February 24, 2010

ITC Construction's Jeff Lyth is volunteering as the regional safety manager for Vancouver's Olympic Venues.

2010 Vancouver Olympics

ITC Construction lends health and safety director to Winter Games

RICHARD GILBERT

staff writer

The person in charge of safety with a local construction firm is monitoring Olympic venue safety in Vancouver as a volunteer. “There are a lot of parallels between the structure of a construction company with multiple sites and VANOC with several venues,” said Jeff Lyth, director of health and safety with ITC Construction Group.

“I make sure the systems that are in place are functioning properly. The Olympics is a massive undertaking and there is a lot going on behind the scenes.”

ITC Construction donated Lyth to VANOC for the duration of the Olympics, which run until Feb. 28.

He started work on Feb 13, after picking up a back pack with air monitoring equipment to test venues with internal combustion engines.

“I roam and liaise with the safety person dedicated to each venue,” he said.

“The job of a regional safety manager is being an extra set of eyes and ears roaming around multiple venues. If any member of the workforce is injured, we conduct an investigation and see if we can prevent that (type of) occurrence.”

Lyth said there are five people responsible for assisting in the investigation of incidents and conducting inspections for all the venues except Whistler.

“This includes all competition and non-competition venues, such as media centres, hotels, airports,” he said. “We need to go wherever VANOC has people working. The only place we are not allowed to go is the field of play.”

Lyth said that ITC responded to VANOC’s request for the private sector to donate more than 1,500 highly skilled workers to help them run the 2010 Winter Games.

He said he is grateful that he has been given this opportunity and is proud to be involved and part of the Olympic Spirit.

“This is a really good opportunity for us and Jeff,” said Doug MacFarlane, ITC executive vice president and COO.

“He gets to see some different safety processes and how an event like this is managed.”

According to MacFarlane, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games has a new management and safety philosophy and an extremely large safety department.

“This is a huge event and some of the people they brought in have a different perspective,” he said.

“Jeff will have an opportunity to see what can be brought back to the construction world.”

ITC Group of Companies specializes in the construction of concrete residential high rises in urban centres and has built projects throughout British Columbia, and in Calgary and Seattle.

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