Meet Peter Gould, Health Safety and Wellbeing Enabling Partner
He’s the self-confessed “Yoda of Safety” at Urban Utilities, clocking 30 years in the industry and his “Skywalkers are doing a great job.”
Peter Gould is our Health Safety and Wellbeing Enabling Partner for Service Delivery.
His work spans across our 19,000-kilometre network, from our field teams who keep our pipes and pumps in top shape, to our 24/7 network operations team, who help them to respond and repair bursts as soon as possible, and our customer service staff, who support our customers with each call, webchat, and social media message.
He sees this role as "trying to take the mystery out of safety so people are empowered to do their best job every day."
"A lot of people can get caught up in not wanting to do the wrong thing, but they're not sure what the right thing looks like, so I coach and mentor people to work their way through it," Peter adds.
And he keeps asking questions, so he can fully understand how the teams work, and what the potential hazards could be, making the organisation, and the world, a safer place.
"I always approach every day with curiosity. You can learn so much more if you have the boldness to ask a question when you don't know something. I think the more we can understand what everyone does, the better organisation we can be."
And that learning helps when "you've got to be ready for anything," Peter points out that he tries to save time for proactive planning in his responsive role too, as "that's where the power is in what we do."
“There’s not much I haven’t seen or had to deal with, which is really good grounding for whatever this role throws at me.”
Peter headed up safety at Redland City Council for 15 years, and more recently worked at an insurance company mapping risk profiles and providing health, safety and wellbeing advice for 59 councils across the state. He jumped over to Urban Utilities six months ago to do "real world safety" and he's loving it so far!
"I feel blessed every day. We've got talented and passionate people in our team to support the people across the organisation. Everyone is just so engaged and welcoming and that's refreshing and rare," Peter reflects.
Having worked closely with local councils before, Peter knew water and waste well. The sheer scale of our network took him by surprise though.
We have a 19,000-kilometre network, and that's mind blowing, really! The scale of everything is just so much bigger, which makes it much more interesting.
Thanks for sharing your safety story so far, Peter!
About Urban Utilities
Established on July 1, 2010, Urban Utilities is one of the largest water distributor-retailers in Australia, providing water and sewerage services to more than 1.6 million residents in South East Queensland. Our 14,384km2 geographic area is made up of the five local government areas of Brisbane, Ipswich, Lockyer Valley, Scenic Rim and Somerset.