Whether campaigning for President Obama or supporting stem cell research, Bob Clark, founder and executive chairman of contractor Clayco has never shied away from speaking his mind.
两年来，克拉克（Clark）在建筑与Covid-19的战斗中一直处于长矛的尖端。2020年1月，作为芝加哥大学医学大学的受托人，并通过联邦疾病控制与预防中心的联系，他开始了解病毒影响的程度。克拉克说：“与CDC的最初接触非常令人不安，我们开始制定一项计划，以了解如何保护工作人员。”
On March 19, Clayco published the first open draft of “COVID-19 Construction Guidelines” with consultation from CDC, the White House and Clayco clients Amazon and Microsoft, and began distributing it to Associated General Contractors members, other large construction firms, MWBE contractors and political leaders across the country to build confidence that construction could continue safely. Clayco also held calls to help smaller MWBE contractors prepare for changes they would need to make.
Among the standards in the document was development and communication of site-specific COVID-19 cleaning, people separation and social distancing plans. It recommended that designated construction leaders only use reputable sites such as CDC.gov and OSHA.gov when evaluating their own responses.
As more became known, both Clayco’s response and the guidelines changed. When OSHA altered its guidance in April to require contractors and other employers to count employee adverse reactions as recordable incidents, Clark spoke out against the policy on the ENR Critical Path podcast and contacted officials in the Biden administration about changing it. A one-year grace period to not record the actions was announced by the agency in May.
“Bob consistently encouraged workers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine to keep them safe and help instill confidence in other businesses to do the same,” says Russ Burns, Clayco president and CEO. “I believe thanks to his influence, OSHA changed itsdirective.”
Clark’s ties to the public health community are more than a client-contractor relationship. In 2010, his wife, Ellen Clark, died at 50 of a rare hereditary disease called cerebroretinal vasculopathy. She spent her last years promoting stem cell research and working for a cure. Bob and Ellen made several donations to St. Louis hospitals to promote the research.
鲍勃在向员工发表的笔记中写道：“我对艾伦最钦佩的是，当她经历了最难以想象的情况时，我从未听过她一次抱怨。我希望你们所有人能在这些困难时期以自己的力量来尊敬她。”
