The Evolution of EHS & Need for Operationalized Safety | Ep 7
Episode Transcript:-
Hilary Framke:
Hello listeners, I’m Hilary Framke, your host of the Elevate EHS podcast. I’m here today with Dave Crowley. Hi Dave.
Dave Crowley: Good afternoon.
Hilary Framke:
Good afternoon. Welcome to my podcast. Thank you for being here today.
Dave Crowley:
Glad to join. For all those podcast listeners out there, I’m a boomer.
My story starts in my younger days, a kid growing up. I did what my parents told me to do as I went from high school into college.
My mother wanted me to be a priest or a pharmacist. So guess what I did? I went into pharmacy. I found out in a short amount of time going to pharmacy school as well as working as a pharmacy technician, it really wasn’t what I wanted to do. And I learned that I had the ability to make decisions on my own destiny.
I ended up continuing working for a pharmacy to get the moolah, the money. But I started to look in other areas that were of interest to me. And one area that I found was the forensic science area. It might sound odd, but I was drawn into the funeral business. I worked in the funeral business for about five years where my intentions were to guide myself into forensic toxicology.
As I proceeded ahead, went to school at night for toxicology and eventually full time student. And then my last year of college I found out that forensic toxicologists did not make a lot of money back then. I’m talking the mid 80s folks. Unlike today where it’s really a called for industry.
The quick story is that I took a whole bunch of environmental courses in my last year of college. I ended up with a bachelor’s degree in toxicology and I emerged in 1985 timeframe where, you know, the Right to Know Act came out from OSHA called Hazard Communication. I think that actually came out in ’86. And my first job, I worked in the emergency response field, spills and thrills, hazardous materials. Day one of the job, they walked me over to this closet and they said, Dave, you’re the new guy. You have to order all of our safety equipment and they opened up this big closet and in there, there were respirators and gloves and boots and suits and self contained breathing apparatus.
Oh my goodness, you’re going to have to show me how to take care of this and they hooked me up. They gave me training and that was day one of my safety career. And flash ahead to present day, here I am, 35 years later. I am a well rounded environmental health and safety professional.
Hilary Framke:
That sounds fantastic. And wow, when you think about the last 35 years in EHS, what a time of transformation for this career. You’ve seen so many things evolve over the last 35 years. Do you want to call out for me what have been like the biggest changes over that time frame that’s just rocked your EHS world?
Dave Crowley:
When I started out, safety was safety and environmental was environmental. Two separate career tracks if you will. And one major transformation is that’s become combined into EHS and that’s common language to many of the podcasters out there listening in. Although there’s probably some companies out there that still separate the two but the EHS generalist is I think commonplace within industry or at least in manufacturing where I work now.
Aside from that I would say, the tone in role of the EHS professional is one that’s pointed towards relying upon others. Gaining support from operations people. Gaining support from others instead of a situation of, oh gee, somebody got injured, go see the safety person.
That’s not the way that high performing companies operate today. They empower others to participate in safety and that safety professional plays a very important role to enable that. Aside from that, you’ve got the dynamics of the regulatory community, right? OSHA and EPA. Over 35 years, that has changed.
A lot of regulations have come forth. And with the current administration in Washington DC, you can understand that there’s a heavy hammer approach that’s being used by both OSHA and EPA, whether you look at the dollar amount fine that’s out there or how the interaction is with the regulatory community. That’s transitioned quite a bit from the way things used to be back in the 80s when I first embarked on this ride.
Hilary Framke:
I think about how much the internet has changed things. It’s benefited considerably from the visibility to regulation. I can go Google what are the rules for confined space and Google can help me get to that quickly and that accessibility has been amazing for EHS practitioners, but on the flip side, a lot of citations online. Like, the shame game is bigger than ever with social media. Employees being able to say things about their employers on LinkedIn.
Dave Crowley:
You’re tickling my brain cells. Like I said, I’m a boomer. So I started out with the big thick paper copy of the OSHA regulations but the internet of things or IOT as they say of late AI, right? That’s a whole other area that’s really exploding an opportunity for safety professionals to get involved. You’re right. A lot of stuff at the fingertips of an EHS professional enables EHS professionals to be at the top of their game. Whereas before in the past it was more of a struggle.
So that gives an advantage to the present day EHS professional to be as effective as they can. When you talk about learning and sharing that takes place between EHS professionals, just the mere fact that cell phones are abundant. Everybody’s got one and you can call friends, whether it be people you went to school with, people that work as a competitor to your organization, there’s likely some conversation that takes place that gives an advantage to a safety professional, EHS professional to further prevent the next incident from happening whether it be an injury or an environmental spill or release type situation.
Hilary Framke:
Yeah, and you can gain something that I think has just changed the whole landscape of EHS management. How much information you can go get now? The data accessibility. And I want some risk probability data about how much does this exist and how expensive are the injuries related to this. That was so hard to gather, as an EHS practitioner before the technology boom. But now that’s possible. But certainly there are no excuses for not knowing the info anymore, are there?
Dave Crowley:
You’ve got that right. One worthy area to touch on is the topic of leading indicators. Where organizations are using instead of the OSHA rate or lost time rate, leading indicators. What are you doing to prevent the next incident? And companies are putting that into their annual reports. There’s a lot of stuff available online. It puts the present day EHS professional in advantage mode, like I said, to be as effective as possible.
Hilary Framke:
Now that being said, I’ve noticed the challenge of increasing expectations. In my previous practitioner career many of my colleagues whether it was pandemic response fell to us, now the mental health programming is really blowing up and seems to be shifting towards an EHS responsibility in addition to HR. Sustainability. I want to hear from you Dave, have you seen this issue in your career and how have you navigated this if you have?
Dave Crowley:
I have absolutely encountered that and again, maybe it’s a chance for a little story on my career path. My current job that I’m in, I’ve been with the company for 24 years. And when I started with them in 1999, here comes Dave new EHS professional. Coming in and I was a little taken aback that the organization didn’t have a lot of recycling at that point in time. Now mind you, I’m talking back in ’99, 2000, but I made a name for myself by saying to my boss, Hey I want to do something about this recycling thing. It fits the E for environmental. Are you okay with it? And he said, yeah, go ahead. No problem. Little did we know that, that act would save the company money and benefit the environment. There’s a green activity. But I earned a little bit of a reputation a couple of years later. I got the knock on the door.
Hey, Dave we’ve got a lot of our customers asking about the sustainability thing, it has to do with the environment. Are you willing to take it on? And I was not the type of person that would say no. I opened arms. I took it on. And it was good to do but within a fairly short period of time, roughly two years, it became a large animal.
And I had to go back to my boss and I said, Hey, listen, I have my core EHS responsibilities, compliance, safety training, things such as that, this sustainability thing’s getting in my way. We need to find somebody else to own this. And my boss listened. Okay. Nope. Give me time. We’ll find somebody and they did. So I was able to allow that to go to someone else. Within 30 days, my boss came back to me and said, Hey Dave listen, you know that sustainability thing you were doing, you took a certain amount of time. We’ve got this new thing called ethical sourcing that a lot of our customers are asking us to do.
It’s got a little safety component to it and little bit of HR. But do you think you can look into this and maybe take it on? Again I was not a person to say no. I took it on and it really opened my eyes to a whole new area of corporate social responsibility that does have a component of the employee, the people. And I took that on, same thing happened. It became a large animal, went to the boss, and it transitioned to another individual. This journey continued for several years where I didn’t have it but about four years ago, I got that knock on the door again and they invited me to take on sustainability that now included both the social piece as well as the other aspects.
And I once again said yes, but I also was smart enough to say, yes, but we should really think about hiring a subject matter expert that’s a sustainability professional. And I could have that person report to me and it won’t get in the way of my duties. And thankfully, my boss said, that’s a great idea. We’ll make that happen.
So it took a couple of months for us to find the right individual, but the rest is history. I maintain those responsibilities in my role, as a Vice President of EHS and Sustainability. And it seems to be working well. It blends in together. I use all the same skills that I use as a safety professional with managing the sustainability and social responsibility efforts.
Hilary Framke:
An incredible story and one that I think our listeners would do well to pay attention to. I think we are always getting these knocks at the door as EHS people. But I think that being said, doing the review that you did and asking yourself really, does this fit into the EHS strategy? And would I do well to take this on? Had you said no to those opportunities, you probably wouldn’t be in the role that you are now.
Dave Crowley:
Exactly. I think there’s plenty of safety folks out there that are allergic to opportunities to get involved in other areas that are not part of the traditional EHS role.
I also, I’m involved in the drug and alcohol testing at work. I’m involved in DOT compliance for our fleet cause the company I work for has a transportation division. But the sustainability piece, I think there’s a fair amount of people out there that put their arms around it willingly and they add to their career list of things that they’ve accomplished.
But others allergic to it and say no, thanks. I’m a safety professional and that’s got nothing to do with safety. My role, my mindset as an EHS professional is to make room for that, but assure that I don’t lose sight of my core responsibilities for environmental and safety compliance. Enabling safety by engaging others, whether it be line workers, supervisors, or managers in their duties, their responsibilities that they should uphold.
Hilary Framke:
I think that’s so great. It’s strategic. And there’s something to be said about doing it for a short amount of time, like giving it a try. And telling your manager that, I think that this is a lot. I think I have worries that this is going to compete with my more traditional priorities.
I’m already under resourced, but if the business needs it take that on board. Yeah, I did that for security. I took on facilities management at one point in my career. A whole separate, different vertical, but I saw the benefit. Facilities does most of our safety corrective actions.
If all the facilities people report to me, I can push for the corrective action closure that I’ve so been lacking across in EHS. And the sustainability strategy. Most of what we’re going for net zero, reducing carbon emissions, the waste, the electricity consumption.
Facilities can make a huge difference in this, right? If I had that facilities budget under my purviews. I’ve done this too in my career. And I think like you had said Dave, and I hope our listeners are paying attention. See the potential opportunity. Call out the risk. Call out, hey, this may not work out.
I’ll give it a try. We’ll do it for six months, 12 months and I’ll let you know. If it’s something that other things start to slide, we may have to go back to the drawing board, but it could be something that really accelerates your career.
Dave Crowley:
Yeah, I love your example of the facilities management piece. What better way to gain leverage in knocking out safety work orders? And that is truly something that’s visible to employees. If there’s a work order that needs to be addressed, safety, if they’re involved in that, they’re able to establish a sense of urgency to get it done sooner. The impact of positivity that’s seen by the line employees is huge. Great example.
Hilary Framke:
So how do you balance all of these responsibilities, all the verticals, the E, the H, the S, and now sustainability ? All really require their own strategies. KPIs and program updates and review and analysis. How do you balance it?
Dave Crowley:
I wouldn’t say that there’s a silver bullet on that, but Hilary it’s really having a handle on managing priorities. And I’m not talking about multitasking. I’m talking about the fundamentals of your daily work. One of the things that I do, either at the end of a day or at the beginning of the next day, I go through and I list out my ABCs.
What are the things that I’m going to do in my role where I’m involved in different areas? Make sure that’s balanced. I don’t lose sight of the major projects that are underway or the little things that I can move ahead to gain progress on. Aside from that, I think one of the techniques that I’ve used and I forget who it was that I heard this from back several years ago, was the term operationalized safety.
And I heard about it and that’s great. Let me see if I can give that a try. It could be many of the folks that are listening in are clued in on this operationalized safety. It has to do with identifying champions that can own certain programs within the safety space. Lockout tagout, if you’re a safety professional and you’re viewed as the champion of lockout tagout where you’re at, big mistake. If you’re able to identify somebody within the operations ranks and mind you, I work in manufacturing. I’d target the maintenance manager, to be that champion, position them to own the written program, to participate in the hands on lockout tagout training for authorized workers each year.
Instead of a safety person doing it, moving that maintenance manager into that seat so that they’re competent. They’re able to speak with authority. It enables safety in a large way. It’s where the rubber meets the road.
Whether it be lockout tagout, another example that I could give would be in my world I work for a dairy processing company. We have a lot of tanks, silos, and things such as that. We don’t have our safety professionals as the champion for confined space entry. Production manager or production supervisor, we’d lobby with the plant manager to help identify who that leader should be, train them, position them so that they can own that written program. They not only own the inventory of confined spaces, making sure that they’re labeled and making sure if there’s entry, there’s a permit process that’s going to be followed. And that permit process is owned by that individual. This goes on and on in many other areas whether you talk machine guarding and others.
Partnering with your HR team with onboarding. It’s a balance to judge whether or not the timing is right to ask for that champion to be identified and then work with them. It enables you to have a very strategic manner to address safety advancement and safety progress.
Hilary Framke: Operationalized safety. I would also term this maybe as integration of EHS into the business. I love this. This is one of the key coined things that I’ve said in my EHS career is, with each job, with each role, with each immersion into a business, I’m trying to figure out what elements are required in order to get zero harm?
What are the key factors to make that happen? EHS integration is one of the factors that I would choose and that I’ll share with our listeners. It’s a very scary concept to think that EHS is one of highest knowledge of a risk category.
So if your EHS person is the most knowledgeable about lockout tagout in your plant, how many times is EHS out on the floor watching lockout tagout, doing lockout tagout, auditing lockout tagout? That’s a very small percentage of the total time that lockout tagout occurs. And if they’re the most knowledgeable about the risk, they’re also the most knowledgeable about the harm, the output, the controls, et cetera. And it’s a very scary thought to think that would be owned by someone like EHS because we’re not in process. And so we need to get integration or operationalized safety, as you call it. Allow the people, the employees who are actually being exposed to the harm on a more frequent basis.
So that they can identify issues, fix issues, see the unsafe behaviors, all those things and actually push and mature the program further, because of their exposure.
Dave Crowley:
Whether it’s called integration or implementation, safety professionals, EHS professionals, they can write a written program.
That’s the easy part. The most difficult part is to integrate or implement that written program. And in this regard, when you talk about the operationalized safety or implementation, the safety professional or EHS role turns into more of a coach and a lobbyist to advance. That’s really where we’re helping out having additional people become a junior safety professional or a safety champion?
Use whatever term you want, but it enables higher level of understanding. In this operationalized safety example that I’m talking about I’ve not read any book that says, how to operationalize safety, but you’ve got to have the full conversation and make sure it’s full spectrum.
What am I talking about? Annual goals and objectives. If you’re going to rely upon the maintenance manager to take on lockout tagout as described, that’s going to be in writing. It’s got to be able to be measured and determine how they’re doing on it. Likewise, with the production manager that’s going to own machine guarding of the machines that are out on the floor in the production area, they’re the ones that are truly responsible to make sure that those machines are operating safely. All the necessary guards are in place, all the necessary control measures.
Hilary Framke:
We’re always looking for ways to get leaders engaged. And write like performance goals for them that are EHS oriented. What better way than to say, you’re going to manage this program, you’re going to manage the compliance, you’re going to make sure we’re trained at this percentage or above, completion of audits this percentage and above. You can set a true smart goal around a program.
Dave Crowley: Reflecting on one of the questions that you asked, what’s changed in the past 35 years, when you look at available training courses that are out there, the OSHA training Institute or OTI. My bet is if you did a study and look back into the 1980s and early 90s, most of the people that attended those were probably safety professionals. Present day, the tables have turned. There are a lot of operational people that are asked to participate in attending those types of trainings. Mobile Equipment Work Platforms. Is that really only the safety professionals that are attending those outside courses to become the competent person to deliver that training? Heck no. Those are the people that are using those on a daily basis that are attending. Likewise, maintenance people, production people that have to get into a scissor lift, things such as that. Again, that enables safety to be implemented further by individuals that are actually using that equipment.
Hilary Framke:
Yeah, and I think in my career so far I’ve used integration, because we need to think more strategically about business processes that already exist. And integrating EHS into it. So you brought up orientation onboarding. This is something I’ve done in my past. We’re not the only ones doing orientation onboarding. Quality needs to do it. HR, Production/Operations needs to do it. A process already exists. Why not actually just integrate EHS into the process that already exists. There’s onboarding checklists, that HR has for every job position.
Why not add on the EHS performance activities as well? And that’s what I did in a previous job. I redid orientation onboarding into a phased approach. Like phase one would be, they’d get PowerPoint training. That we have to deliver on day one. Phase two would be the HR checklist and we just added all the EHS competencies that they had to know. Like a review of the ergonomics of the role and ergo assessment, having reviewed their PPE and feeling comfortable wearing the PPE required for their job.
They know the emergency exit routes and can prove that to their supervisor. They know where the eyewashes are and can prove that to the supervisor, on and on. But those were the check boxes for each role. So as they were doing the operational performance review, they were getting the EHS risk controls as well. And then phase three was making sure they got all the authorized training for the higher level programs executed.
Dave Crowley:
You can connect the dots on other areas like you’ve described. Let’s talk SOP, Standard Operating Procedures. If the production department in manufacturing is going to develop an SOP, by right, there should be some safety language in there.
Oh, wait a minute the person that’s writing the SOP is going to go to the safety rep and say, hey, listen we need some safety language in this SOP. My answer is heck no. You want to have that technical writer or that individual from the production department in what we call JHA, Job Hazard Analysis, and you integrate that Job Hazard Analysis into that SOP.
The safety professional reviews that, but they’re not necessarily the primary author, and it’s riding a bike and having training wheels, you’re dealing with somebody that’s never done that before. And you’re teaching them how to do it. It’s a coach mode. The safety rep is the coach mode. They’re the training wheels. Eventually those wheels get taken off because there’s a competency level of experience that’s been achieved with that individual that’s writing the SOP. Again, it’s all pointed in the same direction to increase involvement and engagement by others beyond just the safety professional.
Hilary Framke:
Exactly, because the more risk knowledge they have, the more control knowledge they have, control application, the more they’re going to notice. They know a lot of things about EHS, as they’re walking around doing gemba walk, doing their job.
Get them included in that process. It just creates more and more eyes to manage your program overall. We know that engagement is a huge piece in that zero harm formula. This operationalized safety is just another way to push for this. To push this maturity.
Dave Crowley:
Yeah I’d add one important point to this. A lot of this type of conversation has a lot to do with the approach of the safety professional.
If we were in the medical field, you’d be talking about a doctor in their bedside manner. But a safety professional, you can’t operate with the expectation of dumping things onto the maintenance department or dumping things onto production or other people. This is a collaborative effort. It’s a partnership dialogue that needs to take place.
And I think that’s part of the persona of the safety professional. They can be very successful as long as they’re mindful, self aware of how they go about having those conversations. It’s critically important so that you don’t end up with the, oh man, that safety department they keep dumping the stuff on and they should be doing it.
Hilary Framke:
If the conversation is, this is a program change I want to make, you have to show the business value, you have to show why, and be prepared for the pushback of why should these other cross functional groups take on something that is perceived as an EHS responsibility. What does it give us? It gives us collaboration and engagement gives us stronger EHS culture.
More participation, which should lead to more risk review. Seeing things, fixing things, better employee environment, for that engagement. Also the performance opportunity, to develop. And to take on a project. And to show that this person can lead this new project, take on a proficiency, become a champion.
And I think, to your point, Dave, and this is what I was going to say before thank you for reminding me. It should always be, EHS is going to be involved and then the goal would be to take a step back. Now, we’re still going to always be looking over, all these programs are still always ours.
Lockout tagout is going to be an EHS program to oversee and administer and rewrite changes. Look at compliance improvements, make recommendations for better risk coverage. We can delegate, responsibility, but we can’t delegate authority. The authority is still always going to be ours.
Maybe the responsibility for some of the activities will shift to someone else to get a gain. But we will be involved. We will help get this kicked off. We will train this person. We’ll be a part of the program. We’ll make sure, it’s running well. And then once they feel comfortable, we’ll take a step back into that technical expert role, but still oversee.
Dave Crowley:
One of the things that I’ll offer up to those listening to the podcast is that, this is not something that I dreamed up and acted upon on day one. There was a lot of conversations there was selling that took place, safety professionals, EHS professionals, we are professional sales people.
I had to sell this to my boss before I approached multiple plants and multiple plant managers. I needed to have the backing of the company executive that I reported to, and one of the key words was ownership. I identified a need to actually implement written programs. And the problem is, we didn’t have ownership where it is today.
And following the operationalized safety model that I have described, that has really enabled us to solidify ownership at the floor level. Whether you’re in manufacturing or you’re in construction or whatever area you’re working, pharmaceutical, the same approach, the same technique can be used.
You’d need to modify your approach, but making sure you’ve got the backing and support of your company executives or whoever your boss is critically important. That sales gene, is something that you need to really tap. You might need to practice if you’re a buddied up with the HR folks, practice with them, tell them what you’re going to do. Do a rehearsal and they’ll give you some feedback so that you can further advance in your selling efforts.
Hilary Framke:
My dad has been in sales his whole life. He started, stocking shelves at Target. Then got a route, for Frito- Lay. And hopefully he doesn’t mind me sharing some details about him. But, he taught me so many soft skills.
About how to influence. And this is something just as subtle as changing the tone of your voice, changing the pace that you speak with. Going in with a pitch deck. With the clear deliverables. How EHS is going to participate, how other departments are going to participate, how you’re going to help them, the training they might receive in order to be successful in that role.
Laying out all those things for these business leaders, so they can see the clear business strategy and return on investment that they’re going to receive, maybe not in dollars, but in culture. Talk a little bit about what you think engagement from non EHS personnel builds culture.
I would say that it gives them a voice speaking about safety. Yes, the safety role is always going to be in monitor mode, monitoring to make sure that we’re doing what we should be doing.
But this operationalized safety approach also ingrains that I need to check on that. If I’m out on the floor and I’m checking to make sure that production rates are going and the trucks are getting loaded the way that they should. Training the eye to see whether or not a person who’s down on their hands and knees with a tool bag repairing a piece of equipment, that light bulb’s got to go off on the head of that line supervisor or manager.
Is lockout tagout in place? Having these types of conversations and engaging people at this level that we’ve discussed, enables that light bulb to light up and they’re going to have that conversation. Hey how’s lockout tagout going here? Hopefully the response is going to be, Oh, it’s going great.
I got my lock and tag right over here and Johnny’s with me and he’s got his lock and tag on that too. And it gives an opportunity for that supervisor or that manager to say, thank you. Great job. Positivity. That’s what helps establish a great atmosphere for safety. Call it a culture, call it the safety climate, whatever you do, but that really enables us to be preventing that next injury event. It’s not just the safety person that’s out there saying, do you have lockout tagout? Thank you very much. You have or coaching as necessary. That really helps have firing on all cylinders with respect to the safety atmosphere at the facility.
One of the things that leading organizations do is that they conduct safety culture surveys or sometimes they’re called employee perception surveys. One technique that I’ve used beyond doing surveys is having a conversation with a plant manager, line manager, supervisor, or lead. Sometimes we call people leads. Give the imagination, say, Hey listen, what would the results be if we did a survey and asked all the people that you’re responsible for. Let’s say this person’s name is John Doe and we sent the survey out. Is John Doe a safety advocate?
And they’re going to answer strongly agree, neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree. John Doe, how would your people respond? And again, this is a conversation I have, and I say if you think that the responses are going to come back and it’s going to be neutral or less, a pocket of people saying disagree, whether it’s because a person is, go load that truck, get that machine going, how many cases have we produced?
Versus somebody that’s known as a safety champion. And they’re having the right balance of conversations. That’s going to come back as a, I agree, John Doe is a safety advocate. He is a safety promoter. This is the type of conversation that you want to have as you’re working on advancing the word of safety in your role as an EHS professional or a safety professional. There are books that have been written titled Influence Without Authority. Safety professionals have no authority, we get influence. A lot of these people, they don’t report into safety but we certainly hold a tremendous leverage on influencing others to do the right thing and make the right decision to avoid that next injury.
That’s right. And I think the important conversation, especially with leadership is look, I’m not saying EHS for EHS’s sake. Just to have time on the calendar. When an employee feels that their manager not only cares about their performance and their role in the organization but also cares about their intrinsic human value.
And I care if you get hurt today, I care if this is a risky environment or not. If there are hazards here, if the controls have been improved. Just those human value things, that’s what books tell us too. EHS is linked to intrinsic psychological safety in the workplace. And if a leader doesn’t show care for that and for employees of theirs that have gotten hurt and doesn’t fix things and doesn’t ask and doesn’t have empathy, then they intrinsically don’t think that their leader cares about them as a person.
They can’t possibly care about my value. So it’s not EHS for EHS’s sake. It’s about the employees. And their value that they bring to the organization and the world.
Dave Crowley:
Amen to that all the way. It goes without saying in that environment that you described, if it’s not present, you can bet you’ll be spending a lot more time on incident investigation and speaking with the workers compensation insurance adjusters and all that. Better to be proactive and reduce that amount of your schedule accordingly.
Hilary Framke:
Exactly. Dave, we’re going to wrap up. Thank you so much for being a guest on my podcast. It has been amazing to discuss these topics with you from operationalized safety to collaboration with other functions, taking on more responsibilities to the story of your career. Thank you so much for your transparency and sharing that with all of our listeners.
Dave Crowley:
Great to be on the call.