John “Puma” Smith

“They call me Puma and they call my son Little Puma. Everywhere he goes in construction they say, we know your daddy and we know he’s safety conscious. That, to me, is valuable.”

“At one point, I was 386 pounds. I was intimidating and I certainly wasn’t approachable. I was trying to build a name for myself. If you didn’t follow my lead, then I’d get mad.

One day, I was working on a different worksite than normal. Instead of being the lead guy, I was working under someone else. That person corrected me in such a disrespectful way. So, what did I do? Out of anger, I went after him.

Then someone said to me, “Well, Puma, think about it. That's how you talk to your guys.” I was caught way off guard. I stopped and I thought about it. This is what I learned: 

As a supervisor, you have to be a teacher and a brother. Now, I’m working at Daigle Industries as a lead foreman. Everyday before we start work, I look at every last one of them. If someone seems to be bothered, I’ll ask them, “hey brother, what's going on with you today?”