Gaines Enters the… Gaming Industry?
Zechari presented the pilot program with Gaines at the Fall 2025 NCI Risk Control Workshop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
OK. OK. So maybe Gaines isn’t really transitioning from construction to the gaming industry. We’re still focused on providing expert site development work in Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. But it is true that our drivers are part of a pilot program that gamified their real-life driving scenarios to teach and encourage safe driving.
Lightship gamified real-life driving scenarios to engage employees and maximize efficacy.
How it Started
During the post-Moneyball era in Major League Baseball, NeuroScouting pioneered the use of neuroscience-based data into player forecasting and training. In 2020, Zechari Tempesta, along with the co-founders of NeuroScouting (Drs. Wes Clapp and Brian Miller), started Lightship with the mission of improving driver safety using lessons from their experience in professional sports. Lightship gamifies real-life scenarios to provide proactive and personalized safety trainings.
“As I got older, I wanted to make a larger impact. Unfortunately, I have had family members pass away on the road. These tragedies motivate me to make the roads safer,” said Zechari.
Seeing the potential Lightship could have on its member companies’ safety performances, National Contractors Insurance (NCI) connected Zechari with Gaines’s Safety Director Dominic Pope.
“We were intrigued by Zechari’s ideas and jumped on the opportunity to become part of a pilot program,” said Dominic.
Support from Gaines
Brandy Smith, Technical Equipment Support Specialist, manages Gaines’s extremely large fleet of over 550 pieces of equipment, including 150 heavy and light duty trucks.
“I provided Zechari with about twenty real-life, dash-cam videos that showed a variety of driving scenarios,” said Brandy.
Footage was captured over six weeks using road-facing cameras in both light and heavy-duty trucks.
“Zechari and his team created five custom micro trainings built from gamification of that footage – including tailgating, following distance, harsh braking, rolling stops, and distractions,” said Dominic. “We used our smartphones to simulate driving in these specific driving scenarios to see how we would respond.”
Future of Gamified Micro Trainings in the Construction Industry
Recently, Zechari presented The Neuroscience of Safe Driving with the pilot program results at the fall NCI risk control workshop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“I can see this training approach evolving into specific jobsite skills – not just driving,” said Zechari. “We could leverage on-site videos to personalize our trainings to engage employees and maximize efficacy.”
“It’s great that we got to be part of the developing stages of what could essentially transform the way we approach safety training throughout the industry,” said Dominic.
About Gaines and Company
Gaines and Company Site Development is a full-service site development company specializing in underground utilities, grading, excavating, erosion controls, and road work. With over 70 years of experience, the organization serves home builders and developers, general contractors, and military installations, as well as state, federal and municipal authorities, throughout Maryland, North Carolina, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, and Delaware.
