National Safety Council Honors Liberty Mutual; Says on Workplace Issues, CEO Kelly ‘Gets It’
The National Safety Council will present its 2005 Green Cross for Safety Medallion to Liberty Mutual Group and its Chairman, President and CEO Edmund F. (Ted) Kelly at this evening.
Established in 1999, The Green Cross for Safety award recognizes organizations and their leaders for outstanding achievements in safety and health, community service and responsible citizenship. An organization and its leadership must demonstrate a superior record in advancing safety and health practices consistent with the mission of the National Safety Council to be considered for the award.
In discussing the award, NSC President and CEO Alan C. McMillan traced the origins of both organizations to the early 1900s when work injuries and deaths were considered a cost of progress.
“The National Safety Council emerged out of a movement initiated by a small but growing group of safety leaders representing government, industry, insurance and others,” McMillan said. “Liberty Mutual was among those early safety leaders and is in fact one of the Council’s original charter members.”
According to McMillan, The National Safety Council has it as a priority to compel business leaders from all industries to embrace safety as a core corporate value. “The Green Cross for Safety Award, which symbolizes and recognizes corporate citizenship, is just one way we do this,” he said.
McMillan praised Liberty Mutual’s Kelly for his vision and leadership calling Kelly a “CEO who gets it.”
“There are three characteristics of a “CEO who gets it,” McMillan said. “They take safety and health personally; they include safety as a core corporate value; and they recognize that good safety performance is good business. Or,” he said, “in the words of Ted Kelly, ‘it drives everything we do.'”
Liberty Mutual is the sixth recipient of the National Safety Council’s most prestigious award. Previous honorees are AK Steel Corporation, Intel Corporation, Ryder System, Inc., Kenny Construction Company, and DaimlerChrysler.