Kentucky Governor’s Health & Safety Conference

North Dakota Safety Council

Associations & Industry

Retail Industry Leaders Association

Washington State Governor’s Industrial Safety and Health Conference

David Sarkus at AGC-Oklahoma

Government & Industry

“David is a passionate and talented speaker who can bring out the best in the leadership team. His real world examples and straight forward delivery kept our whole group engaged for the whole session. I would highly recommend David to any organization.”

Danny Zink, CEO/President
Cottrell, Inc.

“I had followed David Sarkus for many years before he came to speak for my company, Alta Forest Products. His story often inspired me to press further with safety and leadership. In 2015 Dave spoke at the Washington Governor’s Conference—the first time that I saw his speak at a live venue. His message was powerful and hit home to the group of safety committee members that I had brought with me. I finally had the opportunity to have Dave speak for Alta Forest Products, and he delivered his story in his usual manner—with power, emotion, excitement, and influence. He will have you laughing one minute and crying the next. Most of all, he will have you taking a hard look at how you view safety and leadership. He will push you to change your paradigm about safety. He will push you to make your culture for safety one that others will talk about – positively of course. Finally, he will make you think about how you lead others toward creating a lasting impression for safety. I cannot recommend Dave Sarkus enough.”

Brian Wamsley
Alta Forest Products LLC
Corporate Safety Manager

“As a Kruger board member, but primarily as an interested party, I wanted to complement you on an excellent presentation. You really related with the audience and they listened to what you said. Not bad for a kid from ‘Bituminous Coal Country’. Great job!!!”

Jim Alexy, MBA
Board of Advisors
Kruger Inc.

“David spent a few hours with our leadership team to talk about the importance of safety and ways that we could get our employees more engaged in our safety program. His passion and expertise really had an impact on our group and a year later we have cut our TRIR in half and have a number of facilities that have gone more than a year without a recordable incident. David’s presentation was the catalyst and a great kickoff for our renewed emphasis on safety.”

Phil Hawkins, Vice President – Division Manager
McGrath RentCorp

“If you are looking for a keynote speaker for a safety function, David Sarkus would be an excellent choice. Mr. Sarkus is an outstanding speaker that has a keen ability to capture and maintain an audience’s attention. He demonstrates an undeniable passion for worker safety. Mr. Sarkus interjects humor with a powerful message of caring and coaching. He hit a homerun at our event. David Sarkus is The Safety Coach®!”

Carl Ackerman
General Manager, Safety, Health and Training
Mountaineer Gas Company

“One of the best motivational speeches I’ve heard in a long, long time. In my 30 some years with this organization it was TREMENDOUS!”

Layman Hawkins, Charter Member Safety & Health Network / Kentucky Governor’s Safety & Health Conference

“It was by far the best closing keynote we’ve had in the 30 year history of this conference.”

Wilson Frazier, Board Member, Kentucky Safety & Health Network / Kentucky Governor’s Safety & Health Conference

“Please relay our extensive gratitude to David Sarkus for his excellent presentation. We, at Arizona Public Service Co., take safety very seriously. David’s message was powerful, poignant and personal. It was refreshing to experience a speaker that holds employee safety in as high of regard as we at APS do. David sends his message through personal stories, historical events, and most important of all, humor. Commanding a room full of lineman and electricians is no feat for the faint of heart. To have them talking about how great David was afterwards is another level, entirely. Captivating and informative are words that describe the experience. We at APS are thankful for the opportunity to have David and look forward to having him back in the future…”

Jimmie Whisman
T & D Safety Committee
Arizona Public Service Co.

“Anyone who can get a roomful of lineman/electricians to sit still and listen and not be on their phones and hug and smile, and then continue to listen and stay engaged in the presentation is worth his weight in gold. Exactly the message we are trying to push up from the bottom of this company. Be safe for all the right reasons – to take care of yourself and your brother…”

Bob Mack, Crew Foreman
Cable Replacement
Arizona Public Service

“David Sarkus, I can’t say anything other than, your performance was awesome! You brought a great message and great energy. I was fortunate to get to see your presentation three times and was able to take something different from it every time. I would highly recommend you to anyone who is interested in having you speak.”

Joshua Garrison, Operator II
Metro Dispatch
Arizona Public Service

“David was a breath of fresh air! He came in and really raised the “safety spirits” of everyone that had the opportunity to see him speak. They weren’t getting another safety lecture; they were being shown the real motivation of why they work safe. I highly recommend to anyone who wants an effective and engaging safety presenter to get with David!!! Our crews are still talking about ‘The Safety Coach®!”

Christine Ries
Senior Safety Consultant, Transmission & Distribution
Arizona Public Service

“I have had the great fortune to have met and worked with David ‘Coach’ Sarkus. David’s message has helped me truly understand how to exert ‘influential leadership’ and effectively teach and help operational leaders to become ‘Safety Coaches.’ His approach and material content has changed the way I manage safety in a way that has created durable and lasting change. If you want to dramatically improve the safety performance of your organization, you should strongly consider working with David Sarkus, The Safety Coach®. Don’t accept the imposters!”

Steve Gittins, Director of EHS
Moen Incorporated

“Just a quick note of thanks for the tremendous job you did at our four Leadership Conferences. Our participant evaluations told the story – our participants graded us out above the 97th percentile in achieving conference goals… David we will be calling on you in the future, as a key element in our leadership development program.”

Rodney E. Cummickel
Vice President Risk Management
Eagle Materials

“WOW! David Sarkus took the stage and ushered our employees and contractors on a journey of great coaching and leadership. During his presentation his energy captivated the audience with stories, laughter, tears, and great content.

David is an exceptional fit and speaker for any type of audience – from your senior leaders to workers in the office, field, or on shop floor. After hearing David’s presentation you will be energized and motivated to move forward in new directions for higher levels of success. Nothing but positive comments came from David’s keynote speech – and I’m still hearing them!”

Jim Ed Burris,
Corporate Safety Manager
Big Rivers Electric Corporation

“Mr. Sarkus delivered exactly what was requested. His talk was built around partnering with employees to build a safety culture rather than using a strictly punitive approach, because as he puts it in his address, when you get real employee buy in ‘great things will happen’. His talk was very emotional which keep the audience totally focused.”Tadas Kicielinski

General Vice President
Ironworkers International
Labor Co-Chair

IMPACT Attendee

“David, I want you to know that I thoroughly enjoyed your outstanding presentation during the recent May IMPACT retreat on ‘A Healthy Way of Doing Business’…your presentation was most intriguing, stimulating and motivating with a warm inspirational personal touch and some good wholesome humor. F.Y.I., I passed your handout material and a copy of your two books to our VP of PR, letting her know that a strong and energetic speaker like yourself would be great for our Power Plant and Mine Operations/Maintenance Teams to hear on the topic of achieving / sustaining safety excellence. With your exceptional knowledge in the safety arena and your capability to get everyone engaged in understanding a true safety culture and the importance of leadership responsibilities needed to achieve safety excellence; this would be a great message for our employees to hear and the end result would be a healthier, safer and productive workplace.”

Michael C. Rother
Director of Contracts and Industrial Relations
Security Director, Corporate
Prairie State Generating Company, LLC

“David was our keynote speaker at our IMPACT Regional Advisory Board Meeting addressing both Labor and Management Representatives in the Ironworker Construction Industry. He gave a great talk that had a powerful impact on the audience. Leaders from Labor and Management are constantly looking for ideas to improve safety performance in an industry that prides itself on risky behavior. David’s presentation focuses on the emotional side of the need to control or eliminate risk by getting into the heads and hearts of our employees. It focuses on caring for each other to make sure we can all go home to our family’s injury free. There was great feedback from the audience.”

Bob Hoover
Ironworkers International
Management Co-Chair

“David recently gave a presentation to the SILBA lumber owners, and employees that was really terrific! David had their rapt attention, engaging them throughout the talk. It was definitely a heartfelt talk about each of them becoming active participants in their own company’s safety process. It was directed at the owners/principals as we hoped it would… David has a very unassuming air about himself that seems to resonate with all he speaks to. I find him a very likeable, thoughtful, engaging person and he likely has something to offer any audience. He speaks to the little steps that an organization can take action on right now. I would certainly use David again!”

Terry Buckhout, CSP
Regional AVP Risk Control Services
Meadowbrook TPA Associates

“We still talk about you here all the time (even after more than a year). I’ll hear comments weekly if not daily. We shared your books and ideas at K-Basins and across the site … and about taking care and watching out for their workplace family. The part about family and taking care of one another really sank in … I would also let you know that we here at K-Basins have achieved the Companies’ ‘Best of the Best’, for two consecutive quarters; and have the lowest recordable rate of any DOE site across the nation. I feel that having great speakers like you talk to our workers on a very real basis can only lead to success. Sometimes the worker might only remember one thing that was said, but that could be the one thing that keeps the worker and his co-workers safe in the workplace.”

Bob Brotherton, KBC HAMTC
Safety Representative, Fluor

More from Fluor Corporation…“On the mark! You had my workers’ full attention and delivered a powerful and valuable message that will help Flour continuously improve safety performance.”

Pete Knollmeyer
VP Federal Services
Fluor – Harford

“You did a masterful job at weaving experiences and stories so that they had practical application to our lives, I remembered how you loved your parents and missed them – I have thought about what you said every day for the last week – obviously and impact in my life. It’s presentations like the one you gave that are going to help industry do better at highlighting the importance of safety…We all have a ways to go but that sort of message should be heard all across America…Keep on delivering that message.”

Pat Schweiger
Sr. Technical Advisor

“David delivered a powerful keynote presentation for our organization entitled ‘Leading from the Heart’. The presentation fully engaged the audience and provided our leaders with a strong message to take away. David’s passion for safety and his dedication to make a difference in the safety culture of any organization is phenomenal. I will absolutely use David to deliver more keynotes and training services.”

D. Scott Vaughn, CSP, AIC
Director – HSE
Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc.

“David you were great! The excitement and energy that you provided our members (as the opening keynote) truly deserved the standing ovation you received. The simple message you share will make someone think and may save someone’s life. Thank you for being a Safety Ambassador!”

Richard “Hoot” Landry
Region VI VPP • Board of Directors
Region VI VPP • Fort Worth, TX
(1500+ Audience Participants)
Huntsman Corporation

“David Sarkus was exactly what we needed to get our 1500+ attendees off to a motivating start . . . this was the first time that we actually opened a safety and health conference with a speaker who knew safety and kept the attendees awake with humor, and a message that will be remembered for a long time . . . David Sarkus is an All-Star Speaker … He deserved the standing ovation he received.”

Bruce Blankenship, Sterling Chemicals
Region VII APPA, Board Director at Large

“One of my measures of success for an opening speaker at our General Sessions is the impact they have on our attendees. If they are still quoting the speaker at the end of the seminar it is an obvious sign an impact was made. That was certainly the case with your high energy presentation. Feedback from our group continued through the week. Our attendees rated our Opening General Session at which you spoke a 1 on a scale from 1 to 5 with 1 being excellent. Several evaluations mentioned the opening session as the best part of the Seminar.”

Jim Yancy • Executive Director
Association of Energy Service Companies