Denver — Jay Harf recalls seeing actor Lee Majors sign autographs while attending his first NSC Safety Congress & Expo in 1996.
“The Six Million Dollar Man” from TV was at the show courtesy of an exhibitor.
“I’ll never forget,” Harf said. “I’m a Gen Xer, so growing up in the ’70s and ’80s watching him as the bionic man, it was like, ‘What profession did I just choose to have this happen to me? This is great.’”
Harf felt similarly awestruck Monday while accepting a Distinguished Service to Safety Award during the Opening Session of the 2025 NSC Safety Congress & Expo. The vice president of global EHS at Xylem Inc. joined four fellow DSSA recipients in receiving the council’s highest individual honor:
Kevin Cannon
Senior Director, Safety, Health & Risk Management
Associated General Contractors of America
Shaun Carvalho
Chief Safety Officer
Shawmut Design and Construction
William “Jack” Jackson
Senior consultant
SafeStart
Veera Kumar Mohan
Internal Quality Assurance Specialist – Health, Safety and Environment
Abu Dhabi Vocational Education and Training Institute
NSC first presented the award in 1942 to recognize organizations and individuals who work to reduce occupational injuries.
This year, Mohan traveled the greatest distance to receive the award. Between flight time, waiting time and connections, he estimated his trip from the United Arab Emirates to Denver took around 25 hours.
To Mohan, the odyssey marked the realization of a journey in which he’s trained thousands of safety professionals on the Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health System Framework and developed virtual reality-based safety training that continues to make a global impact.
“Receiving this recognition from NSC fills me with profound gratitude and a deep sense of blessing from a place I deeply revere, inspiring me to continue giving my very best to the global safety community,” Mohan said.
Recipients credited the mentors who helped shape their careers and the workers without whom they say the honor wouldn’t be possible.
To Carvalho, who oversees the safety of more than 60,000 people on construction jobsites each year, ensuring worker well-being requires ongoing conversation about issues on and off the jobsite. His work has included developing initiatives for peer-to-peer mental health counseling and substance use awareness.
“We as humans need to feel safe and secure at our foundation to be our best,” Carvalho said. “When there are so many things that are getting in the way of being our best, we have to acknowledge them. We have to recognize them. We have to talk about them.
“So, we do, and we share some of the things that we do in some of it, but we also have a real open mind to what other people are doing. So, I think it’s the collaboration that I’ve been able to fortunately be exposed to in the course of my career with so many different perspectives.”
Jackson, too, thrives on connection – whether he’s coaching workers and safety leaders across multiple sectors or delivering sessions at safety conferences.
In his words, he “fell into safety through the process of osmosis.” He assumed a position at a previous employer when a co-worker left the job, and a passion grew.
“I’m honored that I received the award, I’m honored to be recognized for it, but like I’ve said, I try to remain humble,” Jackson said. “I didn’t anticipate it, didn’t expect that it was going to happen, and I didn’t strive for it to happen. I just wanted to keep people safe.”
DSSA winners know that accepting recognition and a medal from NSC CEO Lorraine M. Martin onstage doesn’t complete their safety journey.
“More than anything, it reminded me of the responsibility we all share to keep striving for safer workplaces and to continue making a positive difference in people’s lives,” Mohan said.
One key to achieving that goal: continuous collaboration.
“In your service to safety and your service to people, you rise by lifting others, and I think that’s the most important part of this profession,” Harf said. “And if you live that mantra, you’re going to be really successful and perhaps arrive at a DSSA award someday.”
