17-19, 2026, at the Bismarck Hotel & Conference Center.
We've finished the schedule. Although a couple of small details are still in the works, the conference schedule and session information are now available on the TT&S website. Links to the schedule and session descriptions are here:
INTRODUCTION by Seth Arndorfer, CEO of Dakota Carrier Network
KEYNOTE: Brian D. Newby, Broadband Program Director of NDIT; joined by Brian Nybakken, Broadband Program Manager of NDIT.
Brian will open the event with an update on broadband grants activity over the last 3 three years, the Capital Project Funds projects awarded, how close they are to completion, the zigs and zags of Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) funding, where BEAD projects stand now, and an estimate of when North Dakota willfly the banner for being the first state in the country with 100 percent high-speed broadband coverage to all locations.
Wednesday Breakout Sessions:
We have a great schedule of new and needed topics from a variety of presenters who are experts with their niche in the broadband world. Many are training instructors willing to schedule full workshops if you need more than our breakout sessions allow. New topics for 2026 include sessions on Ubiquiti, Access Control, and AI. Fiber optics topics include ribbon fiber, Futurepath MicroDuct, and air blown fiber. NISC will provide sessions to reveal new features in Appsuite and their Broadband iVUE Connect software. Networking instructor Andrew Walding is back with sessions on troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks and addressing speed tests.
For office workers in our broadband companies, we also provide a variety of educational topics. These range from AI in the workplace and project management to customer service and workplace courtesy.
After breakfast on Thursday, the North Dakota Highway Patrol will talk about driving safely. When they're done, ND native Dawn Chisholm will talk about the accident that took her husband, a warning to everyone to stay safe in everything they do in life and not live with the regret of "If Only..."
CONTESTS AND PRIZES
For a few years now, TT&S has hosted contests to liven up the conference socials. This year, we're changing things up a little bit with a contest from Andrew Walding of Cellstream for the technical people in the broadband industry, requiring a laptop to "Capture the Flag" using Wireshark packet analysis. The top three will receive prizes for their efforts, so bring your laptop and be ready to do some network sleuthing!
And for the fourth year, we will continue the Cornhole Tournament with trophies and prizes for the winning teams. Last year, we gave away our old boards with our old Telecom Training & Safety logo. This year, teams will be playing on new boards with our new logo. We're ready for you to register your teams for fun and bragging rights!
REGISTRATION & EARLY BIRD DEADLINE
Registration is open for exhibitors and sponsors as well as attendees. The announcement emails have gone out with a sampling of our packed schedule of sessions, socials, and more. Early bird pricing for attendees cuts off on January 16, 2026. Save $50 by registering early!
After you've registered, be sure to set up your profile in the Event Access area of the website. If you don't already have an account on the ttsafety.com website, you'll need to set up a login and password and wait for approval before you can do this. Instructions can be downloaded from our website by clicking here.
