Safety: Everyone. Everywhere. All the time.
That’s the safety motto of Kansas City, Missouri-based JE Dunn Construction, a valued GPRS safety partner who has been in business for nearly a century.
Founded in 1924 by John Ernest (Ernie) Dunn, JE Dunn Construction today has 26 offices nationwide. To date, the firm – the 13th largest domestic general building contractor in the United States with over 4,000 employees – has generated over $6 billion in revenue. Their work spans dozens of industries, including healthcare, aviation, corporate environments, Federal and military, industrial, education, mission critical, and science & technology.
JE Dunn Construction's Safety Superintendent, Ronnie Davis says that success is due to JE Dunn's commitment to safety. In 2022, JE Dunn boasted these safety stats:
- .63 Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR)
- .40 Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred (DART)
- .55 Experience Modification Rate (EMR)
For those not familiar, TRIR represents a company’s past safety performance by calculating the number of recordable incidents per 100 full-time workers during a one-year period. DART describes the number of recordable injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time employees that resulted in days away from work, restricted work activity and/or job transfer that a company has experienced in any given time frame. And EMR is used to determine worker’s compensation insurance premiums, calculated by dividing a company’s payroll by classification by 100 and then by a “class rate” determined by the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) reflecting the classification’s potential risk factor.
"Most people don't realize safety personnel are around," Davis said. "Companies hire safety men, pay them every week, and most of the time they don't know if they're getting a benefit from that safety person because that safety person is preventing accidents, preventing things from happening on (the company's) job sites."
JE Dunn seeks to minimize risk through project-specific safety planning. Their superintendents lead their project teams in the field with the support of their regional safety director and safety managers.
“We have an obligation to the community, our clients, and everyone on our project sites to maintain a hazard-free environment,” the company writes on its website. “When risk is minimized, clients benefit from increased savings and a positive public perception of a project…
“Everyone on a job site, including trade partners, is held to the project-specific safety plan. Depending on the size, scope, and complexity of the construction site, the JE Dunn safety team provides the necessary oversight to set a project up for success.
JE Dunn's commitment to safety was evident when they partnered with GPRS for our recent Construction Safety Week talk for their crew in Charlotte, North Carolina. GPRS Business Development Manager Ryan Mewha spoke to their team on best practices to avoid the most common accidents that occur on job sites.
"With any kind of locate, especially post tension cables: where we need to locate one, or we've got one broken or whatever, we call GPRS," Davis said. "You guys come out and help us get everything straightened out about it."
GPRS is proud to have so many partners who value safety as much as we do, and we're thrilled to be able to showcase that shared passion for safety through our Safety Tour of America.
Our elite Project Managers use only the most advanced technology for utility locating, precision concrete scanning and imaging, NASSCO-certified video pipe inspection, leak detection, 3D laser scanning, and mapping & modeling. We ensure companies such as JE Dunn can Intelligently Visualize The Built World™ while keeping their projects on time, on budget, and safe.
We are currently scheduling the second phase of our Safety Tour of America, where we visit with our valued safety partners to highlight their efforts and our shared commitment to getting their crews home safely. If you want to be part of this initiative, click here.