Prevention key to workplace safety

TAKING MEASURES: Apollo Safety President and CEO John Carvalho III, center, leads a training session at the Fall River company. He is pictured above with technician Joseph Bettencourt, left, and John Carvalho IV. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
TAKING MEASURES: Apollo Safety President and CEO John Carvalho III, center, leads a training session at the Fall River company. He is pictured above with technician Joseph Bettencourt, left, and John Carvalho IV. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

A Northeast college once brought in John V. Carvalho III, president and CEO of Apollo Safety, in the middle of the night after a minor toxic gas leak forced evacuation of a building.
Carvalho, who decades after starting the business still personally trains his staff, got there, evaluated the situation, and gave occupants the green light to re-enter the building. The incident at the school, which Carvalho declined to identify, led to a standing contract to oversee maintenance for the college’s emergency systems.
“One of the major reasons we have these contracts is, [clients] want to stay out of the news,” Carvalho said.
Founded in 1995, Apollo Safety is run by a small staff of 16 that supplies the tools needed for work in a hazardous environment, repairs gas-monitoring instrumentation and performs as a gas-detection-service team to ensure compliance with federal regulations regarding the safety of everything from carbon monoxide to toxic chemicals.
Workers travel where they are needed, testing, calibrating and doing preventative maintenance on equipment and systems on sites that include firefighting organizations like the Providence Fire Department, pharmaceutical companies like Novartis, and universities like Harvard, Yale and Boston University, Carvalho said.
For the Bristol County House of Correction in Dartmouth, for example, Apollo Safety integrated a carbon monoxide detection system with the fire alarm system, and routinely tests the equipment and the communication between systems, the owner said.
“We keep the system out of alarm and up and running with a preventative approach,” he said.
In 1993, a newly developed Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule set the standard for what would be required in regulating dangerous emissions in confined areas that include sewer manholes, tanks, wells, vats and outdoor excavation areas.
The OSHA rules prescribe which levels and thresholds of a gas or chemical trigger alerts, he said.
Since then, OSHA and other federal requirements for gas-detection devices and procedures have commanded Apollo safety’s attention. When he started the company in 1995, “there was no expertise in the field except from the manufacturer,” Carvalho said. An engineer by trade, he saw this void as an opportunity. And this growing industry continues to spawn “constant” regulatory updates. The 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. further drew attention for the need to manage HAZMAT conditions safely, Carvalho said.
“A very small incident can evacuate neighborhoods or entire cities,” he said.
In nearly 20 years since the company began operating, the work Apollo Safety does, using five levels of stringent training, is in such demand that the company is growing “exponentially” and is actively being courted for sale, Carvalho said.
Carvalho remains focused on clients that span the world – predominantly the U.S. but also Europe, Vietnam and parts of Africa, among other regions. And he has specific short-term goals he intends to meet, all the while ensuring that that growth does not diminish the level of safety his company strives to provide.
“The biggest challenge is to grow at a pace that keeps the level of quality consistent,” he said. “Otherwise, we’d be a lot bigger than we are.”
With 190 facilities (as a single facility, Harvard alone has 18 buildings) under contract in New England, not including fire departments, which nearly double that number, 2014 is shaping up to be a busy year.
Boston will have up to three technicians by the end of the first quarter and Stratford, Conn., offices will add up to two technicians by the second or third quarter. By the end of the year, if the level of quality service can be maintained, an office will open in Nashua, N.H., or Hartford, Conn., Carvalho said.
In three years, Carvalho intends to add offices through Virginia and Washington, D.C., given the heavy military and federal government presence there. In five years, there will be limited national expansion in order to provide service in “domestic, energy-producing regions,” Carvalho said.
He believes deeply in his mission of protecting people, places and systems.
“I have a very high level of respect for emergency-response people and firefighters – I had it long before 9/11 happened,” he said. “I think companies like mine owe it to them to provide a very high level of support.” •COMPANY PROFILE
Apollo Safety
OWNERS: John V. Carvalho III
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Safety equipment and technical services
LOCATION: 57 Walnut St., Fall River
EMPLOYEES: 16
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1995
SALES: $3 million

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