At their head office in Oakville, which was attended by over 100 people from Tandet, Northbridge Insurance and Westland Insurance, Tandet celebrated being recognized with the first ever Northbridge Insurance Fleet Safety Award for 2021. The celebration – like many other things – was delayed due to the pandemic twice in 2021, amid restrictions on large gatherings.
The Award was the first of its kind for Northbridge, in recognizing the safest operators in their stable of customers. The Award was the culmination of years long efforts by Northbridge to develop and establish a series of Best Practices for trucking operators. The program was a great success bringing improved performance for many fleets that worked through the processes with Northbridge personnel. The investment in “getting better” made by both the insurer and the fleet, paid dividends to both.
Tandet was able to utilize the services of the Northbridge team, along with developing and generating better practices of their own, to get to a place that recognized top safety performance. As such, Tandet celebrated the second year of the Award, by being recognized on that day as also winning the Ontario Region Safety Award for 2022, as the top performer. The National Award, based on the four regional finalists, will be announced in the Fall of 2022.
“Northbridge has been a great partner for Tandet for the last 25 years,” said Scott Tilley, President at Tandet. “We have safety as one of our core values, for the protection of our people, our customers and the general public, with which we share the roadways across North America. We have grown substantially, but this core value has never been lost. It is great to be recognized by Northbridge as one of the best, and “the best” in 2021 and 2022.”
This was not a short-term process for Tandet, as they have also participated in the National Tank Truck Carriers safety recognition program for many years. NTTC is an organization focused on safety and includes the safest of the tank fleets throughout North America. Tandet has realized the top spot in their mileage category (which started in the under 3 million mile class) 10 times since 2005, and been second 4 other times. They have been the winner of the Personnel Safety award in their mileage category 12 times. In 2019 they were recognized as the Safest Tank Fleet in North America, for all fleet operating under 15 million miles, in the Sutherland Division. Dave Herdman, who has been with Tandet over 30 years, was recognized as the Fleet Safety professional of the year in 2019. They now compete in the Harvison Division, for fleets over 15 million miles, coming second in each of the last 2 years.
“I’m very proud to be a part of a very successful and safety focused operation,” said Ryan Tilley, VP Trucking Operations, at the event celebration, “Our teams get the idea and work very hard to make sure we can be at our best every day. Being recognized as safe is not the goal. Getting everyone home safe every day, day after day, is the goal. The Award is simply “icing on the cake”. Really nice icing.
As Tilley summed it up, “Tandet’s firm commitment to safety, when recognized, is a reaffirmation that we are doing the right things. But our people and our customers, many of which have been with us for over 20 years, are there in part because we are safety focused. And typically, safe fleets are well operated fleets, because they pay attention to the details. Our people do – and always will.”
OTA member carriers who wish to have similar awards highlighted by OTA should contact marco.beghetto@ontruck.org