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Annual Safety Leadership Award celebrates 10 years
By Bruce Walton
HOWLAND
Magna Seating of Lords-town was the winner of the 10th annual Joan Kovach Safety Leadership Award, given to a company that has proven to be a leader in safety training, operations, funding and communications.
Magna Seating manufactures car seats for General Motors.
Jennifer Darnell, the company’s human-resources manager who accepted the award, said, “This award does mean so much to us. We are truly honored, and just couldn’t thank you enough.”
The Wednesday afternoon luncheon event took place at Leo’s Ristorante hosted by the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber’s Mahoning Valley Safety Council and City Machine Technologies Inc.
The other companies nominated for the safety leadership award – Austinwoods Health Care Center, Berk Enterprises, Kirila Contractors and Prout Boiler – received honorable mentions. This is the 10th year the safety award was presented.
The award is named after the late Joan Kovach, one of the founding members of the safety council, who died in 2006.
Joan and her husband, Michael J. Kovach Jr., started, owned and operated City Machine since 1985.
The Spirit of Safety Award was presented for the first time to Joan’s daughter, Claudia Kovach, vice president of City Machine. She described her mother as a woman who cared deeply about her employees, treating them like family.
“I think everybody here wants to keep their employees safe,” Claudia Kovach said. “They want to have the community drink clean water and breathe fresh air, and these companies really work extremely hard to make sure that everyone comes home at night with 10 fingers and 10 toes. And that’s something to celebrate.”
Also, the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation distributed about 150 of its own safety awards issued by its training arm, the Division of Safety and Hygiene, to those in attendance who exemplified safety, leadership and care for their employees.