when competitors became a team when competitors became a team

Christopher Scherer, Manon
Gignac, Kathryn Lovetro,
Megan Watters, Marcus
Scherer och Billy Biggers
enjoys ice cream.
Gary Charles receives
the Safety Award from
Byron Smith on behalf
of the Purate Group.
Safety event in Marietta
Last June, Eka Chemicals,
Marietta celebrated “Site
Safety Day”.
■ Personnel from all operations gathered
for the event, and the company stood for
the ice cream. The activity was set off by an
exhibition of Eka’s activities and products in
North America, and SBU management took
the opportunity to highlight measures and
achievements of special value to safety.
Byron Smith, head of Pulp and Paper
Americas, made a speech and underlined the
importance of safety, both at work and during
free time. Using US incident statistics and
figures he provided examples of why safety
considerations are important, perhaps especially
so, outside working hours. The Safety,
Health and Environment Committee at
Marietta were praised for their efforts in increasing
safety awareness. An achievement
attained by means of various activities, such
as training for new employees, first aid instruction
and work with the Responsible Care
program. Additionally, there are plans to put
special focus on behavior-based safety.
The spotlight was then turned on other
praiseworthy performances within the company.
Marietta office personnel can be proud
of having operated for 13 years, or 4.3 million
working hours without a single LTI! Byron
Smith held up the logistics group as another
good example; the group having received
such awards as the Canadian Railway
Company’s (CN) Safety Handling Award 2006
and the CSXT’s Chemical Safety Excellence
Award 2006 (see article in Eka Echo no.
3/2007) for safe transport. While the Purate
group received a reward for their preventive
work when building their stock-room.
Text & photo: Steve Main
HI THERE..
✆Johan Nyander, IP Manager Eka Chemi
cals, and one of the 5000 participants in
the Paris-Brest-Paris 1220 kilometer cycle
race at the end of August.
■ How are your legs feeling?
”I’m dead tired! I came home a week ago and I’m
still full of aches and pains, although I’m pulling myself
together. I’ll probably be able to start exercising
and stretching out some muscles next week.
What makes a person want to bike 1220 kilometers,
and go pretty much without sleep for five days?
”Why does anyone want to go to the Moon? It’s a
challenge and I thrive on challenges, on having goals
and fighting to reach them. I’ve always participated
in some kind of sport or other. I’ve been cycling since
2000. This is the jewel of the European long distance
events, with every conceivable nationality on the
starting line.
How did you charge yourself up? Cycling back and
forth to the Nacka office can hardly suffice?
”I’ve cycled backwards and forwards to work plus
one day of cycling each weekend. Altogether I’ve
probably cycled around 7000 kilometers during the
year I trained for the event, plus some indoor spinning.
To take part you have to pass four qualification
races of 200, 300, 400 and 600 kilometers respectively,
and then I did a voluntary three day 1000
kilometer stretch, practicing cycling without sleep.
What was your finishing time?
”I took 86 hours, and the max time was 90 hours,
so I’m very pleased. About one third of the field failed
to finish, so to have managed that alone feels like a
big achievement. To come in under the max time you
need to cycle all day and so I slept a total 7 hours
in five days. Learning to cycle without dropping of
to sleep is an art in itself.”
And your next challenge will be?
”Well, the next race is four years off, in 2011. But
yesterday I saw something about the Pilgrim’s Way
in Spain…”
ekaecho | # 4 2007 17