Andrew Merryweather remembers, back when he was a teenager, watching his construction site co-workers strain under what seemed like constant pain.
Of course, at age 26, Merryweather is young and remembering isn't hard. But those years he worked as a mason left their impression, and drive him still.
"I saw how hard people worked and how poor working conditions led to injuries," Merryweather said. "I worked with a lot of people who had injuries. Back injuries, mostly. But all kinds. And these were 30-year-old guys who had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, who were in pain all the time. Their standard of living significantly decreased because of injuries, and for many of them, it could have been prevented."
Merryweather hopes to take his experience and put it to work, to help employers and workers reduce and prevent injuries. He is finishing his master's degree in mechanical engineering — with an emphasis on ergonomics and safety — at the University of Utah, and has started a doctoral program in occupational injury prevention and safety and ergonomics.
On June 1, the Dr. Paul S. Richards Safe Workplace Scholarship Program will award a total of $15,000 in scholarships to Merryweather and five other graduate students at the University of Utah's Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health.
"We thought that a very complementary program would be to establish a scholarship to benefit individuals who were going to go into the field of occupational health and safety, to promote a safer and healthier workplace and to prevent injuries and diseases," said Dennis Lloyd, general counsel at Workers Compensation Fund. Lloyd oversees the scholarship program.
"The U. of U. has a fairly unique program that does that, at the Rocky Mountain Center. So why not offer a scholarship to these students who would go out and improve the safety of Utah's workplaces?"
Workers Compensation Fund gives the annual scholarships to graduate students studying occupational medicine, safety and ergonomics and industrial hygiene at RMC. In its eight-year history, roughly $100,000 in scholarship money has been awarded.
This year, the program was renamed to honor Richards, a Utah physician who tended to miners and mining families in early-1900s Bingham and shone a light on important workplace safety and health issues. In 1941, Richards helped bring about the state's first Occupational Disease Disability Act.
"He was a real pioneer in occupational safety and health in Utah," Lloyd said. "He was among the first to promote the idea of 'safety first,' and injury prevention, a philosophy he had in the 1940s. It's a philosophy that is exactly on-point in 2005."
While serving at the Bingham Canyon hospital, Richards took notice of a small boy whose mother had died. His father was unable to care for him, so Richards took him in. The boy grew up in Richards' care and named his own son after the doctor. That boy, in turn, grew up to be one of the state's most formidable labor advocates, Utah Sen. Edward Paul Mayne, D-West Valley, president of the Utah AFL-CIO. Mayne also sponsored legislation this year that enabled continued funding for the Rocky Mountain Center.
From Richards to Mayne to Andrew Merryweather, the wheel turns and the path widens.
"As we see the world, and specifically as we look at work in the United States, health costs and insurance costs are increasing," Merryweather said. "Companies spend billions of dollars a year on workers compensation claims and helping treat injuries after they happen. I think that if we can have a healthier population, if we focus more on prevention, these injuries will decline, along with the expenses involved with these injuries. "
Which is a cause workers and employers can champion, Lloyd said.
"The scholarship program highlights one very important aspect: workplace health and safety is a topic that can unite employers and workers," Lloyd said. "Employers benefit by lower injury rates, lower absentee rates and insurance costs. Workers stay safe and remain injury free. Safety affects everyone."
The 2005 Dr. Paul S. Richards Safe Workplace Scholarship winners are Andrew Merryweather, Christiane Lan- tagne, Susanne Thobe, William Mecham, Jennifer Tolbert and John Kannas Jr. Workers Compensation Fund will honor these recipients, and celebrate National Safety Month, at a luncheon at noon Wednesday at the Grand America Hotel. The gala is the first of several events planned by Workers Compensation Fund during the monthlong focus on workplace safety. For more information, contact WCF at 801-288-8000.
E-mail: jnii@desnews.com