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Brennan Awarded Great Place to Work® Certification

Posted by Kimberly Walters on August 17, 2020

(La Crosse, WIS – August 12, 2020) – Specialty marine construction firm J.F. Brennan Company, Inc. (Brennan), announces its 4th consecutive certification from international research and analytics organization Great Place to Work®.

95% of its employees consider Brennan a great place to work, compared to just 59% of employees at a typical U.S.-based company. Brennan’s high-ranking status among other companies is compounded this year by the changes in safety, travel, and essential work protocol brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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How to Avoid Catastrophe by Systematically Inspecting Your Slings

Posted by Tim Butz on June 30, 2020

In industries like marine construction, the penalty for skipping or rushing through “simple” industrial rigging inspections or “ordinary” storage practices can be catastrophic for all of our equipment and tools, but most importantly for the people involved. 

For example, Brennan uses endless and synthetic slings (straps or tie downs) to hoist and secure all kinds of materials: from piping and equipment, to dredges and other vessels. Reliable slings are critical to the work we do. We must ensure they are in excellent working condition before we use them and maintain them for our teammates who must safely use them next. Here are a few important questions we answer from curious customers and our own people.

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Most-Searched Blog Topics of 2019

Posted by Kimberly Walters on January 07, 2020

Brennan blog posts were viewed 13,622 times in 2019. Reviewing our most-searched blog topics helps us construct a list of the marine industry's most critical topics and those most pertinent to our company. So, what were the most-searched topics?

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Risk, Impact, and Corporate Responsibility: Implementing an Environmental Management Program

Posted by Michael Cannell on December 16, 2019

As a marine solutions company, J.F. Brennan Company, Inc. (Brennan) faces a unique array of regulations and rules. While every company deals with regulations, most deal with rules that impact operations only on land or only in the water. We are accountable for regulatory requirements in both areas and have been for years. So, what's changed and what are we doing about it? 

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Commercial Diving: Should 4-Person Teams Become the New Norm?

Posted by Steve Pratt on September 19, 2019

Dive teams mobilize every day to complete a broad assortment of tasks utilizing 3‑person dive teams. Historically, this has been the standard not only within Brennan's practices but for most other inland diving organizations. The Association of Diving Contractors International (ADCI) gives guidance that requires, at a minimum, a 3‑person dive team. While this practice is sufficient in some circumstances; such as non-penetration inspections and wheel jobs (propeller repairs); with our growing scope of work it became apparent that a 4‑person dive crew—adding a standby diver—should be our internal minimum standard moving forward.

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Immersing Mobile Tech into Brennan's Safety Culture

Posted by Kimberly Walters on April 25, 2019

By Michael Cannell—Quality and Safety Manager

As construction projects pick up speed across the country, so do construction- and safety-related news stories. It’s important to ask: What is J.F. Brennan Company, Inc. (Brennan) doing to ensure the safety of our team? And, can we increase safety measures without sacrificing productivity?

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Empowering Individual Safety with Technology

Posted by Dillon Hogan on October 30, 2018

There is nothing more important on a job site than safety. To prevent an injury, one must recognize the potential risk and take mitigative action beforehand. The challenge that companies like us face is not so much trying to figure out how an incident happened, but training employees to recognize the potential of injury before it happens. Once that mindset has been ingrained, team members must be empowered to address and escalate it without repercussion.

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How to Successfully Stabilize Dams Utilizing Post-Tensioned Anchors

Posted by Dave Laack on May 01, 2018

Lock and dam and hydropower infrastructure face numerous unique challenges when it comes to improving the safety and reliability of existing dams. An important structural enhancement for dam stabilization projects is the installation of high-capacity post-tensioned anchors, which may supplement or replace existing anchors.

According to the Post-Tensioning Institute, post-tensioned rock and soil anchors provide a cost-efficient, high-performance solution for projects needing both temporary and permanent stabilization solutions.

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The Real ROI of In-House Safety Training

Posted by Luke Ploessl on March 06, 2018

Getting Your Money’s Worth

At Brennan, training is the backbone of our safety program, and we have come to discover a high return on investment by bringing much of our training in-house. Doing this helps us prepare our workforce for our unique work features, which in the long run, lowers our Experience Modification Rate (EMR). A company’s EMR is a number used by insurance companies to determine the past cost of injuries and any future chance of risks. The lower your EMR number, the better your standing compared to similar companies. The average industry EMR rating is 1.00, so companies that can get a lower rate than this save money when it comes to insurance premiums (not to mention savings associated with eliminating workplace injuries). When taking into account the number of manhours we work each year, our current EMR of .52 translates to a savings of up to $400,000! We believe one of the reasons we achieve such a low EMR is because we focus on quality when it comes to training.

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4 Steps to a Successful Safety-Based Observation Program

Posted by Samantha Schmitz on October 07, 2016

We live in a world where focus on construction safety is advancing as rapidly as the development of new microchips.  When it comes to safety, a construction company cannot afford to learn by mistake.  Reacting and correcting is not a sustainable method to our survival in this day and age.  We have to look forward and predict problems before they happen. 

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