Leaders in Safety Award 2021 winner - AB Andrej Medvedev
We are pleased to announce AB Andrej Medvedev as winner of the Vroon Leaders in Safety (LiS) Award 2021. From over 28 nominees, a shortlist of 10 was chosen, with the final winner being selected by the Vroon Group Managing Board. All 2021 nominations described excellent examples of intervention and/or safety leadership across the Company and pay witness to the continuing success of our Company-wide Leaders in Safety (LiS) programme.
In a change from previous years, AB Andrej Medvedev receives the Award not for a single action of intervention, but for his guidance and leadership in safety throughout his time on board our offshore-support vessels.
Andrej is another very worthy winner of our Leaders in Safety Award. Having worked at sea for more than 35 years, he has been with Vroon since March 2015 and joined his current vessel (Den-Helder-managed platform-supply vessel VOS Passion) two years ago. He is renowned and respected for his exemplary leadership and delivery of high-quality results. Andrej makes continuous efforts to improve and nurture the safety culture on board. He is particularly successful in taking care of any new deckhands (“Green hands”), educating and coaching them to carry out their duties independently and in a safe manner. Alongside his impeccable attitude to safety on board, he never forgets the importance of physical and mental wellbeing for all crew members.
On Tuesday 15 March, during an Aberdeen port call, VOS Aberdeen Managing Director Stuart Thom visited VOS Passion on behalf of the VOS Den Helder team. Andrej, who was surprised and delighted to hear that he was the 2021 winner, was presented with a Delft Blue commemorative plate by Stuart. In addition, he will receive USD 2,500 and an additional USD 2,500 will be donated to a charity of his choice.
Many congratulations, Andrej, and a huge thank you for your contributions to a safe working place on board. Our appreciation also go to his colleagues at sea and in the Den Helder office who took the time to recognise his contributions and nominate him for this Award.
About the “Leaders in Safety – Programme”
Every accident is one too many. At Vroon we truly believe that if we work together it is possible to create an incident-free working environment, where we all return home safe and healthy after duty, to the ones we care for most.
We strive to make our vessels and workplaces safe places to be. This, in an industry that is inherently dangerous and where we are surrounded by hazards on a day-to-day basis. After any incident, we investigate what happened and what we should do to prevent a future reoccurrence.
We believe that by learning collectively we can prevent all significant incidents. In order to continue our journey towards a safer working place, we must apply safe ways of working and actively target behaviour. Our work in this area is never finished, as we must constantly improve our safety performance. As our environment changes, we need to adapt and change our awareness. We motivate each and every person to contribute towards the growth of a culture where working safely is a constant; working unsafely is simply unacceptable!
At Vroon, we believe in this long-term cultural change process and we expect all, management and employees alike, to fully support this process. Our LiS programme has been successfully running since 2013. Through active participation and improved safety awareness, we are seeing that incidents can be prevented. The QHSE statistics confirm that our LiS programme really does bring results, with a significant reduction in incidents over recent years.