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NSSGA announces safety and health professional of the year

February 7, 2017 – Randall J. “Randy” Mucha, the corporate director of health and safety for Lehigh Hanson, will receive the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association’s (NSSGA’s) James M. Christie Safety & Health Professional of the Year Award. The award recognizes an individual for substantial contributions and commitment to safe and healthy practices within his or her company and the industry.

“Randy has made a substantial impact on safety and health throughout the entire United States,” said NSSGA president and CEO Michael W. Johnson. “His leadership in safety matters illustrates our entire industry’s commitment to working safely.”

Mucha’s creative and diligent approach to implementing health and safety initiatives resulted in a 20 percent improvement of the injury rate over four years across Lehigh Hanson’s 550 sites and 9,000 employees. The company also saw a 32 per cent reduction in workers’ compensation claims during this time.

Yet, Mucha’s dedication to safety has also had effects outside the company itself. A Lehigh Hanson employee recently saved the life of a heart attack victim by relying on his automated external defibrillators training that he received at work.

A dedicated volunteer, Mucha is a past chairman of NSSGA’s Safety and Health Subcommittee and served on the MSHA-NSSGA Alliance, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Illinois Association of Aggregates Producers.

The James M. Christie Safety and Health Professional of the Year award was created in 1987 by the National Stone Association (NSA) in recognition of the then-corporate safety director for Vulcan Materials Company. In the early 1980s, Christie challenged a young MSHA agency to focus regulations on the safety practices of manager and worker behavior and not strictly on a facility’s conditions. NSSGA continued this tradition when NSA later merged with the National Aggregates Association.

The award will be presented as part of NSSGA’s 2017 Annual Convention Opening General Session on March 4, 2017.

About NSSGA
NSSGA is the leading advocate for the aggregates industry. Its members – stone, sand and gravel producers and the equipment manufacturers and service providers who support them – produce the essential raw materials found in homes, buildings, roads, bridges and public works projects and represent more than 90 percent of the crushed stone and 70 percent of the sand and gravel mined annually in the United States. Production of aggregates in the U.S. in 2013 totaled more than 2 billion metric tons at a value of $18.6 billion. The aggregates industry employs approximately 100,000 highly-skilled men and women.