Hi, I'm Rachel. I basically run this place.
I'm a Certified Safety Professional and Certified Industrial Hygienist with 11 years of experience.
As a kid, I grew up working in my dad's construction and logging business. I ran heavy machinery and carried heavy things from one place to another a lot. It wasn't glamorous but it taught me to work hard and appreciate the work of others.
In college, I bounced around engineering disciplines from Petroleum Engineering to Geological and Geophysical Engineering. I did not feel like any engineering field suited me. I was creative and cared more about communication and instructional design than strike and dip measurements but what was I gonna do with that?
I spent a summer working at a superfund site as a laborer to make ends meet and took on extra hours running a forklift on the weekends. Management needed a new Safety Manager and asked me if I'd be interested. I said yes although I'd never considered working in safety before.
I liked it. It was half technical and half people skills. Plus, I liked leading training. The next fall, I switched majors and two years later, graduated with a degree in Occupational Safety and Health.
I started out working in construction and manufacturing with typical safety and industrial hygiene roles. After a few years, I moved on to consulting with a large agency and eventually, moved on to being a self-employed consultant.
During these years, I noticed a consistent problem in the safety realm.
Safety pros and managers were too busy to make excellent safety training. In fact, they often had so many responsibilities that safety training was basic at best and "death-by-powerpoint" at worst.
Across the board from companies small to large, I saw training failed to engage employees. This is a huge problem because if training doesn't engage, it doesn't have an impact.
Millions of dollars were being wasted on training that failed to communicate why simple safety procedures were important.
This resulted in poor safety performance, accidents and injuries.
I cared deeply about creating awesome training that would resonate with employees. The problem was, I also had too many responsibilities to devote my billable hours to making training entertaining.
So I worked on it during my personal time. Safety training became my hobby and people questioned my sanity. Who could blame them?
I started making safety videos and posting them to YouTube because I thought safety training needed to be better, more fun, and awesomely interesting.
It turns out, a lot of people agreed with me. In less than two years my little safety consulting business has pivoted 100% to creating safety videos full time! Since then, I've never looked back.
Our goal at Ally Safety is to test the limits of conventional safety by creating content that demonstrates rather than tells, explores rather than explains, and replaces zoning out for tuning in!
