This NB Startup Wants to Change How Companies Approach Electrical Safety
SAINT JOHN – Back in January, around 430 people lost their jobs when PotashCorp’s Picadilly mine closed down.
Many of those people chose to find other work whether it be in New Brunswick or elsewhere. Some moved to continue employment with PotashCorp at another one of its locations. Some are still trying to figure out what to do next.
But electrical engineers Yevgen Yevsyeyev and Jonathan Travis decided to take a different route: entrepreneurship.
At PotashCorp, the two men were working in projects and maintenance. Safety had always been at the forefront in the company, yet they found a lot of the electrical safety courses offered by third parties were too generic. So using the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) guidelines, Yevsyeyev and Travis decided helped the Picadilly mine create its own electrical safety training program that was tailored to its specific needs.
“We decided if we really want to be good, then we have to do it ourselves, or nobody will come into our facility and really be able to provide the safety that we need. It will just be general safety,” Yevsyeyev says. “There was always a gap between the training that people get and how that training is applied into our everyday workplace.”
Their program was successful and Yevsyeyev and Travis established themselves as the mine’s safety experts.
But when the mine closed, the two were left with a big decision. They could easily find jobs elsewhere, but that would mean giving up the safety culture they created at PotashCorp. They saw an opportunity to bring the tailored, practical electrical safety training they brought to the mine to other industrial sites as well.
The following month in February they registered their company: Leaf Electrical Safety. For Yevsyeyev, entrepreneurship was a risk worth taking.
“Once you establish yourself within an organization, then going back and starting fresh from somewhere else is difficult. You’re kind of starting fresh. It’s not a problem, but at the same time it’s almost feels like taking a step back,” he says. “You can start fresh, but you can maybe start something bigger. That was the biggest driver.”
Shortly after registering, they started consulting and training at different industrial sites across the province.
“We didn’t want to recite the standards and just educate people on safety in general. We wanted to do more,” Yevsyeyev says. “We wanted to cater to the clients. We really wanted to learn about the site and about the people so we could really make a difference an impact on their safety.”
When the duo come on-site, they learn about the company’s equipment, practices, their challenges and where they fit on what Yevsyeyev calls the “wide spectrum of safety.”
“Then depending on that we can cater to them. We could adjust our training practices,” he says. “We can recommend certain procedures that would work better for them in a particular situation.”
After getting consultations and training sessions (mostly in the pulp and paper industry) under their belt, Leaf Electrical Safety now has their proof of concept. They now plan to expand their services and client base by going online. They are currently working with Saint John’s Vennture Garage to create online courses and programs, which are expected to be released in early 2017.
“It will be a wide selection of training offered online with the potential for custom training sessions for customers who need and want that,” Yevsyeyev says. “We’ll also be doing some safety program consulting online.”
Leaf’s target customers are basically any big industrial sites in Canada. Once they launch their online training system, they will then target the Maritimes, then the rest of Canada.
“I think the first launch of the online training, we’ll be marketing in the Maritimes. This is our home … That will always be our focus, that we have a safer culture here in the Maritimes and help everybody out,” Yevsyeyev says. “But of course we’d make sure it’s also applicable and available Canada-wide and U.S. as well.”