(October 14, 2022) Tyrone operations celebrated safety recently when the New Mexico Mining Association named it Safe Operator of the Year.
The award for the Large Surface Metal/Non-Metal Category is based on several factors, including fatalities, lost time, restricted duty, contractor injuries, and recordable incident rate, said Jim Cook, Health and Safety Manager-Tyrone.
“We of course had no fatalities, and for TRIR (total recordable incident rate), the operation had to be below the national average for TRIR of 1.61 to be considered for a Safe Operator award,” Cook said. “We had 684,032 hours worked in the fiscal year, and we ended it at 0.58, so that was well below the national average.”
When it came time for New Mexico leadership to select who should represent Tyrone operations at a ceremony rewarding the site’s safety performance, Cook met with Erich Bower, General Manager-Tyrone and Ron Gerdes, Manager-Operations Tyrone, and the group reached a unanimous decision to have Julio Jimenez, Truck Driver II-Tyrone, accompany Cook at the awards conference.
Known more commonly far and wide as “Butter,” Jimenez has four decades of haul truck mastery under his belt and has worked every single day without a single recordable safety incident.
“Butter has been with the company for 44 years and never had an incident, but just as importantly, he has been a safety champion, someone who stresses and talks about safety with his crew at lineouts, and just sets a great example of what safe production looks like,” Cook said. “It was an honor to be there with Julio to accept the award, because he’s such a valuable member of our operations and our company.”