Val Garner, vice president of HS&E/risk management for SWS Environmental Services (SWSES), has more than 20 years of emergency response experience working throughout the U.S. BIC Magazine recently visited with Garner to learn more about his role and experience and the growth of SWSES.
Q: What led to your position at SWSES?
A: Having worked with SWSES for over 14 years, operational growth has provided opportunities to synchronize uniformed risk management practices. Fundamental to that point, SWSES had a key acquisition in 2008, which created the need for my position. This was accomplished through efforts to obtain responsible scale while managing the organization’s occupational health, training, field safety, transportation, insurance and environmental compliance-related matters.
Q: What is the biggest news at SWSES right now?
A: SWSES completed renovation of its corporate training center in Fort Worth, Texas. By upgrading technology and expanding its training facility footprint, SWSES has been able to ensure it has an adequate venue to prepare its employees at all levels to accomplish their tasks with competency and efficiency. We also launched an online training platform for employees. This “anytime, anywhere” platform provides the opportunity for our workforce to select and complete courses, which enables individual career path management, awareness of procedure changes and completion of regulatory required training that is specifically tailored to the services SWSES provides.
Q: Are you looking to grow in new markets or expand in current ones?
A: Always. In fact, SWSES recently opened a new service center in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This is exciting because we have identified a number of existing and potential customers who are eager to utilize our services in this geographic area. More importantly, however, we have achieved workforce improvement conditions by providing upward mobility options for current members of our workforce and through hiring individuals with exceptional technical abilities related to waste and railroad operations, which also benefit the entire organization and not just that particular location.
Q: What’s the most important thing a person should know before taking a career path similar to yours?
A: The path into this role is certainly a journey. Having a strong appetite for continuing education is advisable. Educational exposure to the topics associated with my current position doesn’t lend itself to a singular degree or certification. Being eager to pursue a solid foundation from reputable institutions on various risk management topics is almost certainly required. Of equal importance is to recognize that accomplishing all business-related tasks, regardless of personal appeal, is an opportunity to gain insight into a topic that may need to be negotiated in the future. If either of these two perspectives is lost, the ability to collaborate in a fashion that is conducive for building robust, sustainable programs would be drastically compromised.
Q: How do you maintain a good work/home life balance?
A: I hope to maintain a good work/home life balance by planning at home as much as I do at work and considering both. Anyone who is dedicated to both probably recognizes failure to do so lends one to exploit the other. I have found by approaching life so that my home life is planned, whether it is for an annual family vacation or weekly after hours activities, I can remain positive and engaging.
For more information, visit www.swsenvironmental.com or call (850) 234-8428.
