By Mary Meaux

The News staff writer

BEAUMONT — For the folks at Newtron Beaumont LLC, safety is important.

“Safety is our number one priority, first and foremost,” Shannon Buckley, health, safety and environment manager at Newtron, said after the business, which provides electrical and instrumentation services, earned a safety award for medium specialty during the 24^th Annual Contractor Safety Awards.

The event was sponsored by the Golden Triangle Business Roundtable and held at the Holiday Inn in Beaumont on Tuesday.

Buckley said all seven of their sites were picked as finalists.

Tony Sattler, environmental health and safety manager for Brock Services LLC., said earning an award for safety is a great achievement and shows the hard work and dedication of the employees.

Brock Services earned an award for both small specialty and large specialty.

The annual event honors Golden Triangle contractors for exemplary safety performance in the workplace. To be nominated identified the contractor as one of the best in safety performance. This year was marked by an all-time high number of nominations and GTBR commended area contractors for the strong commitment to safety in local industrial facilities.

GTBR members nominate contractors for the awards and the GTBR Safety Committee evaluates the nominations, conducts on-site visits and interviews with contractors and contractor employees before selecting the recipients that are recognized at the event.

Keynote speaker Kirk Saffell, senior vice-president of health, safety and environmental at Valero Headquarters, San Antonio, told the large crowd of Valero’s history and journey towards better safety. After years of acquisitions and growth there came a time around 2009 where contractor injury rates were consistently lower than the employee rates.

Officials started to note mechanical failures and loss of containment events were linked to human factors, Saffell said.

Saffell noted the challenges of contractors; they tend to perform higher risk tasks, non-routine tasks, less familiarity with site and have a more transient work force. Yet, he said, contractor activities get more scrutiny and the best have rigorous and effective safety practices like those endorsed by organizations such as the GTBR, strong training programs, some are highly specialized in higher risk tasks and safety incidents more directly affect ability to get future work.

He lauded the contractors being honored for their safety record.

Award recipients include:

• Engineering — Furmanite technical Solutions, Motiva Enterprises Port Arthur Refinery
• Meritorious — Corrpro, Motiva Enterprises Port Arthur Refinery and Total Port Arthur Refinery
• Small Specialty — Brock Services LLC, Flint Hills Resources
• Medium Specialty — Newtron Beaumont LLC, Flint Hill Resources
• Large Specialty — Brock Services LLC, Total Port Arthur Refinery
• Small Maintenance — B&E Resources, Chevron Port Arthur Lubricants Plant
• Medium Maintenance — Zachary Industrial Services, Exxonmobil Beaumont Lubricants and Specialties
• Large Maintenance — Echo Maintenance LLC, Motiva Enterprises Port Arthur Refinery
• Small Construction — Echo Maintenance LLC, Total Port Arthur Refinery
• Medium Construction — Triple “S” Industrial Corporation, Sunoco Logistics Partners
• Large Construction — S&B Engineers & Contractors, Sunoco Logistics Partners
• The Donald T. Boumans Award — Echo Maintenance LLC