At the core of Farallon’s mission are the environmental needs and business objectives of our clients. Derived from the Farallon Mission Statement are the firm’s corporate values, which underscore our commitment to quality work, professional ethics, employee enrichment, and community support.
Mission
To provide quality consulting services that enable our clients to define, understand, and mitigate environmental risks and achieve their project objectives.
Core Values
Farallon Consulting is committed to providing:
Superior Quality products and services that meet the business needs of our clients.
Principled Ethical Standards that establish credibility with our clients and the community.
Client Services that are responsive and have added value.
A Work Environment where the professional development of all employees is encouraged.
A Positive, Safe and Respectful Workplace that promotes teamwork and fun for all employees.
Active Support of the local community.
Health & Safety
Having an exemplary safety record is no accident at Farallon. Employee health and safety (H&S) is an important consideration for every Farallon project. The firm's comprehensive corporate H&S program demonstrates Farallon's proactive approach to employee protection.
Industry-Leading Safety Program
When Principal Engineer Richard McManus, P.E. assumed responsibility as the Farallon Health and Safety Coordinator, he brought more than two decades of experience in the engineering and construction industries and an accompanying awareness of the importance of job safety. He immediately began developing an H&S program that elevated safety practices far above the industry norm.
OSHA Requirements
Fulfilling safety requirements is never a token activity for Farallon, even when it comes to meeting basic OSHA Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Training Requirements. Rather than relying on off-site training companies to provide annual employee training, every year Farallon develops a new custom curriculum that addresses safety issues most pertinent to Farallon personnel, their specific work tasks, and evolving safety regulations and practices. The customized training classes are presented live in-house, allowing for group discussions, participant questions, and personal follow-up.
Site Safety
Because projects frequently take Farallon personnel to an excavation or construction site, recognizing the associated risks is crucial for safe conduct at the site. All Farallon field work is preceded by preparation of a site-specific Health and Safety Plan—reviewed and signed by McManus—identifying potential physcial and chemical hazards at the job site. McManus then discusses project work and related risks with the Farallon field staff selected for the job. At the job site, project personnel meet at the beginning of each workday to review the tasks to be performed, site conditions, equipment in use, concurrent site activities, and the safety protocols to be implemented under the various work scenarios anticipated. The importance of constant attentiveness to potential dangers and the proper response to them is underscored throughout the project.
Job safety extends to project subcontractors also. Farallon has reduced its pool of subcontracted firms to a select few who take work safety seriously and have a proven track record of successfully managing job risks.
Safety Plans
To address the many matters of safety inherent in project field work, Farallon has compiled a comprehensive Hazardous Waste Operations Plan detailing standard operational practices. Internal safety guidelines and administrative and supervisory responsibilities for implementing H&S activities are defined in the Corporate Health and Safety Plan.
Additional Safety Program Highlights
In-House Seminars
The dynamic nature of site safety necessitates recurrent updating of employee understanding of safety issues. To fill this need, Farallon regularly presents in-house seminars featuring relevant topics such as excavation, drilling, electrical, lockout/tagout, public utility locate, and driving safety to raise employee awareness of day-to-day risks in the field and prescribe steps to minimize them.
Supplementary Certifications
Several Farallon technical staff have undergone specialized training and earned safety certification qualifying them for work in unique environments such as oil refineries, railyards, and other facilities having industry-specific safety protocols.
Near-Miss Tracking
Farallon regularly records and tracks data on near-miss occurrences for internal educational purposes. A near miss is defined as an incident in which no personal injury or property damage took place, but where injury and/or damage could have occurred under slightly different circumstances. Logging the circumstances of each near-miss event exposes the innate dangers of a particular type of work or site location. An identified danger and the correct response to it are communicated to field staff to increase their awareness of site risks and what they can do to minimize risk. As part of annual employee safety training, Farallon reviews the near-miss incidents that occurred during the previous year to make sure everyone is aware of the risks involved in their work.
Perfect Safety Record
McManus' leadership and proactive stance on safety has paid off. During the 5 years he has administrated Farallon's H&S program, the firm has enjoyed a perfect safety record of zero lost-time injuries in 60,000 hours of field work annually. Farallon is continuing its commitment to safety by promoting a mindset of risk awareness and mitigation, to the benefit of employees, clients, and project partners alike.
Construction Support
Among the construction support services Farallon offers for property redevelopment projects are:
- Preparing contractor bid specifications;
- Managing the contractor bidding process;
- Providing construction quality assurance services; and
- Managing waste classification and segregation during construction.
For management of large-scale remediation and redevelopment projects, Farallon has experience in critical habitat areas, deep excavations, steep slope areas, protecting structures, erosion control, wastewater management, and segregation of contaminated soil concurrent with construction activities. Farallon's proficiency in integrating cleanup actions with redevelopment design and construction has both mitigated potential negative impacts such as construction delays, and increased project time- and cost efficiencies, facilitating timely completion of cleanup actions in conjunction with planned development activities.
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