Port Houston's Small Business Outreach department held an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Construction Safety workshop at the port's Executive Building April 3. Nearly 20 engineering and construction professionals attended the event.

Port Houston Safety Manager Matt Chapman provided an overview of the port's safety department, structure and terminals, while OSHA's Compliance Assistance Specialist James Shelton discussed their organization's types of hazards, programs, policies and procedures for evaluating and inspecting a construction environment.

“The port is committed to safe operations and is working to be on the forefront of new ISO 45001 standards,” said Chapman. “The port has several safety committees on the employee, managerial and executive levels and we work with our contractors and private industry to keep the port safe. It is important to be transparent as an organization.”

Among the top priorities of Port Houston is the security of its facilities and the safety of the people who work at the port and live in the surrounding communities.

From catastrophic situations to smaller incidents, Port Houston offers weekly safety training courses for contractors and tenants and CPR classes for port staff.

“The highlight of the port workshop is to put a face to OSHA, which allows a contractor to understand their responsibilities and also find out about opportunities and resources that are out there to help them develop and grow their safety programs,” said Shelton.