A Year in the Life of a Health & Safety Specialist

Kat Wonders is a Senior Health & Safety Specialist for Cavendish Agri Services. With a master’s degree in occupational safety and health, she supports 10 sites across Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. As she heads into her second year with Cavendish Agri, she’ll tell you that her days don’t follow a fixed schedule. They follow the business. 

Spring can only mean one thing: fertilizer season is in full swing. Seasonal employees have begun working, and Kat is moving between sites, running orientations and making herself known to the teams she will be working alongside for the season.  

“I try to be as approachable as possible,” she said. “If someone trusts you, they will tell you about the thing that almost happened. And that is the information that actually matters.” 

Kat has also come to understand that what one person considers common sense might not be universal. The sites bring together employees from different backgrounds, and what feels obvious to one person may be entirely new information to another. So, no matter who it is, Kat starts with why teams must work safely.  

“If you break it down for someone, they get it,” she said. 

By late summer, the pace changes. This is when Kat moves into program and policy work: writing procedures, updating documentation and working through projects. This work may be less visible, but it makes the rest of the year successful. 

Harvest season brings another surge in fertilizer orders, and Kat returns to the same priorities from spring, only at a smaller scale. Activities pick up again in November, with Kat in Prince Edward Island supporting the uploading of fertilizer from ships for next year’s growing season. It is a significant process on the Cavendish Agri calendar that happens twice a year. Last fall, the team completed the entire unloading process without a single safety incident.  

“That was a pretty major milestone for the team,” Kat said. 

What ties it all together, no matter the season, is the people.  

“They are truly the nicest people that you will ever work with,” Kat said. “Every site feels like a family.”  

Kat comes from a manufacturing background, and the agricultural and trucking sides of the business were new to her. The learning curve was real and so was the welcome she received. John MacKinnon, General Manager, Cavendish Agri, makes safety a visible priority, and his teams reflect it. Employees truly know one another, and that familiarity carries over into how they look out for each other. For Kat, that’s what the work comes down to. 

The calendar keeps moving. Before you know it, spring rolls back around, and Kat is at the sites again, making sure every employee knows how to get home safe.