Mike Price still feels the thump in his chest when he talks about the day a close friend fell five stories during El Niño-whipped winds.
“He died in my arms,” Mike recalls. “Nothing about the schedule or the budget could matter after that.”
The accident happened long before Mike joined Webcor, but it rewired how he thinks about the job.
“If anything can fail on a project, it’s never safety,” he says. “Schedules slip, money runs short—but people don’t get a do-over.”
That conviction runs through the ranks of Webcor’s Construction Managers. Yes, CMs juggle planning, budgets, subcontractors, and logistics, but OSHA and industry guidance make it clear that leading a safety program is inseparable from the role.
At UC Irvine, Billy DeTrinidad strung together four incident-free months by marrying the old adage “a clean job is a safe job” with relentless follow-through. “We literally stop work if a crew leaves debris behind,” he says. “They know we’ll find them, bring them back, and have them make it right.” Weekly safety walks with broker Alliant reinforce the message, but what really moves the needle is psychological safety: any employee of any subcontractor can speak up—and many do—without fear of blowback.
Forrest Walch credits that openness to a tight partnership between supers and safety managers. “I empower them, listen to them, and back them up,” he explains. The result: a jobsite culture where slips, trips, and falls are less likely because clutter simply doesn’t survive the shift.
Colin Azevedo watched Safety Manager Kendall Cantave work with the foremen at BDFP and stole the playbook. “Kendall models conversations that make workers want to act safely—not just obey rules,” Colin says. “When they know we’re here to help them, not ‘catch’ them, they’ll stop work themselves when they see a problem and ask for our help.”
Mike Flint makes that point with apprentices. While erecting ductwork at Metropolis, he pulled a young installer aside: “Nobody—from your boss to ours—wants you hurt. You will never get in trouble for stopping the job to make it safe,” he told the installer. The sooner that message lands, the easier it is to bake into the project DNA.
Anthony Sammut’s project posts QR codes in every stair tower. Scan, and any craftsperson can drop an anonymous safety concern that pings the management team in real time. “Numbers matter, but people matter more,” he says. “Every single person here has someone waiting for them at home. That’s the only metric that counts.” He backs the tech with visible actions: clear travel paths, illuminated signage, and stairwell status updates so “safety first” doesn’t ring hollow.
Veteran Joe Bell sums up his experience in one line: “Our only job is to make sure everybody goes home in the same condition—or better—than they arrived.” On Moscone Center he learned that the best planning meetings happen before the first hammer swings. Get every trade in a room, map out how the work will be done, identify hazards, and then—if the safest plan costs more—fight for the funding. “That’s my job,” Joe says. “Let the mechanics be mechanics. My team removes the barriers that keep them from doing the work safely.”
Across projects the Construction Managers called out the same guardrails:
Construction Safety Week reminds us to double-check PPE and refresh toolbox talks, but Webcor’s Construction Managers prove that compliance is the floor, not the ceiling. From Mike Price’s hard-won perspective to Billy DeTrinidad’s “clean equals care” mantra, the through-line is simple: people over production—every shift, every trade, every voice.
As Safety Week kicks off, look for their teams walking the site, asking questions, and stopping work if something feels off. Better yet, join them. Because the safest sites are the ones where everyone—laborer, apprentice, engineer, executive—feels empowered to speak up and confident someone will listen.
