Maryland Laborer Spreads Safety Mindset to Earn Recognition
Juan Valles (left) awarded 2025 Year-End Safety Excellence Achievement Award from Safety Director Dominic Pope (right) for making sure everyone works safely.
With 18 years of experience, Juan Valles understands his job, the industry, and what it takes to stay safe all day, every day. He consistently shares his knowledge and expertise, ensuring this appreciation and commitment to safety is spread throughout his crew, earning him the 2025 Year-End Safety Excellence Achievement Award.
Recipient: Juan Valles
Title: Laborer
2025 Year-End Safety Excellence Achievement Awardee – Maryland
Throughout Juan’s extensive 18-year career with Gaines and Company, he has the experience needed to confidently work safely and support his coworkers to do the same, earning him the Q1 Safety Excellence Achievement Award. He consistently goes above and beyond with the best interest of his entire crew in mind – from superintendents and foremen to other crew members. Because of this, he was also recognized with the 2025 Year-End Safety Excellence Achievement Award.
Juan’s Foreman Alvaro Leon said, “I love having Juan on our crew. He’s not afraid to speak up and is well-respected by others. He’s always doing the right thing, often going the extra mile to make sure we are all staying safe.”
“Juan is an exemplary employee of going above and beyond,” said Safety Director Dominic Pope. “He not only knows what he has to do to work safely and why, but he appreciates our organization’s strong focus on safety.”
Year-End Awardees
At the end of 2025, Safety Director Dominic Pope and a team of other managers reviewed all the year’s quarterly safety award winners to identify year-end winners at both Gaines’s Maryland and North Carolina locations. They identified employees who went above and beyond to enhance the company’s safety culture, instilling an instinctive focus on safety throughout their crews.
“We had such a strong pool of recipients this year, so we chose two year-end winners at each location,” Dominic said. “This proves that our safety culture is not driven top-down, rather all employees understand the significant role they each play in ensuring that our workforce remains safe each and every day.”
Andy shares the recognition of the 2025 Year-End Safety Achievement Award winner with three other Gaines and Company employees – Alberto Aguilar (Maryland), Andy Lucas Hernandez (North Carolina), (North Carolina), Jose Cruz (North Carolina).
2026 – Positive Safety Persistence
So what’s next for Gaines and Company’s safety culture in 2026?
“Our primary goal is to always finish each year with zero accidents or injuries. It is feasible but difficult. As our safety director, I instead focus on creating a positive culture throughout our organization to continue focusing on safety, health, and wellness to achieve this goal,” said Dominic. “We’ve built a successful safety program that empowers all employees to actively advocate for safe work, and it’s awesome to see them drive the program themselves.”
Tommy Trent added, “Our employees know that safety is part of everyone’s job. This gives them all the power to enforce and enhance it – from vice presidents and superintendents to all crew members. It’s a positive work environment that feeds off of the cooperation of the entire workforce. I look forward to where our workforce will take this culture in 2026.”
Gaines and Company is a full-service grading and excavation company with offices in Maryland and North Carolina. The organization has 70 years of experience in underground utilities, grading and excavating, sediment and erosion controls, and road work. Gaines and Company delivers safe, reliable, turnkey site development services in Maryland, North Carolina, Washington D.C., and Delaware on time and within budget.
