MYR Group Safety Professionals Attend Newly Developed In-House Technical Training Workshop Jul 15, 2025

Current electrical theory & work practices taught in hands-on environment

Safety, like any other profession, is never stagnant.

There's always room for improvement, more to learn, and modern work practices to develop and implement.

The MYR Group corporate safety training team stays at the forefront of health and safety, developing training and materials that are critical not only to crews in the field but also to safety professionals themselves.

For 2025, a key emphasis for the corporate training team was providing technical, hands-on training for safety professionals, many of whom don't come from an electrical operations background. This workshop teaches them the current electrical theories, work standards, and practices that Transmission and Distribution (T&D) crews receive, tailored for safety professionals of all experience levels.

"We wanted to give our safety specialists more technical training and dive into the details of how and why we do the grounding and bonding equipotential zone (EPZ) and insulate and isolate training with our crews," MYR Group Director of Safety Training Steve Foster said. "As a result, when our safety specialists are out on job sites, they can understand much more technically what's happening and are better able to assess the grounding or bonding scheme, recognize when something doesn't look right, and ask good questions of the crew."

When Kyle Gawloski joined the company last January, his first initiative was to get out in the field and gain a better understanding of work practices across MYR Group's subsidiaries, how safety specialists interacted with crews, and identify areas for improvement.

The whole training felt more like a conversation than a lecture. There were a lot of great conversations, and we were able to talk things through with a group of people who have such expertise. It was just a great workshop - no matter your experience level going in.

As a journeyman lineworker himself - now serving as MYR Group's safety training manager - Gawloski was uniquely positioned to spot the gaps in understanding between safety specialists and the crews in the field.

"That was my overall goal," he said. "We can't expect to become better and work safer and have quality crew observations if our safety professionals don't fully understand where to look."

When the time came to present his findings and offer solutions, Gawloski was thrilled by the reaction and willingness of the company's leadership team to invest in his ideas for improvement.

"It was so incredibly empowering that MYR Group listened to me as a newer employee saying, 'Hey, I spot an area for improvement, but I've also got potential solutions that I can implement to make us stronger,'" Gawloski said. "The response was, 'Great, go do it.' It's rare at large organizations for that to happen, so it was very empowering to be able to do this."

Gawloski developed an in-depth, technical training workshop for MYR Group safety professionals to teach them modern electrical theory and work practices while also simulating real-world situations to build a better understanding and appreciation of the tasks lineworker perform every day.

Using the MYR Group training facility in Alvarado, Texas, 13 safety professionals from multiple MYR Group subsidiaries attended a two-day workshop that combined classroom learning and interactive tabletop demonstrations with practical, hands-on exercises in the training yard.

The first day focused on EPZ bonding and grounding, led by Gawloski, with the second day shifting to insulate and isolate principles, facilitated by Safety Training Manager Brian Sharp.

Each safety specialist wore rubber sleeves and gloves and performed simulated tasks a lineworker would do in the field. This included establishing earth grounds, finding minimum approach distances, and handling insulated "hot sticks."

While it was important to reinforce the theories learned in the classroom with practical application, the idea of recreating these scenarios, Gawloski said, was to put them in a lineworker's 3-foot world, help them understand how things like ergonomics and body positioning are critical, and realize where shortcuts are often taken because of the inherent challenges that come with the work environment.

"I think it was an eye-opening experience for all of us on how easy it is once you're out in the field doing the job, and you have all these other factors, to lose sight of the normal procedures and the safety compliance aspects," E.S. Boulos Safety Manager Michael McLaughlin said. "We were making mistakes, and it was like, 'Oh, I haven't done this before. Why am I doing it this way?' You get that real-world experience, which was needed to help us fully grasp what it's like out there."

These "golden nuggets" of insight, as Gawloski calls them, can go a long way in building stronger relationships with crews and creating a lasting impact.

"A big part of safety is relationships, and safety specialists need to take the time to build relationships with those in the field," Foster said. "But it's still difficult to walk up to anyone who's a lineworker and question their work practices when you haven't done it. So, this workshop was all about giving them knowledge, and hopefully, that will lead to the confidence for our safety specialists to ask questions that they might not have asked otherwise."

The corporate safety training team will hold the workshop twice a year - once in the fall and once in the spring - with all newly hired safety specialists required to attend the training as part of their onboarding process within the first six months.

"The whole training felt more like a conversation than a lecture," McLaughlin said. "There were a lot of great conversations, and we were able to talk things through with a group of people who have such expertise. It was just a great workshop - no matter your experience level going in."