For years, I’ve read the positive debriefs and post-event articles about the AWCI Peer Safety Review, which AWCI facilitates twice annually. Recently, I had the opportunity to attend one in person, and to sum up the experience in one word: impressive.
What Is a Peer Safety Review?
A Peer Safety Review is a unique, collaborative program where an AWCI member company—the host—invites a team of safety professionals from other AWCI member companies into their office and onto their jobsites.
The purpose is to thoroughly review the host company’s safety and health procedures and documentation. The invited team provides constructive feedback on their observations, sharing industry best practices and lessons learned. To ensure candor, all participants sign a non-disclosure agreement, committing to truthfulness, confidentiality and transparency.
The Review at Valley Interior Systems
This review was held from November 17–20, 2025, at Valley Interior Systems in their Nashville, Tennessee office. I was joined by an exceptional group: AWCI President Jeff Dreisewerd, AWCI Director of Technical Services Don Pilz, a dozen Valley professionals and volunteer safety leaders from prominent member companies, including E&K, F.L. Crane, Forge, MAREK, OCP, PCI, Precision Walls and South Valley.
On-site Observations
During the two-and-a-half-day meeting, we toured Valley’s impressive Nashville office, including their dedicated safety training room.
We also conducted multiple jobsite visits. I was fortunate to tour the massive new Nissan Stadium, the future home of the Tennessee Titans, scheduled for completion in 2027, where Valley is playing a significant role. We walked the site and interviewed professionals working on the project, witnessing their safety protocols firsthand.
In-Depth Collaboration
In addition to the jobsites, we spent significant time in the office engaging with Valley’s team members—safety professionals, estimators, human resources, project managers, operations and superintendents.
They fielded direct questions, allowing us to gain a deep understanding of the Valley culture and their commitment to safety and health, including the detailed processes they use to educate and keep their team safe.
Great Hosts, Great Networking
Valley Interior Systems were simply magnificent hosts. Between the intensive review sessions, we had valuable networking opportunities and fun, including a trip to Topgolf with Valley’s CEO Troy Vance and COO Jeremy Turi; dinner at the Hard Rock Café; and an evening exploring Broadway in Nashville, enjoying some fantastic music; appreciating great BBQ and gathering for a few happy hours.
The Valley team ensured we were well-fed and efficiently shuttled to and from all locations. The event wrapped up with the review team assembling an evaluation presentation and reviewing it candidly with the Valley leadership.
Key Takeaways
Though I was largely an observer, I left with several major takeaways.
Safety Culture Is Paramount: Valley regularly emphasizes its culture, with safety and health forming a huge, non-negotiable part of it. This requires and clearly has buy-in from the top. Vice President of Safety Chris Sanders leads by example through his deep knowledge and passion, benefiting both Valley and the broader industry.
The Value of Volunteering: I was incredibly impressed by the dedication of the volunteer review team. They generously volunteer their time away from work and family, with their companies supporting the travel and expense. Many of these professionals are “giving back” after their own company’s safety program was evaluated.
Confidence and Vulnerability: The success of this program hinges on transparency. It takes a significant amount of confidence and vulnerability for a company to invite industry colleagues (and sometimes competitors) to evaluate them with the goal of receiving candid, constructive analysis.
AWCI has successfully facilitated more than a half dozen of these reviews and plans to continue. This is, in my opinion, one of AWCI’s best programs. We all share the same goal—to make our teams, jobsites and industry safer for everyone.
Well done to Valley Interior Systems and the dedicated AWCI Peer Safety Review team!
