#WhyIGotTheShot - Craig Lesurf

Leaders need to lead! As someone in a leadership position, as well as a strong advocate for health and safety, I knew when the vaccine came out that it was my duty to get it. It was my duty to protect my loved ones and keep my co-workers safe. Most importantly, it was my duty as a leader because if I don’t do the right things for the right reasons, how can I expect anyone else to?

The vaccine is a vital step toward getting back to our “new” normal. We all have been vaccinated many times before this pandemic as children, and I think people tend to forget that. Those vaccinations are the main reason we don’t have some of the deadly diseases that we used to have in the world. I don’t think being vaccinated is a big deal, and I don’t think we should make it a big deal. We all must do our part to protect ourselves, our loved ones and the general public.

Taking the vaccine is about protecting myself, my family, co-workers, and everyone else I care about. It just makes sense.

Both my wife and my daughter are nurses who work with fragile patients on a daily basis. I wanted to make sure that I was protecting them as much as I could, and for me, getting vaccinated was the best way I could do this.

As the President of Gillam Group, as Chair of the OGCA Safety Committee and the League of Champions, I wanted to be proactive in trying to make sure all the correct safety measures were taken. When the vaccine came out, I got it as soon as I could and challenged my staff to do their research and get vaccinated as soon as possible so that we could work together to collectively be as protected as possible from COVID by achieving “herd immunity.” Besides advocating for the vaccine, at Gillam we provided extra safety/COVID training to our staff and provided specific messaging on all of our sites to make sure our COVID communications were clear and up to date. We also deployed screening stations and other measures such as rapid testing in our office.

Construction is a massively important part of our economy. I knew that when COVID hit, we needed to make sure that we quickly had the right protocols in place so that everyone could continue doing their jobs safely. We ensured that social & physical distancing was practiced wherever possible, and when it wasn’t, due to the nature of the job, we ensured that other safety protocols were in place, such as proper PPE & disinfection. We have been on the front lines of construction throughout the pandemic and the effectiveness of our efforts has been proven through statistics showing that while construction makes up 10 per cent of the overall workforce, it only accounts for less than 2 per cent of COVID cases.

We need to help keep everyone safe. We need to protect our friends, family, co-workers and society as a whole. The best way we can do this is by getting vaccinated. We need to work together so that we can get back to a somewhat normal life and remember, leaders need to lead.