WSA Member Update 4.15.23

WSA Member Update 4.15.23 April 15, 2023  Dear WSA Members,  I apologize that several of you received a draft renewal thank you letter, which contained several typos, instead of the correct one. So sorry – and embarrassed – about that! In 1963 Joe Samuelian founded California-based Nationwide Environmental Services, which is also a WSA Founding Member. His daughter, Ani Samuelian, is now company President. Both were honored last month by Bob J. Archuleta, California’s 30th District Senator. Joe was commended for the quality of his 55 years of service; Ani was chosen as the District’s 2023 Business Woman of the Year. This article chronicling their success will be in the April WorldSweeper e-newsletter.  Here’s another advance preview of an upcoming WorldSweeper newsletter article. I recently conducted a half-hour interview with two sweeping industry leaders. Both Ryan Bertholdi’s Moonlight Sweeping and Gale Holsman’s American Sweeping are WSA Founding Members; Gale is also on WSA’s Advisory Board. We did a Zoomcast on the topic of obtaining the contract for set-up/clean-up of large events being held in someone’s local area. If you are interested in providing services for parades, conventions, celebrations, etc., then this video will provide excellent insights on how to get involved in that process. Click here to open the interview on the YouTube platform.  Jay Presutti is a principal of NY-based East Coast Industrial Services, Inc. The WSA Founding Member company – this year’s winner of the WorldSweeper/WSA Award of Excellence in Power Sweeping – is starting up a monthly virtual roundtable event for contractors. There is currently no charge for the event, the next one of which is next Monday, the 17th. All the info you need is here.  I finally talked to the Lowe’s project lead for Transblue, Chavon Cotterell. I reiterated how it did not make sense to include a contract clause stipulating the contractor would be using a sweeper with dual gutter brooms and a head that would pick up if it went in reverse. I said to him: “If a contractor is willing to lie to sign that clause, have you considered what else they might not comply with on the contract? The top echelon contractors are going to look at your contract and ‘just say no.’ Does that matter to Transblue?”  He said he would consider what I said but bottom line was that at the moment his emphasis was on making sure about the legality of everything the company was doing. I encouraged him to do an informative audio podcast with me about Transblue at some point or to call if he had questions.   The National Safety Council declares April as Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Stress to your employees that when they’re behind the wheel, their only job is to drive. Remind your operators that at least eight people a day are killed in distracted driving crashes. Distracted driving isn’t just risky for you, it can be deadly for every nearby driver, pedestrian, bicyclist and worker. If you’d like some resources to share with your team, on the NSC website are a host of resources for Distracted Driving Awareness Month.  It is with great sadness that I inform you that John Meola passed away March 19, 2023. When he and I met at NPE 2014 we really connected and it wasn’t long until John told me he wrote a safety message for his company every month; would I be interested in utilizing it for my WSA membership? Through the intervening years we shared many topics other than business, especially since we found we were the same age and both of our personal lives included making a variety of art. He apparently died from a heart attack. RIP, John.  Our April Safety First! post is reprised from John’s message in April of 2019. • Emphasizing Work Zone Safety Week • Spring Creates Upswing in Incidents – Focus! • Time to Prepare for Busy Season • Stay Defensive in All You Do • Hand & Finger Injury Prevention As always, if you have questions or comments about this WSA Member Update, or anything else to do with the World Sweeping Association or power sweeping in general, please let me know.  Good Sweeping,  Ranger Kidwell-Ross, Executive Director World Sweeping Association