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President and CEO
PureSafety
Franklin, Tenn.

Diving Deeper

To William A. Grana Jr., president and CEO of Franklin, Tenn.-based PureSafety, the reason to be in business is to empower customers through technology. Specifically, his risk management application innovations support and unite safety and health efforts enterprisewide.

PureSafety was spun off from Thompson Machinery Commerce Corp. in 1999. In his analysis of workplace safety, Grana noticed that most organizations were treating their needs for employee safety and health management in a siloed fashion, driven largely by compliance with unrelated systems addressing various program areas.

That led Grana to create a comprehensive suite of software and data-based safety and health governance, risk management, and compliance solutions. Grana's goal was to allow organizations to identify and correct potential risks before they happen. The results include reduced incidents and injuries, lower insurance costs, improved compliance, improved employee productivity and cost savings in training.

In August 2009, Grana launched the industry's first Learning and Safety Management System (LSMS), designed to integrate critical and closely related areas including training, safety and compliance. Using web-based technology, a highly intuitive user interface and an innovative platform, the system allows the company to quickly and cost-effectively add additional tools and features to meet future client needs and adapt to emerging risks.

In April, Grana followed that invention with his next breakthrough. That innovation turned out to be the next generation Occupational Health Manager (OHM) software, which unites safety and health professionals with tools to manage the entire workforce lifecycle, from initial hire and screenings, to injury prevention, corrective actions and return-to-work programs.

"Bill is a very hard working individual who is very focused on understanding the ever-changing dynamics of the markets we serve," said Dewitt C. Thompson V, chairman and CEO at Thompson, and a PureSafety board member. Thompson said Grana consistently monitors customer expectations, and at the same time, is always diving deeper into the risk details of Thompson's own operations.

Doing the right thing is particularly important to Grana because PureSafety was founded in response to a workplace fatality at Thompson--the only one in its then-54-year history.

Thompson was doing all the right things--formal safety programs, dedicated safety resources, a strong safety culture--but the accident led senior management to ask, ''How can we do more to improve safety programs and prevent another tragedy?"

The response was Grana's penchant for innovation and PureSafety's expanding suite of online safety training and risk management software solutions. Over the years, Grana has partnered with more than 1,000 organizations in more than 20 industries, giving him insight into what it takes to turn wanting to do the right thing into actually doing it.

Grana, in fact, believes that without the proper systems, tools, and organization-wide communication, "the right thing" can be hard to define, and doing it successfully can feel like a game of chance. Grana stressed that in business as in other areas of life, doing the right thing isn't always easy--but always worth the effort.

"Bill is passionate about his work, and has a strong vision of where he wants to lead the company," said Tom Gaudreau, vice president, marketing, at PureSafety.

Gaudreau also said Grana brings people together to find innovative ways to create solutions that connect safety and health as a workplace risk issue.

"They had not been connected before Bill got into solving these risk management challenges," Gaudreau said.

"He believes that the safety/health connection is to the 21st century what the quality focus was in the late 20th century. Bill believes that connection is critical to improving risk management and his innovations and client successes reflect that belief."

--Tom Starner

Born Out of Tragedy

PureSafety was founded in response to a workplace fatality at Thompson Machinery--the only one in its then-54-year history. The death happened despite Thompson following its accepted safety procedures. Yet it begged the question: How can we do more to improve safety programs and prevent another loss?

Enter William A. Grana, Jr., president and CEO, and his belief in the use of technology to serve the interests of employees. Under his leadership, PureSafety is committed to going "above and beyond" to keep employees safe, healthy, and on the job, while providing greater efficiency and cost-savings.

With a background in corporate development, law and finance, Grana has lead previous companies and his vision for PureSafety is to improve organizational performance through innovative software and information solutions that support and unite safety and health efforts.

Grana serves as a member of the board of directors for the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association, and oversees the company's commitment to other charitable causes.

Assistant Treasurer of Risk Management
Verizon Communications Inc.
New York

No Small Feat

When telecom giant Verizon Communications Inc. decided to create a captive insurance company for risk management purposes, the company probably didn't know it was making an equally smart strategic move on the talent side of the equation.

At first, Verizon's single-parent captive insurance company, the Vermont-domiciled Exchange Indemnity Company, or EIC, began life as a relatively small and inactive captive. But with the help of Sheila Small, assistant treasurer of risk management at Verizon, the captive has quickly become much more, and changed Verizon's risk management capabilities (and effectiveness) along the way.

Today, the captive underwrites more than 25 programs per year, has assets greater than $1 billion and generates close to $100 million in net income. Several of the programs involve third-party risks, which when placed were unique. Most impressive, 75 percent of Verizon's insurance spending is placed with the captive.

What helped to fuel the captive's growth was when Small launched her most innovative initiative in 2008 with the goal of consolidating Verizon's workers' comp programs.

Back then, most of Verizon's property and casualty programs were consolidated and managed within the risk management department. But the self-insured workers' comp program within Verizon's legacy telephone companies was still managed and funded by local departments ? the way it had been since way back when when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.

As the company evolved through mergers, divestitures and reorganizations, Small realized that an opportunity existed to move self-insured workers' comp into Verizon's large-deductible workers' comp program, which was placed in the captive.

The advantages were clear. For one, all corporatewide workers' compensation costs would be managed under one department. In addition, movement of employees between the different departments would be simpler and would not entail moving in and out of the different workers' comp programs. Savings and efficiencies were realized by eliminating the need to file self-insured workers' comp state reports, and lowered costs associated with the state self-insured workers' comp assessment fees. Finally, loss control opportunities could be more focused and the captive program would provide larger premium expense deductions over self-insured claim payments.

Small identified the premium costs associated with the self-insured workers' comp programs of the telephone companies, and informed senior management that even though cash flow is greater in earlier years, on a net present value basis the captive insurance program would save approximately $77 million over a decade.

Small's logic prevailed and the company gained the consensus of various departments, including legal, tax, accounting, benefits finance, human resources and financial, planning and analysis.

On Jan. 1, 2009, Verizon implemented a corporate-wide insured workers' comp program with a large deductible funded through the captive. At the same time, Small renegotiated two separate contracts with third-party administrators (TPAs), one that provided services for the captive programs and one that provided administration for the self-insured claims. The result was a $500,000 savings over a three-year period.

Even with that change, labor issues allowed one state company to continue to administer and self-insure its legacy claims. That wasn't a problem for Small. She revisited the transition in 2010, taking the opportunity to initiate a claim closure project to close as many claims as possible before that one state company transitioned to the TPA.

Her effort closed 1,015 claims, almost a third of the total outstanding number of claims, and reduced reserves by more than $9 million with no associated payouts.

At the same time, with the help of Verizon's Chicago-based broker, Aon Corp., Small began to identify opportunities to subrogate for recoveries related to workers' comp claims and automobile accidents. The project was a success, recovering more than $200,000.

"Sheila is clearly an out-of-the-box thinker, very analytical," said Al Tobin, Aon's property practice leader who has worked with Small. "Her focus on cost savings, efficiencies and managing risk strategically makes her a very innovative, effective risk management professional.

"If you have a problem to solve, you want to go to Sheila," Tobin said. "In no time, she will call the right people for information and have a solution."

--Tom Starner