Published: January 17, 2008 11:19 pm            

Safety business brings rewards

Co-founder inspired by family to make dream a reality

GREENUP — Todd Eastham says he is living the dream of every American business owner.

Eastham, a co-founder of McCulley, Eastham & Associates with headquarters in Greenup as well as Muscatine, Iowa, got started with little more than a small loan from his grandmother. Looking back to the first days in business, the former millwright said he was motivated by members of his own family who worked in several different trades.

A strong work ethic alone, however, won’t get you far when looking for money to start a new business, he said.

“When I first decided to start a company. I went to the banks and I couldn’t get any help. My grandmother gave me $5,000 and I knew it was sink or swim,” he said, later adding, “It has gone well beyond where I ever thought it would go.”

It hasn’t been any easy job, or one without heartaches.

Eastham and Matt McCulley decided the name with the flip of a coin in 1996. Their first job, he said, was in a gold mine and they have since grown to essentially set the standard for quality in the safety industry.

The local firm’s associates have found their way around the world to work for tiny companies, massive corporations, military installations and federal government offices, among others. Future jobs await in Russia, Korea, Peru, “and danged near every state,” Eastham said, with work ongoing in England, Scotland and Canada among other locations.

“We’ve got a lot of interesting, interesting clients. That’s what makes our jobs so interesting — dealing with different people and situations all the time,” he said.

Even though a simple description of the fundamental job at McCulley, Eastham & Associates can be complex, the bottom line is safety.

“It has always been hard for me to describe what we do. We do safety,” Eastham said, explaining the broad range of fields they have trained intensely to understand.

The company’s essential slogan is “Making Safety Simple.” With 40 to 50 full- and part-time employees, their tasks are divided into different divisions to meet their clients’ needs as defined by state and federal safety laws and practices. The jobs range from teaching people the basics of staying safe in the workplace to advanced training for working with specific substances and circumstances, and dealing with legal aspects of workplace safety.

Their tools are as simple as instruction manuals and as complex as computers and portable simulators they use to teach safety in confined spaces, at high-angles and other potentially lethal circumstances. Their shops house everything from fast-attack trucks to an array of detectors, sensors, radios and other specialized equipment.

The quality of the training they provide, Eastham said, remains the key to their claim as an industry leader.

“That quality is what people want. We often go back and retrain people who previously got ‘low bid’ training. We don’t just pop the video in,” he said, joking that those training tapes tend to provide little more than a quick passage to sleep. “We give people opportunities to make mistakes in a controlled situation. Putting your hands on it is worth a lot more than watching a video.”

Timing and talent, Eastham said, have a lot to do with their success.

“I found a niche and I got in at the right time,” he said, explaining the company has evolved as safety regulations and training evolved and were adopted in this country and around the world. They have also been quick to recruit people who are the best at what they do, he said.

“We still believe we can make a difference in people’s lives. We did a recent training that I know saved three lives. We put more time and training to our employees than any other company in this business and I can back that up. We’re the gold standard. We’re the highest in the business around here,” Eastham said.

“Clients want a company to give all their heart, all their core and all their soul. Our clients are our friends. We don’t charge them for phone calls and faxes. We don’t want to let a friend down. We’re real passionate about what we do. A lot of times, we’re there to protect people from themselves,” he said.

With growth in the 50 to 60 percent range in recent years, Eastham said he will always remember the people who got them to where they are today. Notably among those was his friend and partner Mark Vockery.

“I remember when we were right there at the turning point. When it was myself and Mark (Vockery). It takes so long to get name recognition and we were doing everything we could to drum up business. I recall talking to him about finding another job. The next day Pikeville College called and it has been good since,” he said, suddenly becoming quiet before adding, “We thought we would never recover when we lost Mark.”

Mark Vockery was the first full-time consultant Eastham hired, and an absolute asset to the company, he said. Vockery and his wife, Laura, traveled to Costa Rica to celebrate their first anniversary. The couple chartered a fishing boat while there and were never seen again.

“He was very charismatic. He was one of those guys who was one in a million. He was an avid outdoorsman and just a very likable person. All our clients loved him,” Eastham said, explaining Vockery quickly became friends with many clients and often spent personal time with them.

Eastham said he and partners Jonathan Pennington and John Miller say employee involvement remains a priority for the company.

“From the start we wanted employee ownership,” Eastham said. “This whole company is one big family. Nobody is too big or too small to take out trash or mow the grass.”

“It’s a philosophy of ours. We want everyone to take ownership and allow them opportunity to advance,” Pennington added. “We try to take a different approach. We try to be servant leaders.”

TIM PRESTON can be reached at tpreston@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2651.

        

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