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Monday, June 11, 2007

First Mobile Contractor Earns VPP Star Honor

A "mobile contractor" is a contractor who brings crews to various work sites. The workforce is not permanantly based on one work site, but works on maintenance and construction projects on multiple worksites.

Repcon Inc. in Corpus Christi, Texas became the first mobile contractor to receive OSHA's VPP STAR designation. The first mobile site to achieve VPP STAR status was PPL Electric Utilities in Pennsylvania in 2005, however Repcon is the first mobile contractor to achieve VPP STAR.

The Caller-Times in Corpus Christi reported:

"OSHA area director John Giefer said he hopes other companies follow in Repcon's footsteps now that OSHA has expanded the program to include mobile work sites."

"Before the mobile work site designation was established, Giefer said, only fixed sites such as refineries received Star status."

"OSHA wanted to tap into a large group of employees that were being neglected under (the Voluntary Protection Program's) previous regulations," Giefer said. "We started a partnership with Repcon in 2002 to see if we could establish a system where they could be honored."

Labels: VPP