The North Dakota Safety Council has been growing – not only in staff, but in programs.
NDSC executive director Chuck Claremont has been with the Council since 2007. When he started, the Council had 4 employees. Now, it has 35 – 25 full time and 10 part time. But Claremont said what’s more important is the amount of workers the Council has trained.
"What may have been 5,000 to 10,000 people 10, 15 years ago -- now our outreach is over 50,000, and growing," Claremont said. "Every year it's getting bigger and bigger."
Claremont said the demand has expanded into many different industries – from construction and mining into health care, schools and other occupations.
"We've seen a huge growth in the home and community protection areas," said NDSC assistant executive director Lynae Hanson. "We have been doing a lot of site assessments for facilities and schools."
Hanson said the NDSC helps make sure employees are safe, and that they have a plan of action if something were to happen, even if it is violence related. She said incidents of school violence have put school safety top-of-mind for many in the education community.
"One of the trainers we hired has a background (in school violence)," Hanson said. "He was a highway patrolman in Colorado, and he has responded to school shootings prior to coming to the NDSC. He's taken a lot of that expertise and brought it with him to the Safety Council, and we're using that to help train others."
Claremont says the Safety Council has been ready and willing to respond to demands for more safety training.
"There's no training that's out there that we're not willing to either offer ourselves, or because of our facility now, and because of our connections, we can reach out and have connections with people and training we may not be able to provide ourselves, but we can bring it to North Dakota and make that training happen."