This month, our “Inside Carolina Solar Services” piece features our Senior Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) Director, Frank Apodaca. Frank has been with CSS for more than seven years and in his current role for the majority of that time. Prior to joining CSS, Frank spent five years as a lineman conducting overhead and underground remediation, repairing storm damage, retrofitting lines and equipment, and learning about the energy industry. He then served as a DC central crew lead with Strata Solar before transitioning to serve as our Director of Electrical Services and then to his current role ensuring our company’s safe operation.
Question: What is your position at Carolina Solar Services? Describe a bit about what you do in that role.
As HSE Director, I oversee the safety aspect of how teams operate safely in the field, outlining safety programs, policies, and procedures in compliance with regulatory guidelines. I tailor safety strategies to suit the potential hazardous conditions on each specific solar site.
CSS is unique in that we operate with various hazards — not only the typical issues from solar operation and maintenance but also livestock hazards and challenges associated with landscape mowing and the uneven landscape hazards of a solar field. Each aspect of our work carries particular risks, and as a company, we are responsible for keeping our workers safe when they encounter these hazards. From the top down, CSS cares about all of our employees. It’s the duty and responsibility of both myself and our managers to ensure everyone stays safe by implementing programs, sharing knowledge, and keeping a caring eye on each other.
Question: What is a typical day for you?
My work is actually best described by the week. First, I’ll have one or two weeks of field auditing where I visit teams while they work. I typically show up unannounced to observe how things are going, look at job briefings, chat about safety issues of general concern, note if there are any noncompliance issues and correct them as soon as possible. I’ve found that one of the best things I can do is hang out as teams are working and chat with them for a while to get a feel for their safety mindset and a sense of what’s going on onsite.
I spend the rest of my time in the office, working on program updates, policy updates, and conducting incident investigations. As a company, we have no reportable safety incidents this year or last year, and we pride ourselves on maintaining this high standard. Reportables are an external marking from occupational safety and health agencies, and if any issues occur we try to catch them early and ensure teams report to us as soon as possible. No matter how minor an occurrence – for example like someone getting cut on a piece of equipment – I want to know about it. This way I can ensure that our teams have the best plan, personal protection equipment (PPE), and tools to keep them safe.
Incident investigations involve a thorough process with our case management team in which we collect extensive information and documentation. It is a labor-intensive process, but it should be; we want to know all of the details of what’s happening in the field so we can implement the best safety plan.
Question: How did you end up at CSS?
Following my work on the AC electrical utility grid side, I eventually came to CSS to serve as the Director of Electrical Services. After a little while, however, I switched over to working on safety. At that time, as a young company, CSS really needed that attention to safety as an evolving commercial solar O & M leader. This evolution also paralleled the regulatory growth in the DC solar industry.
I felt an affinity for the safety side of things because during linework, I unfortunately encountered situations where one coworker suffered severe injuries, and another passed away. These incidents really resonated with me at the time, and the impact of those experiences has never gone away. Transitioning into safety, I had the desire to ensure nothing like that ever happened to our workers. “Darn it, not on my watch!” I had field experience but didn’t know about the regulatory process, so I dove into learning about that guidance and how to manage safety adoption, implementing and planning. And so, ending up in my current role today.
Question: What’s something you have done at CSS that you are especially proud of?
As an overarching answer, it’s been a fantastic experience to move from the field side of work to a managerial role. I’ve learned a lot, and it has been an amazing experience to see Carolina Solar Services evolve as a company. Though there have been many challenges to work through, our growth has been extraordinary.
One big achievement I’d like to pinpoint has been becoming a SHARP designated company by North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health (OSH). OSH is the state-level version of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The state’s SHARP program is a prestigious safety and health designation, and CSS worked for two years to attain that recognition. It’s quite a remarkable achievement and distinguishes us from many companies in terms of our safety mindset and actions we take to ensure the well-being of our employees. We’ve been in the SHARP program for four years now, and I’m committed to ensuring that we uphold this standard.
As a HSE Director, the SHARP program has been a fantastic resource in helping me to improve in my role. It has provided great opportunities to collaborate with others focused on safety in this industry. Some people might view OSHA or OSH as just a procedural acronym, but in reality, these agencies are deeply informative. They have combed through reports on workers who have been severely injured or killed on the job. Their extensive research to create standards ensures that everyone gets home safely. Our SHARP recognition designates that we hold a strong relationship with OSH as our collaborative partners and our willingness to maintain the highest safety standard possible for our workers.
Question: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I guess I can distill down my role into a few key points. On a base level, my role is about communication—transmitting the message from regulatory agencies to our employees takes some practice. Communicating effectively to various workers means I have to know my audience, understand different behaviors, and learn how people absorb information. Everyone has their nuance to how they interpret and respond to information.
Ensuring effective communication to everyone has been a learning curve, but it’s so important. Safety is not a straight line. It’s really like an alternating current which has ranges—hard to balance, like a teeter-totter, and there’s always going to be some wobble. But my job is to communicate effectively enough in order to stabilize that wobble. I make sure we have defensive barriers and assurances in place to keep our field workers out of harm’s way.
I learn how our employees think, how they create positive behaviors toward safety. All of which fosters positive habits and overtime become instinctual. I want our workers to not just have actionable knowledge but in fact a safety instinct that permeates throughout the job.
Question: Thanks for chatting with us today! Before we wrap up, would you like to share anything about your life outside of work?
I’m an empty nester, with one son almost done with college and a daughter who is just starting. I love spending time with my children, and one of the joys in life is getting to know them. Ultimately, a personal goal would be to become a grandfather, if that’s in the cards!
Outside of family, I try to stay active in my spare time. Tennis was a passion throughout my high school years, and was able to play as a D1 athlete at St. Louis University. Those times were filled with so many great traveling and team experiences. I’ve enjoyed movement throughout my life, and have been studying martial arts for a long time now. Overall, I enjoy learning about how to live a healthy life.