In the brewing industry—and any industry, for that matter—safety comes first. But A-B Tech alumnus Jamie Reardon takes it a step further than that. To Jamie, to be mindful and prepared is to be safe. As a student of the Craft Beverage Institute of the Southeast program, he procured a job in maintenance at a large brewery south of Asheville (hint: we lovingly call it “Malt Disney” or “Brewj Mahal”). Add to that his background in the nuclear power and energy industries, and it’s no wonder that he does everything he can to be safe.

In this episode, Jamie and I discuss workplace safety and maintenance. We explore how keeping things clean impacts safety and maintenance. We discuss the importance of being proactive with safety, maintenance, and cleanliness. We also highlight the value of designing a facility to make it easy to implement safety and maintenance measures and underscore what it takes to cultivate a culture of safety.

This week on Consuming the Craft:

●     Why Personal Protective Equipment needs to function as the last line of defense in workplace safety

●     How standard operating procedures help protect and keep people safety

●     The financial impact of lost time accidents

●     How routine jobs can make us too complacent when it comes to safety

●     Why Jamie puts the names of his wife and kids on the back of his work gloves

●     The importance of cleanliness in breweries and distilleries

●     Quality assurance vs quality control

●     Booze Clues: vanilla-laden carbon-neutral rhum

●     The role of facility design in ease of maintenance

●     Why everyone should go through their equipment manuals

●     Environmental, health, and safety tenets and the two different parts of OSHA

Consuming the Craft

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of the Consuming the Craft Podcast, brought to you by AB Tech’s Craft Beverage Institute of the Southeast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

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To learn more about AB Tech and the Craft Beer Institute of the Southeast, visit our website.