The McIntosh, Alabama, BASF team is on a journey of excellence and continuous improvement — from being the “BEST” in safety to improving the quality of life through community involvement. Leading them is Vice President and Site Manager George Vann, who took the helm in February.
“As the senior BASF leader on site, I am responsible for the overall site performance, which includes ensuring the site has a ‘Best in Class’ safety culture, promoting an environment of continuous improvement and positioning the McIntosh facility as a ‘Site of Choice’ for investments and for talent,” Vann explained. “We have done a tremendous amount of work with regard to positioning the site for growth — thanks to the dedication and diligence of our employees — to strengthen its efficiencies and cost competitiveness.”
The McIntosh production facility was opened in 1952 by Geigy Chemical Co. with 32 employees manufacturing a single insecticide. The site sits on top of a huge salt dome. Olin Chemical built a facility adjacent to the property to manufacture chlorine and caustic soda from the sodium chloride natural resource. The close location of the two plants was a natural one since Geigy Chemical needed both chlorine and caustic soda in its production process. Six more production lines were put into operation during the 1950s and the site continued to grow into the early 1990s. It was acquired by BASF in 2009 from Ciba Specialty Chemicals.
The McIntosh facility produces antioxidants, hindered amines and tinuvin light stabilizers. Antioxidants provide exceptional color and durability to plastics and add resilience and life to lubricants, engine oils and transmission fluids. Hindered amines stop the degradation caused by sunlight to plastic containers and outdoor furniture. Tinuvin light stabilizers absorb harmful ultraviolet radiation to automotive finishes, protect wood with outdoor stains and keep photographic inks vivid.
Manufacturing leadership
Vann attended Georgia Tech where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He then entered the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant with the 65th Engineer Battalion, 25th Infantry Division based in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. After serving more than four years, he left the Army and began working as a maintenance supervisor for Engelhard Corp. He has held various positions with Engelhard and BASF (which acquired Engelhard in 2006) including maintenance superintendent, production and mining manager, site manager, business manager, global business director and indirect procurement vice president.
“In this position, the most important skills are leadership, listening, creating a vision and developing a good team,” Vann said. “I am proud to lead this team that has accomplished so much both in our safety culture and through community involvement.”
The ‘BEST’
In developing that safety culture, the McIntosh team created a pocket-sized card contractors and employees fill out prior to performing a job. The “BEST” (Be Entirely Safe Today) card is a task specific hazard recognition tool that puts safety ownership into the hands of each employee and reminds him or her of the hazards to be assessed prior to performing each job/task, giving every individual a chance to take ownership of his or her personal safety.
“As a result of the program, the site has seen greater overall safety awareness and a significant decrease in employee injuries,” Vann said.
Recently the McIntosh site was recognized for its 2013 safety record by both the Alabama Department of Labor and Manufacture Alabama, the state’s manufacturing trade association. BASF received Manufacture Alabama’s “Safety Award” for operating a competitive number of hours with no accidents and Gov. Robert Bentley’s “No Lost-Time Award” for recording 630,080 hours with no lost-time accidents, which includes any accident that requires more than a day of recovery.
Additionally, a team from the site was named a winner of BASF Corp.’s Journey Innovations Team Award, which recognizes innovative contributions to environmental, health and safety excellence.
The McIntosh site project was selected from among 30 submissions for achieving sustainable results in the areas of occupational safety, contractor safety, and environmental and economic benefits. In addition, the project elements could be easily adapted by other BASF sites.
“Our goal is zero — zero injuries and zero incidents,” Vann explained. “We foster an employee culture where everyone believes and supports a zero incident mindset and zero incident behaviors.
“To support this, we recently began a new process at the site called the Exposure Reduction Process (ERP). This is an employee driven initiative that places emphasis on identifying at risk behaviors and implementing actions to correct the cause of those behaviors, which could be better engineering controls, changes in personal protective gear, updating procedures, or increased training and awareness.”
ERP focuses on peer-to-peer observations in a constructive nonconfrontational manner. The overall intent is to improve safety performance.
“We are at the forefront of implementing this program for the company,” Vann said. “We have selected our ERP Steering Committee members and they have completed training and have begun the observation process. Our next step is to train other employee volunteers who are eager to be involved in the process. We’re excited we’ve had employees from other locations come to observe what we’re doing.”
Preparing students to be leaders
The McIntosh team believes strongly in contributing to their community and in education outreach, in particular.
“It is important to us that local students have opportunities to prepare themselves to be leaders in our industry,” Vann said.
To that end, the team recently awarded scholarships totaling $30,000 to three area students.
“We are proud to provide scholarships to students who are pursuing careers in the chemical industry,” Vann said.
Additionally, in the past two years, BASF employee volunteers have delivered an interactive science experience to more than 7,000 students attending school in surrounding counties, offering hands-on learning activities to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers. Local students also participate in BASF Kids’ Lab hands-on experiments at the Gulf Coast Exploreum in Mobile, Alabama.
“Introducing students to STEM professions and occupations is critical to building an innovative and competitive work force in Alabama,” Vann said. “We are pleased to partner with local schools to increase awareness about what engineers do in such a fun, hands-on learning environment.”
Other initiatives include the Job Shadow Program where students shadow employees in both the accounting and engineering departments. At a recent career fair, more than 500 local students learned about specifics of the site’s operation and the necessary skills needed to gain employment. Employees are also avid supporters of United Way, the American Cancer Society, American Red Cross, Girls & Boys Scouts, the BEST Engineering Competition and much more.
“With a stellar team committed to our community and culture of safety and a site with a longstanding history of quality chemical production, McIntosh is a great place to be!” Vann said.
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BASF
1379 Ciba Road
McIntosh, AL 36553
(251) 436-2000
www.basf.us
Employees: 501
Products: Antioxidants, hindered amines and tinuvin light stabilizers
