No workplace injuries mean another award for MechOne Inc.

For a company whose employees make and install sheet metal in commercial air conditioning and heating systems, you'd expect at least one on-the-job injury a year.

But MechOne Inc. of Colorado Springs has never had an injury that caused an employee to miss work in its 14-year history. It's a feat that resulted in MechOne receiving its seventh consecutive Circle of Safety Award from Pinnacol Assurance, which started as a state agency to provide workers compensation insurance and is now operated as quasi-public authority.

Only 42 other Colorado employers among Pinnacol's nearly 56,000 policyholders received the award, including three more from Colorado Springs: Copestone General Contractors, CVK Electric and Pikes Peak Steel.

"I credit the training and the stability of our workforce for our safety record," said Mike Daugharty, co-owner of MechOne with Roy Jensen. "We feel the money and time we spend on training is an investment in our company. The upfront cost to make sure we have what we need to maintain a safe workplace gets a return in no work time lost to injuries and lower workers compensation insurance rates."

MechOne is a standout, not only in the Pikes Peak region, but in its field. Last year, 4,700 workplace injuries were reported in El Paso County, said Pinnacol, which handed out the award to the company Wednesday. And a survey completed earlier this year by the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors National Association, a Virginia-based trade group for the industry, found 95 of 254 participants didn't have any workplace injuries that caused employees to miss work in the past year.

Mike McCullion, the group's director of safety and health, called MechOne "one of the most competitive" in the association's safety awards competition among its more than 1,800 members.

MechOne employs 45 at its Colorado Springs headquarters and a satellite office in Arvada and has completed duct replacement projects for the Pikes Peak Hill Climb Museum, Memorial Hospital Central, Peak Vista Community Health Centers Health Center at Academy and many other local buildings.

All non-management employees are members of Sheet Metal Workers Local 9 in Lakewood and must complete the union's apprentice and journeyman programs as well as other training through the sheet metal contractor trade group.

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