The American Society of Concrete Contractors Selects Jordan Foster Construction as the Recipient of the 2026 W. Burr Bennett Vanguard Award for Safety Excellence

National recognition honors Jordan Foster’s approach to field safety leadership across the organization and its commitment to innovation and the application of technology

Jordan Foster Construction has been named the recipient of the 2026 W. Burr Bennett Vanguard Award for Safety Excellence, the American Society of Concrete Contractors’ highest safety honor. The national award recognizes contractors that demonstrate exceptional safety performance and a deeply embedded culture of safety leadership, employee engagement, and continuous improvement.

The W. Burr Bennett Vanguard Award for Safety Excellence, recognizes concrete contractors that go beyond traditional safety metrics and demonstrate how safety is integrated throughout their organization’s work processes and culture. Finalists undergo an in-depth review of their safety practices, leadership approach, employee engagement and programmatic efforts to proactively identify and reduce risk.

At Jordan Foster Construction, that commitment and integrated approach began over twenty years ago with a simple principle: safety is not the responsibility of one department. It is a commitment to safety performance shared across the organization, from executive leadership to superintendents, foremen and craft professionals in the field.

“This recognition belongs to our people,” said John Goodrich, President of Jordan Foster Construction’s Infrastructure Group. “Every employee at Jordan Foster has a voice and when our people speak up, there is an expectation that leadership listens and responds. We look after each other, and that responsibility is at the heart of Jordan Foster’s culture.”

That relationship between the field and leadership has helped Jordan Foster continue to innovate its approach to safety over many decades. The company has invested in new technologies and equipment, transitioned from traditional hard hats to safety helmets, transformed traditional job hazard analyses into collaborative daily standup planning conversations, and expanded its use of data and artificial intelligence to better identify hazards and potential risks before incidents occur.

Jordan Foster also has broadened definition of workplace safety that encompasses the whole person. In addition to preventing physical injuries, the company has invested in programs and resources addressing mental health and well-being, suicide prevention, fatigue, and opioid and overdose awareness.

“Our industry and the risks our people encounter are constantly changing, so our approach to safety has to evolve with them,” said Tricia Kagerer, Executive Vice President of Risk Management at Jordan Foster Construction. “We never want to believe we’ve arrived. We have to continue listening to our employees, learning from our experiences and challenging the status quo. The people performing the work are the field experts, and when they tell us there is an opportunity to improve, it is our responsibility to listen and act.”

Among the initiatives contributing to Jordan Foster’s safety culture is its unique Field Safety Leader program. The program identifies and develops influential safety leaders from within the craft workforce, recognizing that leadership is not defined solely by a job title. The company also applies technology such as SmartTagIt on the job to capture insights from everyday field conversations and observations, helping leadership identify performance trends and make more proactive, data-informed decisions.

Receipt of the W. Burr Bennett Vanguard Award reflects Jordan Foster’s foundational belief that safety excellence is not defined by a single program, policy or statistic, but by an organizational culture in which employees are encouraged to speak up, leadership is prepared to listen, and the company is willing to act on what it learns.