by Marvin Joles
I know that’s a big, heavy, title for this article. I know this is off the path of what you usually get from me when I write this monthly article. But sometimes, we need to pause and focus on something that is a major problem, in order to mitigate an even larger problem or tragedy.
Last month I was able to attend the National Asphalt Pavement Association Mid-Year Meeting. The organization does a great job providing multiple sessions on a wide range of topics that are at the forefront of importance in the asphalt industry. From legislative action and how it will affect us in the coming years, jobsite safety improvements, outreach to future generations of workers for our industry, to sustainability and more.
One topic though hits close to home for me, and it was great to see, was a session at the event titled “Paving a Safety Net: Strategies for Mental Health Awareness”. I added it to my agenda immediately, with extra anticipation. The session was led by Eric Green, Safety Manager at Ajax Paving Industries and by Dr. Vince Hafeli, President at Ajax Paving Industries.
Now, this wasn’t my first-time hearing Dr. Vince speak, as I have now heard him speak on this topic at various conferences, in various differences, no less than 4 times over the last 12 months. It’s safe to say this is an important topic to Dr. Vince and as attendees of the session would soon learn, there is an important reason why. Dr. Vince, at one point, while a successful President of a successful paving company, decided to commit suicide. Something obviously stopped him from doing so, and I believe it is a story you should hear from him rather than me, and you can by finding his book on Amazon titled “Mental Health and Suicide: My Personal Story and Stories of Those Left Behind”. Dr. Vince has become the leader in our industry in advocation for Mental Health Awareness.
In the session PowerPoint, we were faced with some staggering numbers, some of them I will share with you here:
• 103 – The number of times Dr. Vince has spoken on this topic in total, including a TEDx
• 1.3 Million – The number of people who have attended his talks
• 53.3 out of 100,000 – The number of suicides in Construction
• 162.6 out of 100,000 – The number of overdoses in Construction
• 2 – The number of hours that pass on average between one suicide and another, in Construction
You see that last one? That’s what really got me. We can rarely complete an asphalt project, commercial, municipal, or residential, in the time between suicides in construction. I asked myself, how can this be happening? In an industry that provides so much for the people in it, is it really that hard on that staggering amount of people? The numbers don’t seem to be lying. I have been on a mission since the last time I heard Dr. Vince speak in November, to find out personally.
I started doing interviews on this subject, in podcast form, because that’s all I know of how to really have a in depth, informational talk. I knew a fair amount of people that I could talk to about this, and how it affects them, from within the industry, because they had reached out to me over the last year as I began to share my own struggles with mental health. I am thankful for the guests and participants that began to share with me, and began to realize that YES, it is a large number of people being affected by mental health issues and that some of them, you would never suspect they were struggling at all. Yes, it ranged all the way from a shovel guy to CEOs and yes, it takes on many forms and many different things cause the effect of poor mental health.
Knowing I was getting into something very serious and very heavy, I asked for the help of Dr. Erin Craw of Fairfield University. Erin was a former podcast guest on Blacktop Banter and had become a friend who I shared my struggles with. My first initial question was, “What do we do about this issue, for our industry?” Her answer was “We need to start with data, numbers.”
Erin and her team at Fairfield are conducting a survey to collect such data, to give us a real-time baseline to start working from. If you would like to help by taking that survey, please reach out to me via my email listed at the end of this article and I will get it to you and your company. Thanks to Dr. Vince for sharing, it amongst his company at Ajax Paving Industries, for everyone to fill out.
I had always asked myself after hearing Dr. Vince speak before, “Ok, awareness has been made, now what do we do to get this issue solved?” I am proud to say that our friends at Ajax haven’t just talked about it, they have begun to do something about it. Eric Green went into detail about the program they have created there, that employees have used and shared in, to mitigate issues and bring resolution to people within that organization. They have also helped other asphalt companies implement their own similar programs, including Duval Paving. Something is being done and we have leadership putting steps, process and strategies together. That was one of the main things said in this presentation, Leadership must take the initiative.
What if we notice something right now? Before we are able to get a program or if we don’t have one at all? Eric detailed the steps to take for addressing these topics, in the session, which I will share below:
– Keep it simple (Don’t ask a lot of heavy questions, right away)
– Leadership acknowledges the issues (Get your leadership aware that peers have something going on)
– Build a network (get and find support for yourself or others)
– Learn what tools you have in your EAP (Employee Assistance Program)
– Implement an EAP if you haven’t yet
I will leave you with this. If you want to talk to somebody about this, there is an open line of communication to me. It helped me to have people I could talk to directly, who worked in my field, talked like I do and understood trying to balance everything. Dr. Vince and Eric at Ajax were both very open about reaching out to them in their presentation and Dr. Erin Craw now speaks with asphalt industry community members often. We are all in this together, and the way we find our way out and through, is the same way we finish any project in the asphalt industry, As a Team. Forward. Together.
As always, if you have any questions, insight or criticisms about this article or anything in it, please feel free to email me at marvinjoles@gmail.com and of course, reach out to me using any form of social media (@marvinjoles).
Stay In The Mix. -Marvin
Marvin Joles is the owner of Wis-Coat Asphalt Maintenance. Visit his website at https://marvinjoles.com
