Safety Specialists Inc.

Owners: Giff Jordon,

Dwayne Kennedy, Dale Newberry, Shawn Price

Address: 2250 W. Sunset Ave., Suite #4, Springdale, 72756

Phone: 501-927-3600

Hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday-Friday

Start-up date: May 1

Companies in Northwest Arkansas have no excuse for failing to meet safety regulations now that Safety Specialists is around.

Using Occupational Safety and Health Administration codes, the four men running the new training center in Springdale take responsibility for teaching their clients the hazards specific to a line of work.

More than 7,000 pages of OSHA codes fill the federal registry, Safety Specialists owner Giff Jordan says. Rather than plowing through the mountains of regulations themselves, clients can hire Safety Specialists to tour the workplace and apply the codes.

Additionally, the specialists meet with the employers and employees to teach the regulations. Training the employees as well as the employers helps eliminate communication break-down, Jordon says.

A physical safety course and a seminar about recognizing business hazards help clients communicate within the company. First aid, hazardous material training and CPR are some of the techniques included in a course package. Actually going into the business to see the workplace works to create a tailored safety program for each company, Jordon says.

“People should do safety for the sake of safety, not just OSHA compliance,” Jordon says. He also says probably 98 percent of companies are currently out of compliance.

Expense could shy some companies away from the specialists as an initial appraisal is $500, and each person trained is another $50. Follow-up compliance is less involved, however, and mostly new codes are included.

July 13 will be Safety Specialists’ grand opening.