NSSGA names Excellence award winners

The NSSGA revealed the winners of its Safety, Environmental and Community Relations Excellence awards as well as the recipients of its National Stars of Excellence.

The awards program recognizes aggregates operations throughout the United States and Canada for their extraordinary commitment to safety, superior performance as environmental stewards and community involvement and support activities that enhanced the image of the aggregates industry in 2012-2013. The National Stars of Excellence is the association’s top honor and recognizes operations that accumulate Gold awards in Safety, Environmental or Community Relations over five years.

“The 2013 entries were impressive,” says NSSGA President and CEO Michael Johnson. “We had the strongest participation in years for the NSSGA Safety, Environment and Community Relations Awards Program, as applications increased by 57 percent compared with 2012.”

The NSSGA will present the awards March 4 at its annual convention in Las Vegas, Nev.

Two Stars of Excellence recipients will be honored: Grove Stone and Sand Co., Hedrick Industries, Black Mountain, N.C. and Tilcon/Mt. Hope Quarry, Tilcon New York Inc., an Oldcastle company, Wharton, N.J.

Three Gold Safety Excellence award winners will be recognized: Tilcon Connecticut Inc., an Oldcastle company, Southington Sand and Pit, Southington, Conn. in the small producer category; Vulcan Materials Co., Dalton Quarry, Dalton, Ga. in the medium-sized producer category; and Martin Marietta Materials, Kentucky Avenue Mine, Carmel, Ind. in the large producer category.

Three Sterling Safety award winners will be acknowledged: Iddings Quarry Inc., Mifflinburg, Pa. in the small producer category; Aggregates Industries, Bedford, Mass. in the medium-sized producer category; and CalPortland Co., Glendora, Calif. in the large producer category.

Eight Environment award winners will be honored: Balcones Quarry, CEMEX, New Braunfels, Texas; Beckman Quarry, Martin Marietta Materials, San Antonio, Texas;
Charlottesville Plant, Luck Stone, Charlottesville, Va.;
La Luz Sand & Gravel Mine, CEMEX, La Luz, N.M.;
McKelligon Canyon Quarry, CEMEX, El Paso, Texas;
Tilcon/Mt. Hope Quarry, Tilcon New York Inc., an Oldcastle company, Mt. Hope, N.J.;
Onoway Aggregates, Lafarge Canada, Onoway, Alberta; and
Rutherford Quarry, Rogers Group Inc., Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Eight Community Relations awards will be handed out to: Stoneco Inc. Auglaize Quarry, The Shelly Company, an Oldcastle company, Oakwood, Ohio;
Brooksville Quarry, CEMEX, Brooksville, Fla.;
Grove Stone and Sand Co., Hedrick Industries, Black Mountain, N.C.; Tilcon/Haverstraw Quarry, Tilcon New York Inc., an Oldcastle company, Haverstraw, N.Y.;
Manassas Quarry, Vulcan Materials Co., Manassas, Va.;
Tilcon/Oxford Quarry, Tilcon New York Inc., an Oldcastle company, Oxford, N.J.;
Stoneco Inc. Scott Quarry, The Shelly Company, an Oldcastle company, Convoy, Ohio; and Whites Creek Quarry, Rogers Group Inc., Gallatin, Tenn.

NSSGA launched its National Stars of Excellence Program in 2001 for operations earning two or more of any of the following gold awards over a five-year period: Safety Excellence, Environmental Excellence and Excellence in Community Relations. Each operation is awarded a number of stars corresponding to the number of Gold Awards won. A Three-Star Award winner is NSSGA’s Sustainability Award recipient – the highest award that can be achieved by an operation from the association.

It created the Sterling Safety Award in 1994 to recognize the companies that have the lowest total accident incidence rate for the previous year in their category among NSSGA member companies. It created the Safety Excellence Program in 1987 to promote safe working conditions and practices and to recognize, on an annual basis, individual operations with exemplary safety records among NSSGA member companies.

The organization created the Environmental Excellence Awards Program in 1992 to provide national recognition for aggregate producers that meet and exceed technical, environmental and regulatory requirements.

NSSGA created the Excellence in Community Relations Program in 1989 to recognize aggregate producers whose community involvement and support activities have enhanced the public’s perception of the aggregates industry in general and the public image of the individual producer’s aggregate operation in particular.