Tech Safety Lines: GWO Training Experts

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

Diane Waghorne, founder of Tech Safety Lines (TSL), and instructor Matt Wehrle explain their approach to wind technician safety training. Allen and Joel had the pleasure of visiting their excellent facility in Dallas, Texas and discuss their impact on the industry. Drawing on expertise from fire and rescue professionals, TSL prepares technicians for high-stress rescue scenarios. The company's global recognition for providing top-quality training is evidenced by their GWO Training Team of the Americas Award. TSL initially began with selling the military compact descender and has recently had their SRK rescue kit certified to ANSI Z359.9 standards. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. Today, we're diving into a crucial topic that affects every professional in our industry, and that's training. As the wind energy sector continues to grow rapidly, the need for standardized high quality safety training has never been more critical. GWO training has become the gold standard for ensuring that the wind industry professionals are equipped with the essential skills and knowledge to work safely and efficiently. Our guest today is Diane Waghorn, president and CEO of Tech Safety Lines, and Matt Wehrle, Tech Safety Lines instructor as well as a firefighter and paramedic. Tech Safety Lines is based in Dallas, Texas. And from their founding, Tech Safety Lines has been focused on safety through their start with the Military Compact Descender, to a series of safety products, and now with GWO training, Tech Safety Lines is a leader in wind energy safety. In fact, Tech Safety Lines recently received the GWO Training Team of the Year Americas Award. Diane and Matt, welcome to the show. Thank you for having us. This is exciting because Joel and I visited the tech safety lines facility a little while ago and we're just super impressed. I don't know how else to describe Joel Saxum: it, Joel. Yeah, blown away. It was a great facility. Yeah, from the time, we met Diane when we walked in to everybody that we ran into in the facility, shaking hands, Hi, nice to meet you. Who are you guys? Welcome in. Let's show you this. Let's show you that. Everything clean, ready to go. It was an impressive facility, to say the least. Diane Waghorne: Oh, thank you so much. We're very proud of our facility and we just welcome visitors and I'm glad you had a good time seeing our facility and allowing us the opportunity to share our instructors with you. It was just a great time. Allen Hall: Diane, I think we ought to start with A little bit of your history, because it is so unique to the industry. You really got your start after 9 11 with something called the military compact descender. You want to just touch on how that all got kicked off? Diane Waghorne: I'd be happy to, um, when 9 11 happened during that time period, I was a stay at home mom. And I've been a business major in college, but then when I had my children, I wanted to stay home with them. And when 9 11 happened, my son was in college and my daughter just turned 16 and got her driver's license. If I was ever going to go back into the workforce, that was a good time for me. And when I witnessed what happened with horror, as we all did, we just could not believe what we were seeing on our televisions.