Vinck Seeks Smooth Sailing As RM

Indeed, Ms. Vinck, who built her department from scratch over the past quarter-century, is a hands-on risk manager, keeping sturdy boots, protective glasses and a hard-hat ready for visits to the ship yard.

"It's interesting, and every day is something different," said Ms. Vinck, who serves as vice president of risk management and benefits for United States Marine Repair Inc. "As a woman, it certainly was a huge learning curve. I now have a fairly good understanding of what we do and how we do it, but it has taken years."

The position of risk manager was created for her 25 years ago by the company, which is headquartered in Norfolk, Va. Since then she has built the department from the ground up, ushering in an enterprise risk management program that participates in every critical function at the company, including insurance, workers' compensation, claims, benefits, safety and medical departments. A staff of eight report directly to Ms. Vinck–most of them in San Diego, where she is located.

Developing an ERM department wasn't easy. "I tell a story that years ago when strategic planning was all the rage, I heard we were going to be having strategic planning meetings," she said. "I wasn't invited, so I just went anyway, and I figured that nobody would really know that I wasn't invited," she confided. "Sure enough, nobody thought anything about the fact that I was there. They just assumed that I was supposed to be there."

From that point on she was a member of the strategic planning committee and the foundation for ERM was in place.

Whenever she tells this story, she said some members of the audience chuckle, while others shake their heads, "acknowledging that this is the way it needs to be. This is what a good risk manager has to do. You have to make your presence known."

Risk managers, she added, need to do more than identify risks–they must find solutions. "You just can't be the naysayer," she said, using her company as an example.

"We might as well lock the gates and go home if we say no to everything. There are risks in everything we do, and our job is to try and mitigate them the best we can," she said When accidents do happen, "as they will," she added, "you try to learn from them and make sure they don't happen in the future."

Most of the work done by United States Marine Repair, she explained, is on military vessels, with about 5 percent involving private ships–including cruise ships and tankers. The company does not repair nuclear vessels such as nuclear submarines, she emphasized.

Ships are repaired both in the water and at dry-dock facilities–the two largest being in Norfolk and San Diego, where major U.S. Navy ports are located. There also are repair facilities in San Francisco and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, she added, noting that the company has about 3,500 employees, along with some 1,500 contracted workers at any given time.

The trades that are kept in-house include machinery, pipe fitting, ship fitting, electrical, carpentry and sheet metal, she said. With so many employees and contractors involved, she noted, the number one concern is human life. Along with that goes security.

Then there are risks to the ships themselves. At a given time, "we could be working on 25 ships, easily," she said, pointing out that not only are ships repaired on site, but teams are sent to naval bases and large carriers as well.

Repairs are done primarily to ship structures, which can be the superstructure or the ship's propulsion system. "We actually remove immense shafts from the ships," she said, referring to a large cylinder that makes the propeller turn. "We take them to machine shops, re-machine them and put them back on the ship."

One potential danger to workers is confined spaces, such as tanks with only one entrance and one exit and limited access.

A tank–which can be used for potable water, oily water or some other type of substance–could have a leak or it may need to be drained and re-coated, which is done periodically. Or, she said, wiring or pipes may need to be repaired between two bulkheads in a ship. Before an employee enters any confined space, the protocol is to look for a marine chemist or certification that the space is safe.

Problems ensue if a worker enters a space without taking these measures, she said. If there is residual gas from a chemical, the person entering can become overcome by fumes. The problem is compounded when another employee sees that the person is down, thinks it is the result of a fall and rushes in to help.

"Then you have another employee that goes down, and until someone figures out that it's chemical in nature and gets the right respiratory protection before they go in to do a rescue, it's a risk," she said.

Even though procedures are in place and training is held regularly, the biggest challenge, she noted, is "human nature–disregard for rules and regulations. We have to protect not only ourselves, the company, but also the employees from themselves."

Another potential danger to employees is falls through access holes that are sometimes cut in the ship's deck. However, even when these holes are marked with stanchions, she added, "it's amazing how many times someone will try to move the stanchions or disregard them."

To protect employees from falling off of scaffolding, green tags are required to show that it is ready to climb, she explained. If an inspector notices that the scaffolding isn't safe, the green tag is ripped off and replaced with a red tag. The tags also raise awareness to falling objects near the scaffolding.

"Hot" work is also a hazard. "Fire is a huge risk, so we have to have fire watches whenever any welder is doing hot work," Ms. Vinck explained. The problem is that being on fire watch–staring at the wall on the other side of the welding–is boring.

"We have to constantly reinforce that they need to be attentive, and ships are complicated mazes, so they have to make sure they are looking at the right wall," she said, noting that these employees are taught to read drawings and to understand the way compartments are numbered.

The company writes all of its own safety policies and makes sure it adheres to government regulations–including standards laid down by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the American National Standards Institute, she said. Employees also carry a pocket safety book for quick reference, she noted.