One of the leaders of the offshore sector’s flagship initiative, Step Change in Safety, has been presented with a special award for his services to safety.
The Award for Services to Safety was presented to Mike Bowyer at the 2012 UK Oil and Gas Industry Safety Awards, which took place on 18 April in Aberdeen. The accolade recognises his many years supporting Step Change in Safety, and his five years as a committed member of the Step Change Leadership Team.
Among his career highlights, Mike led the Personal Responsibility for Safety (PRfS) workgroup, helping produce guidance and supporting materials on the benefits of PRfS, with input from around 50 organisations. He then took the role of co-chair of Step Change’s Workforce Engagement Steering Group shortly after its inception, leading the development of the soon-to-be-launched workforce engagement practical guide and survey tool.
This project, which will enable organisations to measure how well they engage with their on-site workforce and benchmark against the rest of the industry, promises to play a crucial role in improving safety culture among oil and gas firms.
Accepting the award, Mike said: “It’s a tremendous honour and a privilege to receive this award. My belief has always been that, while the knowledge required for everyone to understand the part they have to play in keeping themselves and others safe already exists in the industry, the real benefits are in sharing it.”
Other winners at the awards ceremony, were:
A new category – the Ideas in Safety Prize – went to Stork Technical Services’ On-Site Machining and Bolting Team.
The winners were presented with their prizes by Neal Stone, director of policy and communications at the British Safety Council, who paid tribute to the industry’s efforts to improve workforce engagement and spoke out against the European Commission’s plans to take overall regulatory control of offshore safety.
Malcolm Webb, chief executive of Oil & Gas UK, said: “I congratulate all of the nominees, who were of an outstanding calibre and should be rightly proud of their achievements and the recognition they rightly received. As for the winners, they are truly among the very best of the best. Their achievements are rightly to be celebrated and their ideas and methods shared widely across the industry.”
