A Face in the Crowd: John Tignor Makes Safety a Priority
What do you do with your vacation time? Take a trip to the beach? Get some much needed house/yard work done? Go see family? John Tignor, corporate director of health, safety, and security for Smithfield Foods, used his vacation time just a couple weeks ago to help the victims of the recent tornadoes in Joplin, Missouri. John has spent the majority of his life involved in emergency medical care and response, and has a passion for helping people receive high quality care when injuries or emergencies occur, but also for ensuring that these types of injuries happen as infrequently as possible here at Smithfield Foods.
Best described as a high-energy individual, John is involved in almost every aspect of safety imaginable, both here at Smithfield and in his personal life. When he isn’t flying around the country doing safety inspection audits till the wee hours in the morning for one of our facilities, he is serving his community with one of his many certifications. He is certified in areas of law enforcement, fire fighting, Hazmat, counter-terrorism, and paramedics. Additionally he serves on safety boards/councils both locally and nationally. Tignor also was one of the folks that responded to Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks.
Here at Smithfield, his job is to ensure that our employees are safe and that injuries are as infrequent as possible. However, he also ensures that they receive the best possible quality of care if these injuries do happen.
He has seen change in the way Smithfield manages employee safety over the five years he’s been part of the company.
“When I was being interviewed for the job, Larry Pope told me that employee safety was more important than our biggest customer, ” Tignor said. “I’ve seen it become an even bigger priority now through the implementation of the EIPMS (Employee Injury Prevention Management System).”
Tignor has big dreams for the safety program at Smithfield, including the company’s participation in the OSHA VPP (voluntary protection program) Corporate Pilot Program, which according to the U.S. Department of Labor Web site is designed for organizations that “demonstrate a strong commitment to employee safety and health and VPP.” Tignor sees that program as the ultimate prize for Smithfield’s safety efforts. “It’s a lofty goal, but I think we can get there.”
