Gaines and Company Presents Safety Award to Exceptional Laborer

Safety Director Dominic Pope (right) presents the Gaines and Company Safety Excellence Achievement Award to Yunior Martinez (left) for his exceptionally safe site development work.

Gaines and Company prides itself on its robust safety culture rooted in teamwork, training, engagement, and empowerment. But in the construction industry, safety risks are always creeping onto the jobsite. Employees who go above and beyond to keep not just themselves safe, but also the entire crew, are what set organizations apart in this industry. Gaines and Company recognizes these employees with the quarterly Safety Excellence Achievement Award. Yunior Martinez was the most recent recipient of this recognition.

The Safety Excellence Achievement Award is not awarded liberally. It is presented only to employees at both the North Carolina and Maryland locations who take safety to the next level, continually enhancing the company’s safe work practices. Employees must not only complete all mandated safety requirements, but must also display a safe work attitude toward everyone on the job site throughout the work day.

“Our employees know that safety when performing site development work is more than satisfying OSHA training requirements. Conditions on construction sites are constantly changing, so we train our workers to routinely perform safety assessments and always look out for one another,” said Gaines and Company Safety Director Dominic Pope. “Yunior leads the way when it comes to ensuring everyone on the job site remains safe.”

Yunior has been a laborer for Gaines and Company’s Maryland location for over eight years. His main responsibilities are punch list items after utility crews are complete. This work includes performing confined space work, mixing concrete, adjusting and cleaning inlets and manholes.

“Yunior knows how to use monitors before entering a manhole and makes sure they are routinely used by everyone on our crew. He’s not afraid to speak up and lets me know when an issue needs attention since he is always inspecting tools and our work environment,” said Foreman Julio Lopez, who nominated Yunior for this award.

Yunior received a Safety Excellence Achievement Award certificate, exclusive award recipient hat, and $150 in safety bucks to use on gear on the company’s online safety store. He is also in the running for the 2022 Safety Excellence Award, which will be awarded at the end of the year.

This isn’t the first time Yunior has been recognized for his diligence to safe work practices. Just a few years ago, Yunior and his team followed pre-work safety procedures and identified high gas and low oxygen levels in two manholes that the team was supposed to enter. They used what they learned in their OSHA confined space training and did not proceed with the task until the work environment was deemed safe.

Yunior brings significant expertise to the Gaines and Company team. He is certified in OSHA 10, Lifting and Rigging, Confined Space, and First Aid/CPR.

“Yunior is a safety manager’s dream. It was a pleasure to honor him with this recognition,” added Dominic.