Tech Safety Lines: GWO Training Experts

Diane Waghorne, founder of Tech Safety Lines (TSL), and instructor
Matt Wehrle explain their approach to wind technician safety
training. Allen and Joel had the pleasure of visiting their
excellent facility in Dallas, Texas and discuss their impact on the
industry. Drawing on expertise from fire and rescue professionals,
TSL prepares technicians for high-stress rescue scenarios. The
company's global recognition for providing top-quality training is
evidenced by their GWO Training Team of the Americas Award. TSL
initially began with selling the military compact descender and has
recently had their SRK rescue kit certified to ANSI Z359.9
standards. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email
update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored
by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather
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www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host,
Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. Today, we're diving
into a crucial topic that affects every professional in our
industry, and that's training. As the wind energy sector continues
to grow rapidly, the need for standardized high quality safety
training has never been more critical. GWO training has become the
gold standard for ensuring that the wind industry professionals are
equipped with the essential skills and knowledge to work safely and
efficiently. Our guest today is Diane Waghorn, president and CEO of
Tech Safety Lines, and Matt Wehrle, Tech Safety Lines instructor as
well as a firefighter and paramedic. Tech Safety Lines is based in
Dallas, Texas. And from their founding, Tech Safety Lines has been
focused on safety through their start with the Military Compact
Descender, to a series of safety products, and now with GWO
training, Tech Safety Lines is a leader in wind energy safety. In
fact, Tech Safety Lines recently received the GWO Training Team of
the Year Americas Award. Diane and Matt, welcome to the show. Thank
you for having us. This is exciting because Joel and I visited the
tech safety lines facility a little while ago and we're just super
impressed. I don't know how else to describe Joel Saxum: it, Joel.
Yeah, blown away. It was a great facility. Yeah, from the time, we
met Diane when we walked in to everybody that we ran into in the
facility, shaking hands, Hi, nice to meet you. Who are you guys?
Welcome in. Let's show you this. Let's show you that. Everything
clean, ready to go. It was an impressive facility, to say the
least. Diane Waghorne: Oh, thank you so much. We're very proud of
our facility and we just welcome visitors and I'm glad you had a
good time seeing our facility and allowing us the opportunity to
share our instructors with you. It was just a great time. Allen
Hall: Diane, I think we ought to start with A little bit of your
history, because it is so unique to the industry. You really got
your start after 9 11 with something called the military compact
descender. You want to just touch on how that all got kicked off?
Diane Waghorne: I'd be happy to, um, when 9 11 happened during that
time period, I was a stay at home mom. And I've been a business
major in college, but then when I had my children, I wanted to stay
home with them. And when 9 11 happened, my son was in college and
my daughter just turned 16 and got her driver's license. If I was
ever going to go back into the workforce, that was a good time for
me. And when I witnessed what happened with horror, as we all did,
we just could not believe what we were seeing on our televisions. I
just had this gut feeling that there could have been something,
there had to be something. And I thought, the United States
military, surely they had something. So I, we had Google back then
and you, you start networking and I heard of a product called the
Military Combat Descender. And back then it was only on paper. But
Cape Roads is a military manufacturing plant in Connecticut, and
they were tasked with finding a way for our servicemen to descend
with one hand and have their weapon hand ready. And It was on this
miraculous rope that was very small. Back then it was only a three
millimeter rope. I think Fort Bragg may still have that three
millimeter rope, but I visited with them, I flew out to see them,
and it was really astonishing they even gave me an interview,
because you just don't do that, a housewife from Dallas, Texas, but
back then no one trusted anybody, so they said I could come out.
And I think I got on a plane with only 2 other people on the plane.
This was about 3 weeks after 9, 11, if we can remember those days,
and I just met with them and said, look, I've heard of this
military compact to sender my only ask is that when it's available
now, please bring it to the SWAT leaders and the firefighters in my
state of Texas. And that's how it started. I started off my kitchen
table. I became a distributor for them. I started doing different.
SWAT shut us, but then. Meeting different people and started making
some sales. Then long story short, I ended up buying the patent and
brought the manufacturing here in Texas. And now I owe my husband
some money because I bought this patent from the Rockefeller
family. And I say, okay, what am I going to do now? So I went after
the largest construction company in the world. I went after Bechtel
and they saw the product. They loved the product. And they said
you're going to have to train in order for us to provide, this to
our people. Again, I'm a state home mom, and I did not know
anything about training. I went to the city of Dallas and asked to
speak to the chief, who would not see me, and passed the note to
the captain Captain Brent Wise. And I made a batch of homemade
chocolate chip cookies. I went to the I popped open my Tupperware
and that's how we all got started. He's a top notch holland. We
wrote the curriculum and we became the seventh company globally
authorized to train for Bechtel. So we've been to Angola, Africa,
to LNG plants. The company now, I believe we have 40, 000 square
feet of training here. I believe I'm in 35 different countries. We
have over 50, 000 military combat dissenters. People often say, how
the heck did this happen? To me, we all have most of us have
someone to me is a superior force. I, I don't take credit for this.
I was guided to this and I'm very passionate about this and I'm
very dedicated. I really don't even think that I work. I think it's
just such a miracle that I am blessed to be with great people like
Matt Wehrle is one of our instructors. He's on the city of Dallas.
He's on the Urban Search and Rescue, Task Force One, and all of
that. And part of being a business owner is to be smart enough to
surround yourself by great people. And so I have Matt, and I have
so many great people here. But I'd love for Matt to be able to tell
you a little bit more about the training because the training is
really what sets us apart. Yes, we have a great equipment. There's
other great equipment out there, but it's really the training, I
think, is the importance of making sure that your employees get the
right training, the proper training. To ensure that they go home to
their families every day, just like we get to when they should be
able to as well. Allen Hall: I think that's where tech safety lines
may differ from a lot of other manufacturers of equipment, of
safety equipment, right? That the manufacturers of safety equipment
are not really in the training business, so to speak. But you have
taken a slightly different approach where you have a, now a series
of safety products that if you go to techsafetylines. com, you can
just check them out online. That website is exceptional, so it's
easy to see and browse through. But the more important piece of
this is getting trained in that equipment and to know what to do in
an emergency situation. And that's where Matt comes in, that, Dad,
you brought in some real experts, people that, that work in
emergency services to train the WIND technicians in particular, of
all the things to think about or be prepared for when an emergency
situation happens. When Joel and I visited, that's why we were so
impressed. Everybody we met either had come from a fire or
ambulance or some sort of situation like that. And that's an
everyday event for fire rescue people. And that's why Matt's so
important here. And Matt. When you bring people into your training
program, you're just not showing them how to clip on a harness,
right? You're trying to provide them more instructions on what to
be aware of, right? Matt Wehrle: Yeah, absolutely. There's so much
more that goes into the rescue, the training, the aspect of what's
the implementation of that when this event actually goes down in
the field. I think we've often taken training for granted. Just,
name, whatever training you've been to, we've all been to some form
of training. We've got lists of it. Yeah, hands up, right? We've
all done it. It's check the box. I'll show you how to do this. It's
more of a monkey see monkey do. You did it. Great. You move on. We
like to train more of a cultural aspect, right? And that all starts
from the top gallery. Talked about the facility, how Diane sets the
stage for our culture here. And that trickle down effect happens
through our instructors. And then once we get to the floor and we
get training with the students, the idea is not just. ABC and D
move on down the road. The idea is how do we train that theoretical
approach? So nine, 10, 12, two years, months from now,