Volunteer Matt Sisbach works to simplify safety

When Matt Sisbach (left, with PFS CEO Jeff Dykstra,) a Environment Health and Safety Manager at Ardent Mills, was asked to help create a standard safety training program for a flour mill in Tanzania he thought it would be a pretty straightforward task. It turned out that it wasn’t quite that straightforward.

Though he knew that the workers spoke a language other than English, what he didn’t consider was that many of the workers are illiterate. “It was an interesting challenge,” he says, “I had to figure out a way to simplify the training but still have the same impact as I would using written language.”

He says rethinking the way to communicate safety also got him thinking differently about how he does that in his own job at Ardent Mills. “It was a challenge in a good way. It made me really think about how I could simplify training materials and training within my own job,” he says, and with a laugh adds, “We don’t want to put people to sleep with our training.”

Matt also says that volunteering for Partners in Food Solutions has been a unique and meaningful opportunity to work in the spirit of Ardent Mills’ core values of trust, serving, simplicity and safety.