Greg Richards

Background

I entered the Health and Safety profession in 2010 with the company I was employed with being Holcim New Zealand Limited. I joined Holcim in 2006 as the Upper North Island Operations Manager, which had the responsibility for logistics, transport, health and safety and scheduling. Previous to joining Holcim, I held many related roles in Logistics. Health and safety in the 90s, was not such a big thing and the acts and behaviors I witnessed and aka allowed were plain stupid.

In 2006, I saw with an international company outstanding attitudes, behaviors and direction in positive health and safety in the workplace. And, this was before New Zealand had its first workplace major tragedy. I was so engaged in the positive direction the company was taking and I took an immense amount of time and effort to ensure the areas I had responsibility for excelled in the health and safety space. The industry we were in was high risk with machinery, pressurized vessels and interaction with people, water and mobile plant.

My passion for health and safety was obviously recognized by Holcim and I was approached and subsequently seconded into a health and safety coaches’ role with a separate division of Holcim. This was for a 12-month period that was soon to become permanent.

I spend six years in various health and safety roles and responsibilities with Holcim and traveled New Zealand and Australia in a coaching, training and advisory role along with conducting a number of high-level incident investigations. I earned an enormous amount of experience with this organisation and the associated companies within the concrete, cement and aggregate industries.

In 2014, Holcim funded my professional development in the health and safety space and enrolled me on a New Zealand Diploma in Workplace Health and Safety. I immensely enjoyed the year long course and sharing experiences with fellow class participants. Despite some issues with the providers of the course and NZQA I was formally awarded the Diploma in 2019.

The resource material and shared experiences in the operational workplace have allowed me to provide a positive and lead experiencing example of good health and safety in the workplace.

My recent employment is with a professional consultancy company “First 4 Safety”. This role is as a specialist Health and Safety Consultant. I have held this role since 2017 until current.