Dave Bowers

As drilling professionals, we should encourage consistently safe behaviors from all drill crew members, tool pushers, foremen and even the company owner. One of the most effective ways to do this is to lead by example.

I recently attended a safety training conference where a retired Chicago police officer gave a talk on mental focus and situational awareness. He advocated using the “Cooper code” to reduce incidents and mistakes at the jobsite.

Your hands are part of almost every activity you do at work or at home. Protecting them is imperative.

Drillers are expected to be proficient with boom trucks, bulldozers, skid steers, fork trucks, and myriad other equipment. So what does proficiency mean?

What are you doing to help employees, from the back office to the jobsite, feel they're part of your company's mission?

Looking at other industries' experiences provides us with the opportunity to lessen the growing pains of nurturing the drilling industry into a model for safety and sustainability in the 21st century.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates infrastructure in the U.S. is in need of $4.5 trillion in investment by 2025.

Every time no one got hurt, but someone could have, it puts us closer to the time somebody does get hurt.