Private Investigator to Safety Leader
Cynthia Konkin’s journey from private investigator to workplace safety leader shows how empathy, root cause analysis, and people-first leadership can transform safety culture across industries.
Graham Jackson Wants You to Lose Your Ego
Jackson is the Health and Safety Manager at SkyFire Energy, one of Western Canada’s largest solar contractors. The employee-owned company has been installing solar across the West since 2001. Like a lot of good safety people, he came up through the trades, not a classroom.
Marc Smith on Keeping Safety Human
Marc Smith built an AI tool that turns a recorded safety meeting into a finished field document, so he doesn’t have to. He is his company’s de facto AI lead and teaches the tools to other safety professionals. But he is quick to tell you the tools are not the point. The paperwork never was, and neither is the software that now writes it. What keeps people safe, the way Smith sees it, is the conversation the forms are meant to capture. He is more interested in what a worker will tell him than in what any form will say.
Richard Thorpe on Ignoring the Safety Fads
Richard Thorpe names the opposite. He is a Supervisor of Health and Safety at ATCO, the Calgary-based energy and utilities company, and he came to the profession sideways. His first career was in security management, and at a fork in the road he chose safety over becoming a police officer. He holds his CRSP, the Canadian benchmark certification, along with his CHSC. He spent about 15 years as a technical specialist before moving into leadership four years ago. After two decades in the field, he is still looking for his next mentor, and he will tell you the industry’s latest breakthrough usually isn’t one. What Thorpe wants is unfashionable: do the fundamentals better, and stop chasing the next big thing.
Steven Thrasher on Leadership Presence and the TIME Framework
Steven Thrasher, the Director of Safety and Environment for Canada. Over nearly two decades at Plan Group, Steven has helped shape an approach that treats safety as operational discipline, not a compliance layer. The result is a program designed for the realities of field execution: practical, consistent, and rooted in trust.
Building Safety People Choose: Jared Memory on Buy-In, Energy, and Radical Care
Jared Memory shares how trust, genuine care, and employee engagement can strengthen safety culture by inspiring buy-in and making workplace safety a shared responsibility rather than simply a compliance requirement.
Nancy Aboultaif on No-Blame Safety, Stop Work, and Building Systems That Protect People
Nancy Aboultaif explains why effective safety leadership starts with curiosity, not blame. From stop-work culture to system design, she shares practical insights on building workplaces that protect people even when mistakes happen.
Linda Feuerhelm’s Mission to Make Sure Everyone Gets Home Safe
Linda Feuerhelm’s journey into safety began with personal loss and evolved into a mission to protect others. Through advocacy and education, she is helping build safer workplaces and stronger communities.
Shilo Neveu on Leading with Trust, Transparency, and Calmness Under Pressure
Shilo Neveu believes leadership is defined by actions taken when no one is watching. With experience in construction, occupational health and safety law, and executive leadership, he highlights how trust, consistency, and clear communication help teams manage pressure and maintain strong safety cultures.
Building Safety That People Notice: Michelle Griffin on Awareness, Accountability, and Raising the Bar
Michelle Griffin explains how consistent attention, visible accountability, and practical safety systems help organizations prevent drift and catch risks before incidents occur.
