1,174 Years and Counting

Last spring, you may recall a Spirit article about Floyd Koester of Gateway FS, Inc. who acheived a new System milestone in safe driving - 43 consecutive years. Floyd recently retired, but I'm told that another Gateway employee, Robert DuFrenne, recently marked his 43rd year of safe driving as well.

When I looked a little closer at the spreadsheet provided by the Safety and Insurance Services Division, I realized that Gateway has a whole fleet of safe drivers. Dave Rippelmeyer has 39 years, Mike Kuhn, 38; James Reinhold, Roger Liefer, and Dale Heller each have 36; Randy Osterhage has 35; and the list goes on.

I grabbed my handy caculator and did a little math and discovered that the 65 drivers at Gateway have a combined total of 1,174 years of preventable accident-free driving, an average of 18 years per driver. Remarkable!

I'm certain that other member cooperatives could boast of similar safety records. I think that's due in part to the top-notch safety training provided through the GROWMARK System. But I also believe that some behaviors can't be learned in a classroom - that it takes a certain kind of person to put safety first and be aware while on the job, driving or not. From what I've seen, our member cooperatives do a great job of finding those kind of people. Keep up the good work!