Ray Downs: Safety is a Unified Effort
Intro:
In this episode, we sit down with Ray Downs, a 35-year veteran of the elevator industry. Ray started with Otis in 1989 as Regional Manager of EH&S and retired from TEI as Senior Vice President of EH&S.
Ray along with many dedicated safety professionals from the NEII and NAEC safety committees have just completed revising the Elevator Industries Field Employee’s Safety Handbook. Ray discusses the evolution of safety practices in the industry, including the development of the “9 Safety Absolutes” that have become an industry standard. His motto has always been “your family depends on you – to come home every night safely.”
Summary:
Ray Downs, a 35-year veteran in the elevator industry, discussed his career journey from General Motors to Otis Elevator and TEI Group. He highlighted the evolution of safety practices, including the development of the nine safety absolutes, which are now industry standards. Downs emphasized the importance of mentorship, continuous training, and adapting to new technologies. He noted the ongoing revision of the elevator field employee safety handbook to incorporate these absolutes. Downs also stressed the need for a unified safety program across the industry to ensure consistent safety standards and prevent accidents.
Transcript:
Ray Downs 0:00
If there are opportunities to improve the process, as written today, the safety committees are all open to that, and that’s how the industry has changed. Field employees give us feedback on what can happen and what can’t happen. And it’s a it’s a unified effort by everybody to make sure that the end result is Go home safely.
Matthew Allred 0:24
Hello, and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast sponsored by the Allred group. I am your host, Matt Allred in this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers. In this episode, we sit down with Ray Downs, a 35 year veteran of the elevator industry. Ray started with Otis in 1989 as regional manager of EHS and retired from TEI as senior vice president of EHS. Ray, along with many dedicated safety professionals from NEI and NAEC safety committee, have just completed revising the elevator industry’s field employees safety handbook. Ray discusses the evolution of safety practices in the industry, including the development of the nine safety absolutes that have become an industry standard. His motto has always been, your family depends on you to come home every night safely. Ray, welcome to the show.
Ray Downs 1:25
Thank you very much, Matt, pleasure to be here
Matthew Allred 1:26
. I’m excited to have you. I’ve enjoyed every conversation. I’m excited to really dig deeper into your career. You’ve had a very interesting career, and certainly and very I guess, a lot of lot of focus on safety, and so we’ll get to talk about that today. So Ray, how did you get involved with the elevator industry and where are you working now?
Ray Downs 1:52
I started my career in the elevator industry while working for General Motors back in the late 70s, and I worked for General Motors for 13 years as a labor manager and a safety manager, towards the tail end of my career with General Motors, I had an opportunity to take an interview for United Technologies through my mentor in General Motors, Jack Fairing. And I took the interview, and United Technologies hired me in their Otis Elevator division as a regional manager for the Northeast region, encompassing territory from Bangor Maine to West Virginia. In my career with Otis, I also had a reassignment and my territory expanded from Bangor Maine to Puerto Rico. I was in charge of 67 offices, nine regional offices under safety and that was challenging, so let me tell you the truth, and it was an eye opener on how one end of the state versus the other end of the state implements a safety program. So that was rather interesting. And then in 2012 I had an opportunity to join TEI group. Mark Gregorio is the CEO and president, and Mike Staub is owner, Executive Vice President for Operations. And John Fichera at the time, who was working with them, who’s deceased, and God bless John, but they had an opportunity opening up, and they hired me. And for the last 13 years, I’ve been working for TEI group, and TEI group has given me an opportunity to get a lot of exposure in a different area of the safety profession. I serve on two national safety committees. The senior I was a senior vice president for environmental health and safety for TEI group, and working with an owner that gets it. Mark gets it. He knows that you have to have a safe company to be a profitable company. Mike gets it. He knows that his employees need to be safely trained. The investment that we make in TEI on a yearly basis is a really good opportunity to make sure that our field workforce has the best so they are the best. And I’m proud of that. I’m proud of what we did at TEI group.
Matthew Allred 4:13
So you were, you were already in safety at that point. Were you doing safety for GM then?
Ray Downs 4:17
Yes I was. There was a 50 454 450 400 employees, 365, operation. It was, it was rather interesting plant in Linda New Jersey,
Matthew Allred 4:33
yeah, what? What was it that led you to get involved in safety from, from the get go?
Ray Downs 4:39
Well when I first started my career in General Motors back in 76 there wasn’t really no jobs and safety wasn’t a very big thing. I had an opportunity to work under a gentleman by the name of Jack Fairing who was like a mentor to me when I was working in General Motors. And he said, Hey, would you like to join the safety department? Department, and I said, Okay, I was in the I was in production, and from there, I went into the safety and labor relations and human resources. I was a labor manager and a safety manager for a million square foot plant.
Matthew Allred 5:12
That’s awesome. That sounds what was one of the most impactful early experiences that you felt like really shaped your career?
Ray Downs 5:20
One thing that impacted my my career was when my brother Tommy and I talked to my father, who was both of our mentors, I’m sure, and he said one thing that stuck to me, and I still say this today, he says, work hard, come to work on time, do a good job, and you’ll never be without a job. And I have taken that statement that he said to me when we were kids, and I applied that my entire life. I worked hard. I came to work on time, and I hope I wouldn’t have been as successful as I am. I did a good job, and all the companies that I worked for, I didn’t take anything for granted. Same with my brother. He has a successful law firm, and I think between our whole family, with my younger brother and my sister, we all lived on those principles, and he was a great guy, and that’s was the most impacting comment or statement that he probably said to me in my whole career.
Matthew Allred 6:20
That’s awesome. I mean, that’s that’s advice to to get you through life, right? If you can follow those things, you you’ll be in good shape.
Ray Downs 6:28
And Matt, I say the same thing to the young kids that come into TEI when I interviewed him for a job, I said the elevator industry has three requirements, come to work, work hard and work safe and on time. I mean, that’s not too hard to do if you have just a high school education or a, GED, and you have a great career and make a good living and feed your family,
Matthew Allred 6:51
Absolutely, absolutely. And you, you know you talked about getting into to safety at GM and then obviously coming into Otis as safety. And I know recently you’ve helped write another safety manual, I guess, or another edition of a safety manual. Tell me about that, that manual?
Ray Downs 7:10
Well, I was very fortunate to be on a very talented team when I worked for Otis Elevator for the first, you know, 23 years of my career, and we had a task of putting together a safety program back in early 90s for Otis Elevator. And we did, we put the elevator safety handbook together, and that was the basics of what I consider today the roadmap to elevator safety as everybody left Otis over the years, they took bits and pieces from that safety book or that safety manual, and now we have almost an industry standard. When I was working with TEI group, I was involved with the NAEC and NEI safety committees, and what we did is we also updated the field employee safety handbook that elevator world puts out every five years. And we’re in the process right now of completing the revision of the employee safety handbook, and we’re going to in corporate the nine safety absolutes that are going to be throughout the manual, which is a huge, huge positive for our industry, because every company, or at least we’re going to try every company doing the same safety programs, not 100% but at least minimal standards. And I was involved with that with many, many talented people. I’m not just the only one, but those that serve on these committees and those that work for Otis in the early 90s and 2000 90s and 2000s were instrumental in paving the way and putting the foundation for what we are doing today in the industry.
Matthew Allred 8:55
Ray tell me a little bit more about these safety committees that you’re part of.
Ray Downs 9:01
I’m a member of the NEI safety committee, who have a dedicated group who look at safety programs and codes and so forth. In our industry, we meet on a quarterly basis to discuss elevator related issues. And also I’m on the NAAC safety committee, who also have a number a number of, excuse me, a dedicated group of people as well. And they look at safety in the non union and union areas. Both committees have talented directors, Amy and Renee and those that are chair people, chairpersons on each committee. And we get together and we discuss the elevator industry and how we can make it better. And one of the things coming out of, excuse me, both committees are the nine safety absolutes that are. Going to be incorporated into the elevator field employee safety handbook, 2025 edition. And I’m proud to say that I serve on both of these committees with all those talented people over all these years, and I’m sure that those committees will be there for many, many years to come and lead our industry in the right direction when it comes to employee health and safety.
Matthew Allred 10:24
So Ray, what are the the nine safety absolutes? As you mentioned
Ray Downs 10:30
The nine safety absolutes were put together in the early days of odus, and they were called Field fatality prevention assurance or fatality prevention audit processes. But in the two safety committees that I sit on, we decided to label them the nine safety absolutes. And there are nine topics in order, from fall protection is number one, electrical safe work practices is number two, jumpers policy, or jumper policy, is number three, and then number four is locked out, tag out, and then five comes into mechanical stored energy. Six is how do they get on top of an elevator car, and seven is how to get into an elevator pit. And you come to eight is the moving working platform, which is or a false car and nine is hoisting and rigging those nine topics, I would think, if you took all the injuries that have happened in our industry over all my 35 years, contribute to 75 to 85% of all the injuries our biggest injuries are lacerations, brain strains and cuts. So these nine also contributed to serious or fatal injuries within our industry over that 35 year period
Matthew Allred 11:57
Absolutely, absolutely. And you had said earlier that you know that when you got into your early career, safety wasn’t a big deal. So you’ve kind of watched and really pushed along, kind of helping safety become to the point where it can be an absolute. It becomes more important, I guess is what I’m seeing.
Ray Downs 12:16
Well in our industry, at the beginning, the industry was still trying to find its way. They had safety policies and procedures. They go all the way back to 1949 when they put the safety program together here in New York City for the for the IBC local number one. So if you took a look at what they they said back in the ninth, 1949 to what we do today, it’s still pretty much the same, the verbiage is different, and the equipment is different, of course, and the processes changed as the equipment changed, but the concept stayed the same. You still have to get on top of an elevator car the same way. And how do you do that? And if you’re in the field, and you do it according to how our process is set, you’re safeguarding yourself to do your job safely. But if you miss a component, for instance, if you get on top of the car, we have a certain process. The door lock isdisengaged the stop switch is tested and verified, and verified, and the inspection switches tested and verified, all independently from each other before you even start your work. So if you can do it in that sequence, your chances of doing your job without getting injured, the probability of risk is reduced immensely.
Matthew Allred 13:38
Yeah, so you mentioned that the the the actual, you know, processes, you know that what, in other words, they knew what you needed to do to be safe, you know, 70 plus years ago, and yet, what was it? I guess, the kind of lagged behind. Was it just the culture of of safety and just kind of the everybody getting on board?
Ray Downs 13:59
I think it was the technology, the technology way back when we had toggle switches on top. Now we have sophisticated top of top of car inspection boxes. Our barricades are on top of the car, not the outrigger. You have now new construction barricades to prevent a fall. Back then there was no jumper policy. So you can jump out circuits without having a a jumper policy that says no jumpers left behind. Fill out what you’re doing circuit, the circuit, we gave out jumper kits now to our employees. We train them. There are Fluke meters that they use, that they test and verify live, dead, live, lock and tag out with personal locks and group locks. So all of these things that I’m telling you about are all part of the nine safety absolutes. In detail, it goes into detail on every topic, and they didn’t have that, I don’t believe, way, way back when and at. We matured in our processes, and believe it or not, ownerships and companies realizing that we have to work safe in order to do our job, especially in a very inherently dangerous trade, that we have to have some processes. And now, what we have today, I think, are really good processes, that many talented individuals, again, working, I was working with and alongside, of put together. So I’m very proud of that. And I think the industry should be as well as the union. The union is involved non union. Doesn’t matter if you’re a union or non union company, Matt, you still have to go home to your family.
Matthew Allred 15:38
And that is the like you say it’s the most important thing is getting everybody home safely at the end of the day. And what’s your biggest concern about how safety training maybe has been rolled out throughout the industry?
Ray Downs 15:53
I think that the way that we train our employees today is based on company. Some have computer based training, where you sit in front of a computer and computer and you can go through modules. Some have virtual reality headsets, like we do. We meet quarterly at TEI group, and we bring all of our employees in in a conference room setting, and we have topics. We have guest speakers, including union, non union, insurance, we discuss everything from suicide prevention to our access address. I think the problem that the industry is going to face going forward is with the new generations coming up, they’re learning differently. A good example, your iPhone, everybody, you can ask AI how to do something. It’s going to tell you, is that AI response going to be accurate? It’s gleaning the information that’s already published on the internet and made available. So if that’s not updated, to me, today’s standard process of changes, then you’re going to get old processing versus what’s current. So I think that is going to be a challenge in our industry. And I think the trainers, the managers, are huge. The field managers have to go out and do compliance assessments, where they go out and test and verify if they got if the employees are doing the right thing, right when they do that, then everything comes together. And if you find opportunities for improvement, you change them. And if there are opportunities to improve, the process, as written today, the safety committees are all open to that, and that’s how the industry has changed. Field employees give us feedback on what can happen and what can’t happen. And it’s a, it’s a unified effort by everybody to make sure that the end result is Go home safely. Yep,
Matthew Allred 17:57
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there’s, like, say, there’s, there’s so many different ways to deliver that, that training and really just comes down to a willingness and a buy in from from management and from employees. Hey, this is, this is what we’re going to live by as well. You know,
Ray Downs 18:11
Matt, safety training is a huge investment, sure the OEMs have people in every state to conduct quarterly and daily training, like we do with the Toolbox safety talk. It comes out every week. It’s a toolbox talk, and it’s targeted to processes in the field, everything from fire prevention to the nine safety absolutes to false car running working platforms or moving working platforms. Chain falls, hoisting and rigging, how to calculate the weight of the moving platform, all of these things are critical for the success of anybody’s safety program, and the toolbox talk is one way to reach your your audience, which is your employees. Weekly. We at Tei have a pretty sophisticated toolbox talk that our director, Michael racci, put together in the toolbox is critical, and it’s the content mat of the toolbox. It has to be woven into our industry, right? You can’t, you know. And for instance, in October, you have fire awareness. So we do a toolbox talk on, you know, fire awareness, not just in the field, but also at home, stop, drop and roll, right? So, and there’s other tool boxes that we talk about with concerns that are facing our locations, whether it’s in Florida or whether it’s in New York City. So the toolbox talk and the quarterly safety training, To re-, just refresh everybody, because you can get stale, as you know, right? You’re doing a repetitive job, and sometimes what you do is you get complacent. So all it is is a refresh opportunity, so everybody can come in and just think about safety a little bit more that day than they were when they started their day.
Matthew Allred 20:20
Absolutely. Yeah, which, which sectors or segments of the industry do you feel like maybe don’t get as consistent, or, you know, as thorough of maybe training as they as they need.
Ray Downs 20:34
Well, in the field, when you have new construction in today’s world, you have general contractors that have safety programs. You have site site safety training managers on job sites. Now, I don’t think there’s any sector. Everyone is constantly getting something about safe on a weekly basis, the new construction side of the house and the modernization side of the house in New York City, we have to have site safety training cards, OSHA 30. So there’s a lot of requirements that the general contractors are asking now, Matt that they’ve never done in the past, making the industry safer, not just for elevators, but for everybody, for all the trades on their jobs. So it’s a good effort, and you have some general contractors are better at it than others, and you can tell as soon as you walk on their jobs.
Matthew Allred 21:33
If, what, I guess, what? What suggestions would you have as this, like you said, the new safety manuals coming up, the new update, what suggestions would you have to to help that truly become, you know, the gold standard. You know, ubiquitous throughout the industry
Ray Downs 21:53
Well it’s minimal standards. So if you do the minimal that’s coming out in the field employee safety handbook, at least you’re having a safety program that you can communicate back out to your field. It’s a supplement to your own program. It is not your it’s not one at all, because OEMs and other companies have their own internal programs. I always look at the analogy. I don’t care what site, what type of safety helmet you wear, just as long as you wear one could be a black, one could be an orange, one could be a pink one, you know. It doesn’t matter, just long as you wear one, you know. And as far as your fall protection in new construction, and when you have a fall, a six feet or higher, just make sure you have a body harness. Make sure you know how to tie you off. Make sure you know when to tie you off. When you have lock and tag out. You stand to the side, turn your head, throw the main line. You say, power down. If you have a helper in the machine room and says, Hey, power down to confirm it. And if you’re both working on that equipment and the electricity could be part of your job. Whether it’s de energized or it’s it’s energized. You put your personal lock on it, and you know that it’s zero energy by going back into the controller and testing incoming legs, phase one, two and three. And then you test your meter first, then you’re like, l1 l2 l3 leg. And then you test your meter again. It’s called Live dead live, if everybody’s doing that, I mean, that’s all we ask for.
Matthew Allred 23:21
Yeah, yeah. That’s awesome. I mean, if you, if you could wave your magic wand and make one change to safety throughout the industry, what would you do?
Ray Downs 23:31
Well, I think that we’re getting close to it, one program for everybody. Everybody does the same thing. If the OEMs have a better program, or if TEI has a better program, join forces and let everybody have the same program. And the reason why I feel so strongly about that is because in our industry, we trade players. We have people that work for Otis, Kone, Champion elevator here in New York, Mitsubishi, Fuji tech, old elevator companies, you know, make up your your workforce. Yeah. And does it matter if you work for Ray downs elevator or Jimmy Jones Elevator Company, no, if you’re doing the same thing and you transfer to my company, there should be a card that says I have the nine safety absolute training, and I’ve had my training, and that card comes with you.
Matthew Allred 24:31
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it never goes away, right? Like you’re saying, as soon as you get a new employee, as soon as you know, and even when you got the same employees, you got to teach it consistently over and over and over. So
Ray Downs 24:42
In our company, when we have a new employee, they go through a day and a half to two days safety training program before they even get out into the field. And we go through the nine safety absolutes. We go through first aid, we go through amputations, we go through. Hazardous communications, harmonized systems, all the things that we’re required to by Department of Labor, but also internally for our industry, we go through a safety bag that we give and all the equipment that’s in the safety bag they we go through every item in there, and they sign off for all the safety bag equipment, because it is an investment on the employer’s part, but it’s also the tools that they need to work safely.
Matthew Allred 25:27
That’s awesome. Yeah, I think it’s a great, great goal. So last, last question I want to ask you is, what is the most valuable thing you’ve learned that you believe could be helpful to the next generation of elevator industry professionals?
Ray Downs 25:40
I think that if more managers on all levels mentor better give those people below you your expertise and mentor them and let them be able to see your faults and your strong points, your pros and cons, and let them not make the mistakes. And same with the field, you don’t have to have a manager as your mentor. You can have your you can have your adjuster to help, have his mechanic. A mechanic could have his mechanic in charge or foreman okay, and in the office, I know I had a number of really, really good mentors, and I saw how they were successful, and they let the people underneath them do their jobs. And when they had a problem with concern, they would come back to my mentor, and I would say, how would you do this, or how would you do that? And he would say, Well, did you think about this? Or you do think about trying it that way? Because there’s always solutions to problems. And another thing, if you have a problem, just don’t say the problem. Why don’t you come up with a solution, even if it’s right or wrong, at least you’re giving the concern an opportunity to be considered what you think would be the solution to the problem. I think mentoring is one of the things that would help out the industry, and I think that as we move forward in the industry, you’re going to see some changes in our industry in the future that I think are going to be unbelievable. The equipment is going to change. For instance, when you open up a controller, the controller will have safeguards. So if you do have to go in and test and verify, it, will have a plexiglass in front of you where you just push your probes through the plexiglass holes instead of being involved with the energized controller, it won’t be zero energy, it will be live. And you have to work on live equipment, but it reduces the risk of you coming into the arc flash, okay? Because there’s an arc flash standard that we have to be compliant to. I’m also thinking that in the hoist way. You may see the hoist ways being lit up a lot more. So those who are riding the car can see where they’re going. Have you ever been on a on top of a car in a 50-60, story building? Then look down. You don’t see too much.
Matthew Allred 28:13
It’s not but that’s my goal. I still want to do that sometime.
Ray Downs 28:16
So there’s a and I think, for instance, the iPhone, you know, the information that’s going to be made available on the iPhone that we can send out in blasts, let’s say, or zoom, like we’re doing now, everybody get on the iPhone for a 15 minute. Here’s what, here’s what’s going on. Well, we’re going to review this incident that happened, or we’re going to review this new process that happened that’s capable right there in front of them right now. I think you’re going to see a lot more of that in the future.
Matthew Allred 28:46
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, Ray, thank you for being with me today. I appreciate your time and your your expertise for sure.
Ray Downs 28:54
Well, thank you very much for having me, man. I look forward to joining you once again, and as I always end all of my my letters that I send out to everybody out there who sees this, be safe and be well and have a safe year. Thank you very much.
Matthew Allred 29:07
Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting. Please visit our YouTube channel at Elevator Careers, or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net, please like and subscribe and until next time, stay safe.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai