2023 Safety Ambassadors honoured with awards

Several McGill staff members and teams were honoured at the annual Security Services Community Barbecue, on September 15.

“Each year, the Campus Public Safety (CPS) teams recognize colleagues they consider to be safety champions by naming them Safety Ambassadors,” said Pierre Barbarie, Senior Director, Campus Public Safety. “These are individuals or groups of individuals, whose jobs are not necessarily related to safety, but who go out of their way to make their building, their department or the campuses a safer place for everyone.”

Four individual recipients of the 2023 Safety Ambassador Award were introduced by Denis Mondou, Associate Vice-Principal, Facilities Management and Ancillary Services, including Macdonald Campus Operations Electrician Jon Kassis.

Pierre Barbarie, Senior Director, CPS, and Anja Geitmann, Dean, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, presented Kassis with his award at a separate event at Macdonald Campus on September 14.

The Security Services team at Mac chose to bestow the Safety Ambassador Award this year to Jon Cassis for “displaying exemplary initiative in keeping the Macdonald campus safe.” “Jon is the first to raise a flag when he sees issues on campus, be it inside buildings or on the campus grounds,” Barbarie said, on behalf of the Mac Security team. “He is a stickler for procedures, which is crucial when it comes to safety on campus. Jon has assisted Security Services on numerous occasions during emergencies by rapidly reporting and resolving issues, ranging from detectors being damaged that could cause unnecessary building evacuations, to unsafe hot work practices.”

Please join us in congratulating Jon and extending thanks for all he does to keep members of our community safe.