"Safety first" is the premise behind EHS Today magazine’s annual America’s Safest Companies competition: To identify and celebrate those organizations that go above and beyond in the pursuit of safety excellence, and to tell their stories to the entire safety community.

The list of 10 companies includes contractors, servomotor manufacturers, packaging firms, and one cabinet company: MasterBrands Cabinets.

Among the reasons for MasterBrands being named to the list of top safety-minded companies is the Critical 15 program that identifies areas it feels are most important to protect employees from serious injuries and fatalities. These Critical 15 include fire prevention and hot work, machine safeguarding, and powered industrial truck safety.

According to EHS, the Critical 15 helped the company eliminate serious risks over the years. They next tackled the most common causes of employee injuries, which it found were strains and sprains, so they developed early intervention and ergonomics programs.

Jon Hilgeman, EHS Director for MasterBrands, told EHS Today editors that the company analyzed its internal data. “Utilizing the data captured from early intervention cases, job demand analyses, and ergonomics assessments, the company was able to prioritize ergonomic risks and strategically modify or enhance workstations, equipment, processes, etc. via Kaizen events and up to large capital expense projects. This has made all the difference.”

MasterBrands is the largest cabinet company in North America. It ranks #3 on the FDMC300 list of top wood product companies in North America.

When applying for consideration as one of America’s Safest Companies, organizations must demonstrate excellence in several areas: support from leadership and management for EHS efforts; employee involvement in the EHS process; innovative solutions to safety challenges; injury and illness rates lower than the average for their industries; comprehensive training programs; evidence that prevention of incidents is the cornerstone of the safety process; good communication about the value of safety; and a way to substantiate the benefits of the safety process.