The home heating oil industry has a long and proud history, and Fuel Oil News has been there supporting it since 1935. It is an industry that has faced many challenges during that time. In its 77th year, Fuel Oil News is doing more than just holding
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The company, started by her enterprising father 50 years ago, serves as a beacon for fuel marketers as far as safety goes. She said there isn't a magic bullet or some trick to safety; it's just a lot of hard work and discussion. "Safety is something that you have to work on every day. Don't just have a meeting then forget about it—you have to talk every day," said Buxton. "When we read in the paper about one of our competitors having an accident or a wrong fill, we take that and talk about it and say, 'What could we have done better?' so that doesn't happen to us." New technologies in the past years have really helped drivers stay safe on the road. Since the move to cellphones, she said things are a lot less distracting in the cab. "We changed a few things in our industry so that the driv- ers aren't distracted as much. Instead of them having two-way radio or a page or anything, now everything is texted over," said Buxton. "So when they stop, they can get accurate information, they don't have to write anything down and they can read it at a stop safely." Creating a transparent business culture helps keep things in check. "We're a firm believer in communicating—if you see some- thing wrong let us know. It's not that we're going to fire you; we just want to fix it," said Buxton. "Whether it's an accident a wrong fill or a spill, call us immediately, just so we can fix the problem, learn from it and move on." She said they also do an intensive annual safety meeting where they cover everything. "We have a big annual meeting where we go through every- thing from coming in in the morning and pre-checking your truck, making a delivery making sure the tanks are vented, that they listen to the whistles, when they drive they don't text and drive," said Buxton. "We just touch on every single aspect." Their rigorous safety protocols coupled with new industry requirements for drivers of hazardous materials have pushed their safe record even further. "When the drivers come to us, of course they have to have the CDL, hazmat and quite a few of them get the TWIC card endorse- ment as well," said Buxton. "Long gone are the days where any- one can drive an oil truck, now it's more of a specialty. They have to go out and get those specialized licenses and keep a clean record and pay attention." Working in the same community for so long has also taught the Buxton staff many things about the area. And working with the city and customers to make sure everything is running smooth—or gritty in some cases. "We're always calling the town to make sure the road in and out of our facility is sanded—we've actually sanded it ourselves a few times to get the trucks out safely," said Buxton. She said that culture of safety keeps her drivers from getting into slippery situations in pursuit of their delivery. "I always tell my drivers, 'If it looks like it's too icy, don't do it. I'd rather have you not make the delivery of 150 gallons than lose a $130,000 truck and risk an environmental spill,'" said Buxton. "Then we call the homeowner and make arrangements to get back to them as soon as we can." She said customers are typically understanding when a deliv- ery is missed, and quite appreciative when drivers end up throw- ing down their own sand or salt. The worst driveways actually turn into a sales opportunity. "Some customers who have really bad driveways, we try to talk them into automatic deliveries," said Buxton. "We track the weather every day. So if we're tracking a bad snowstorm and we know all the people with bad driveways, we try to get them prior to the big storm and we don't have to worry about them for a little while." All that safety focus has certainly made things easier for the company since it means fewer accidents, spills and general head- aches. But their long and spotless record also earned them a big industry award. In 2013, they were given the Leader in Transportation Safety award for their extremely clean record. "That was an award that we got from New Hampshire Motor Transport Association," said Buxton. "Our insurance com- pany actually had submitted a name and wrote a story about us —unbeknownst to us—because we have such a clean record." She said the recognition was some great validation for their extreme efforts in the safety realm. "We got a call one day that we were getting this amazing award because we haven't had a reportable accident in three years; which is unheard of in the trucking industry," said Buxton. "They had us up to Concord and had a big award ceremony and they also had a big barbeque for all of our employees because it's really the employees at Buxton Oil that makes it all work." She said simply paying attention is the central piece of their safety puzzle. "We pay attention to safety, we pay attention to driving we pay attention to driving," said Buxton. "We're a company that just plain pays attention." Diversifying With Water With all that focus on safety, it's a tough decision to lay off sea- sonal drivers and just hope they don't get another job during the warmer months. "None of us like to lay off seasonal drivers. And all employees want a full-time job, they want a vacation, they want benefits, www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | FEBRUARY 2015 27 HVAC/ HydroniCs