Safety Is for Everyone

New Safety Committee Co-Chair focuses on safety on and off the jobsite

By David A. James

or Lucas Dubie, workplace safety transcends personal and business interests.

“I heard it when I was in school,” he says. “Someone said safety is not proprietary.”

Dubie is bringing that outlook to the Associated General Contractors, or AGC, of Alaska Safety Committee, to which he was recently named co-chair. When he was offered the position, he says, “I was super, super excited to do it.”

Dubie, recently named the Regional Safety Manager at Granite Construction, has been focused on the wellbeing of fellow workers throughout his professional life.

Born and raised in Alaska, Dubie attended UAA, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in occupational safety and health. He went to work for Granite after graduating in 2018, initially working in quality control. “And then I switched over to safety in 2020 as an intern,” he says.

From there his career moved quickly. He became a specialist and then a job site safety manager before moving into the regional seat.

“It’s been a kind of a quick, crazy five years,” he says, “but I really enjoyed it.”

In both his role as committee co-chair and his recent promotion, Dubie is following in the footsteps of his friend, colleague, and mentor Chris Rodriguez (whose safety work was featured in the Summer 2023 issue of The Alaska Contractor). Rodriguez held both the safety manager position with Granite and the AGC Safety Committee co-chair seat before him. It was Rodriguez who first encouraged Dubie to attend some AGC Safety Committee meetings and to serve as co-chair during a period when Rodriguez was out of state.

“I sat in to see how it was running,” Dubie recalls. “I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a good group.”

Impressed by the mix of safety experts and people in the field he met on the committee, Dubie began accompanying Rodriguez to meetings, trainings, and safety fairs.

When Rodriguez announced that he was leaving the state, the committee asked Dubie to fill the seat. He says he initially felt that others who had served longer on the committee would be better qualified, but members told him they wanted someone who could bring in a fresh perspective.

Lucas Dubie, second from right, holds a safety meeting at Granite Construction’s Don Young Port of Alaska project.

“It was perfect timing to join,” he explains, “because AGC actually made some changes with how they want their committees to be run. I was able to get in right before that.”

Rodriguez, who moved into the Regional Safety Manager position for Granite’s Vancouver, Washington-based Columbia River region, says Dubie is perfect for the co-chair seat.

“Lucas is an extremely passionate and driven safety professional with strong leadership and communication skills,” Rodriguez says. “He is a lifelong Alaskan who has dedicated his career to advancing worker safety and wellness in the construction industry. It has been an absolute privilege for me to work alongside Lucas for nearly six years, and I am excited to see the great things the AGC Safety Committee achieves under his leadership alongside fellow co-chair Dora Hughes.”

Dubie says the twenty-five-member committee comprises people from different fields of construction, as well as representatives from regulatory agencies and health professionals. Their objective, he explains, is “promoting safety and getting people involved with it, and getting people understanding the importance behind it—and hopefully being proactive instead of reactive.”

Dubie says one area that he feels is important for the safety committee to address is mental health. It’s not just for on-the-job safety that he wants to expand the committee’s focus on this topic but also the humanitarian wish to reach those needing aid by removing the stigmas surrounding this aspect of health and getting them the help they need.

“We may not be experts in the field,” he says about what the committee’s role should be when workers need mental health assistance, “but we can at least start getting resources together, get the conversation going, and then actually pull in people that know what they’re talking about and help us out.”

Dubie says the committee holds safety fairs tailored towards children, hosts workshops and lunch discussions covering critical safety issues, and is upgrading its safety data base to make it more thorough and accessible to all AGC members.

“If they have a question or they need some regulatory assistance,” he says, they can “look at this database and pull out all kinds of different safety information.”

For Dubie, safety is important for both employee welfare and the betterment of AGC member companies. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes.

“If we can help give people what they need beforehand,” he says, “then they’ll be successful.”