August 16, 2024
By Lane Kimble
FRANKLIN, Wis. — The anticipation was building.
“You may be able to feel the air blast, like a thunderstorm.”
A few seconds later a puff of rock, dust, and debris expanded in the distance, then came a low audible thud and a slight breeze.
Brian Endres turned to his guests and smiled.
“Boring is good,” the Walbec Group Vice President said, pleased with another flawless and controlled mining blast.
Endres’ high profile guests – Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su, Assistant Secretary of Labor Mine Safety Chris Williamson, and their federal entourage – seemed impressed, peppering him and other company leaders with questions showing their interest in a key element of road and infrastructure building.
“To see the sheer size of this is really incredible,” Su remarked.
The blast was one of many fascinating and eye-opening moments during an hour-long tour Wednesday of Walbec Group’s huge Franklin Quarry in Milwaukee County.
Su was particularly impressed with Walbec’s commitment to worker safety. Each attendee received a small “I commit to safety” coin, which empowers any employee–regardless of rank or tenure–to report if they notice something isn’t right.
“The idea that any worker can speak up and stop operations if there’s a safety issue is really, really important,” Su said. “I think too often employees hear the message that the work takes precedence. Here, safety takes precedence. That was really neat to see first-hand.”
Endres and his Walbec team also pride themselves on being good neighbors.
They communicate regularly with people who live and work in the area, use four seismographs to monitor shaking, and always blast well below regulation levels.
When the site has served its purpose, reclamation plans include a public park with a 250-acre lake.
“That’s one of the (many) things we do on purpose,” Endres said. “If people don’t know we’re here, that’s a good thing. We’re doing what you’d want us to do if you lived around a site like this.”
Walbec’s quarry is busy, supplying its handful of subsidiaries along with many other WTBA member companies and the massive Microsoft data center being built just down the freeway in Racine County.
The tour also allowed Su and Williamson to see crushing operations, an internal asphalt plant, and speak with many workers on the job that day.
“Mining jobs are good jobs… but they have to be safe and healthy jobs, too,” Williamson said. “The folks that work at this quarry and the plant here, in order for them to be able to go home safe and healthy at the end of the day, you’ve got to really focus on it.”
“That is a core value here and we heard about that, we saw it, we got to talk to workers about it, and we’re always glad when we see that that happens,” Su added.
