MANKATO — Fallen transportation workers were honored Monday during a Worker Memorial Day in Mankato, with MnDOT officials reminding employees that safety must always be first and foremost in their work days.
“If it takes a little longer to do the work, that’s OK,” said Jean Wallace, Minnesota Department of Transportation deputy commissioner.
The annual event, held at the Mankato MnDOT headquarters shop, was sponsored by the MnDOT in conjunction with AFSCME Local 280. While honoring MnDOT employees who died on the job, the event also included remembering city and county employees from Blue Earth, Nicollet and Waseca counties who died while at work.
Dozens of chairs were set up with the names of employees who died on the job since 1960. Bright yellow safety vests and hard hats were on each chair.
The most recent death in the local area was Brian Sommers, a Waseca County employee who died in an accident in January while working at the MnDOT salt storage facility in Waseca.
Local MnDOT employee Michael Struck died while using a backhoe to clear debris from a flooding stream at Seven Mile Creek Park on March 2, 2011, when the machine tipped into the rushing waters.
Another local District 7 employee who died was Darrell Blackwell; he was killed in 2006 while performing mowing operations near Fairfax when a semi attempted to pass him.
Greg Ous, MnDOT the local District 7 engineer, told the dozens of MnDOT workers attending that no job they do is worth taking risks and that they need to always look out for themselves and their coworkers.
He said the driving public also needs to pay attention in work zones and drive safely in general.
Ous noted there have been 95 fatalities on the roads this year, up from 68 fatalities last year at this time.
Wallace asked the transportation workers in attendance to be safety evangelists. “Talk about safety, talk about it all the time.”
Cpt. Jean Cemensky of the State Patrol said MnDOT workers and troopers are partners in trying to keep roads safer.
She said troopers work to reduce speeding and distracted and reckless driving, while MnDOT works to design and improve highways to higher safety standards.
Dale Plemmons, former local MnDOT safety administrator, read a poem he wrote about fallen workers and Kristen Lawson, MnDOT/AFSCME Local 280, read the names of all workers who died in the line of work.