KANARRAVILLE, Utah--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 7, 2026--
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The company highlighted its EMR at 0.42 and recognition by ASIC with the Safety “Erector Award of Honor” related to BZI’s DART rating at 0.00.
An Experience Modification Rate (EMR) is a number used to gauge past cost of injuries and future risk. An EMR rating below 1.0 indicates a safer-than-average company. DART stands for Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred. It is a key OSHA safety metric measuring the severity of workplace injuries by calculating the number of incidents resulting in an employee missing work, working light duty, or being transferred to a different job. The measurement evaluates the impact of injuries on operations and serves as a "report card" for safety performance.
BZI’s employees agree. The USA TODAY Top Workplaces awards recently ranked BZI #1 Employer for Frontline Workers, which measures through employee surveys, team member sentiment on how supported, safe, and valued they feel, focusing on cultural aspects like communication, appreciation, and trust in leadership.
BZI’s ongoing integrated approach to safety and outstanding performance in safety is supported by its culture, training and equipment innovations.
Specialized Trade and Safety Training at BZI Academy:
BZI proactively ensures safe construction work sites and practices through its partnership with the BZI Academy™. The academy provides hands-on and real-world application of foundational training to all its team members. An exclusive technical, safety, vocational and leadership training center, the academy provides training in OSHA (10) and (30) certifications, equipment operations, fall protection and industry-specific welding certifications. Since 2021, the organization, formerly known as SteelTech Academy, has issued thousands of certifications across these disciplines and consistently logs over 30,000 student contact hours annually. As part of this expansive training curriculum, the academy also offers a Department of Labor-certified Apprenticeship Program, shaping relevant skills and advancing careers for those wanting to pursue construction as a vocation. All new BZI team members are paid for time spent attending the comprehensive training at the academy.
“I walked into BZI Academy and thought, this is something that shows such a commitment to providing a human-centric safety model,” added Horovitz. “BZI gives the right tools, knowledge and develops innovative products with safety in mind from the beginning. It’s awe-inspiring. It blew us away.”
InnovaTech®, LLC – Product Innovations in Safety:
BZI’s InnovaTech ®, LLC specializes in designing, engineering and manufacturing innovative construction equipment and processes to enhance efficiency and safety on the job. The group has consistently developed several industry firsts and one-of-a-kind products.
InnovaTech working hand-in-hand with BZI has provided unique and seamless feedback and testing environments between the two organizations. BZI and InnovaTech work closely to continually improve the innovative equipment products and look for new opportunities to make steelwork and team member construction work sites safer, simpler, and more efficient. “The consideration for safety is a top priority from the very beginning of any new product conceived and developed by the companies,” said Jakob Harker, President of InnovaTech.
Safety Culture:
“BZI’s extensive safety programs and culture are central to all work conducted and environments where team members operate at the company,” said Jesus Cadena, BZI’s Chief Safety Officer. “Every day starts with team discussions on safety and ways we can help our fellow team member be safer, before anyone steps out on the work site or operational facilities. We provide quality personnel, training and extensive resources, continually updating the information and instruction, based on changing project and industry conditions.”
Cadena added that the company provides Quality Control Guides to ensure all specifications for safety are met and exceed industry standards.
“Safety is our number one mission. We do everything in our power and apply whatever resources necessary to ensure our fellow team members make it home safely to their families,” said Thomas Harker, President at BZI. “It’s critical our team members feel safe and taken care of by the teams at BZI. If anyone in our company has suggestions or notices ways to improve our processes, you can bet our leadership quickly acts to consider the best ways to execute the new ideas. This is one of the many reasons we’ve been able to achieve the safety metrics that set us apart and have our team members feel great about their time at the company.”
The construction industry is listed among the most dangerous industries in the world, typically ranking in the top three or four for highest fatality rates. Early 2026 data, identifies construction with the highest absolute number of workplace fatalities of any U.S. industry. Employing only about 8% of the workforce, construction accounts for approximately 20% of all private-sector workplace fatalities.
ABOUT BZI
Considered one of the top steel and construction organizations, the BZI ® group of companies headquartered in Kanarraville, Utah, operates through three primary organizations: Building Zone Industries, LLC is responsible for steel erection, while BZI Steel, LLC specializes in steel fabrication. InnovaTech ®, LLC specializes in designing, engineering and manufacturing innovative construction equipment and processes to enhance efficiency and safety on the job.
The company continues to receive numerous industry awards and accolades for its exceptional performance and contributions to its industries. The company has been the recipient of:
BZI is a proud member of and accredited by AISC, an organization that has recognized BZI with its top safety award, the “Erector Award of Honor” multiple times. CEO James Barlow serves on the Forbes Business Council and Inc. Leadership Forum and is a recipient of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige Award. Jakob Harker, President of InnovaTech, is a proud member of the Fast Company Executive Board, an organization of select senior executives, founders, business owners, and industry experts who are defining the future of business.
BZI’s mission is to revolutionize the steel construction industry through innovation and team performance, while accelerating project delivery and setting new standards in safety and efficiency.
BZI is completing and executing major construction projects across the United States and is recognized as a leading provider of innovative construction solutions nationwide. Its reputation for excellent client and operational performance is attracting premier companies from around the world. These organizations are building with BZI as a trade partner and bringing new economic opportunities across the U.S. through the many BZI projects. Top customer industries include data centers, e-commerce retail, manufacturing facilities for batteries, aerospace, microchips, electric vehicles and food and beverage.
For more information about BZI, visit bzi.com, email office@bzi.com, or call 888.509.2280.
BZI proactively ensures safe construction work sites and practices through its partnership with the BZI Academy™. The academy is one of the many reasons BZI continues to exceed industry standards in safety by providing hands-on and real-world application of foundational training to all its team members. An exclusive technical, safety, vocational and leadership training center, the academy provides training in OSHA (10) and (30) certifications, equipment operations, fall protection and industry-specific welding certifications. BZI Academy consistently logs over 30,000 student contact hours annually. As part of this expansive training curriculum, the academy also offers a Department of Labor-certified Apprenticeship Program, shaping relevant skills and advancing careers for those wanting to pursue construction as a vocation. All new BZI team members are paid for time spent attending the comprehensive training at the academy.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed “efforts to achieve a durable peace in the Middle East” in talks at the Vatican on Thursday aimed at easing tensions following U.S. President Donald Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.
Rubio met with Leo and then Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin in a visit that lasted 2½ hours.
Also, Iran said it was reviewing the latest American proposals on ending the war, as Trump threatened the country with a new wave of bombing unless a deal is reached that includes reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz to international shipping. The developments followed days of mixed messaging from the Trump administration over its strategy to end the war.
Here's the latest:
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans for the closed-door talks, said the meeting would take place next week on May 14 and 15. The official did not specify the venue but the previous two rounds have taken place at the State Department and the White House.
The earlier rounds were led by the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon and the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States, although Secretary of State Marco Rubio participated in both and President Trump greeted the participants at the second.
— Matthew Lee
The U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions on an Iraqi oil official, several Iraqi firms and leaders of Iran-backed militias accused of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions and finance militants.
The Treasury Department alleges that Iraq’s deputy oil minister, Ali Maarij Al-Bahadly, helped divert Iraqi oil and falsify documents so Iranian oil could be sold as Iraqi oil, benefiting Iran and allied militias.
“Treasury will not stand idly by as Iran’s military exploits Iraqi oil to fund terrorism against the United States and our partners,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement Thursday.
The Vatican said the “need to work tirelessly in favor of peace” was discussed in talks Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who came to Rome on a fence-mending visit after President Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.
During Rubio’s meeting with Leo, and the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, “the shared commitment to fostering good bilateral relations between the Holy See and the United States of America was reaffirmed,” the Vatican said.
In a statement, the Vatican said the two sides then exchanged views on current events “with particular attention to countries marked by war, political tensions, and difficult humanitarian situations, as well as on the need to work tirelessly in favor of peace.”
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are debating a plan that could carve up a majority-Black congressional district, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Trump’s strategy to try to hold on to a slim House majority in the November midterm elections.
Protesters shouted “No Jim Crow” outside the House and Senate chambers as lawmakers convened to consider the legislation. The redistricting effort in Tennessee is one of several rapidly advancing plans in Southern states as Republicans try to leverage a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act.
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The U.S. stock market is holding near its records as oil prices keep dropping on hopes that a deal may be nearing to allow tankers to carry crude once again from the Persian Gulf.
The S&P 500 added 0.1% early Thursday to its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 193 points, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.1%.
DoorDash jumped after reporting better results than expected. Whirlpool tumbled after reporting much weaker results than expected. The seller of home appliances said it would raise prices by at least 10% for some of its offerings, while accelerating cost cuts.
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Supreme Court justices are not “political actors,” Chief Justice John Roberts said Wednesday, insisting unpopular court decisions are based solely on the law.
“I think, at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions, we’re saying we think this is how things should be, as opposed to what the law provides,” he said. “I think they view us as purely political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do.”
His remarks to a conference of judges and lawyers from the 3rd U.S. Circuit in Pennsylvania came at a time of low public confidence in the court, and about a week after the court handed down a decision that hollowed out the Voting Rights Act.
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Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are poised to take up a plan Thursday that could carve up a majority-Black congressional district, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Trump’s strategy to try to hold on to a slim House majority in the November midterm elections.
The redistricting effort in Tennessee is one of several rapidly advancing plans in Southern states as Republicans try to leverage a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act.
The court ruled Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the federal law. The high court’s decision altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Pope Leo XIV and then Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin in a visit that lasted 2½ hours.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said Rubio and Leo discussed the situation in the Middle East “and topics of mutual interest in the Western Hemisphere. The meeting underscored the strong relationship between the United States and the Holy See and their shared commitment to promoting peace and human dignity,” he said.
In a separate statement about the Parolin meeting, Pigott said the two diplomats discussed “ongoing humanitarian efforts in the Western Hemisphere and efforts to achieve a durable peace in the Middle East. The discussion reflected the enduring partnership between the United States and the Holy See in advancing religious freedom,” the statement said.
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Trump’s lawyer, hoping for an eventual Supreme Court victory, has asked a federal appeals court in New York to temporarily block a longtime columnist from collecting an $83 million defamation award.
The lawyer told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a filing Tuesday to stay its decision supporting the award so that Trump won’t have to pay writer E. Jean Carroll while he appeals to the high court.
A Manhattan jury awarded Carroll the payout in January 2024. Another jury in May 2023 awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding Trump sexually abused her in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in 1996 and then defamed her after she published her account of it in 2019.
Trump has vehemently denied sexually abusing Carroll or ever knowing her and has repeatedly accused her of making accusations against him for political purposes or to promote her memoir.
Attorney Roberta Kaplan, who represents Carroll, declined to comment through a spokesperson.
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Trump’s proposal to put a coat of white paint on the exterior of a 19th-century historic landmark building next to the White House is slated for a hearing Thursday by a key federal agency, which he expects to approve what would be a dramatic makeover.
The National Capital Planning Commission is scheduled to begin considering the plan on Thursday, according to its meeting agenda. Trump calls for painting all or most of the Eisenhower building’s gray granite exterior with white paint. He last year called the gray a “really bad color.”
But the proposal has alarmed preservationists, architects, historians and others who argue that granite is not meant to be painted and that paint would trap moisture, deteriorate the stone and not solve problems the administration wants to fix.
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The Trump administration’s approach to the Iran war over the past 24 hours has pinballed from declarations that a tenuous ceasefire was holding and military operations were over to new threats of bombing the Islamic Republic.
Tuesday started with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explaining how the U.S. military was protecting stranded ships so they could traverse the Strait of Hormuz.
That afternoon, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the White House that the military operation was “concluded” and that the U.S. achieved its objectives. But in almost the same breath, he said Trump was still seeking a “path of peace” that required Iran to agree to a deal to reopen the vital oil shipping corridor.
By Tuesday evening, Trump announced that the effort to protect ships was paused to see if an agreement could be reached. Then on Wednesday morning, he again warned that bombing would resume if Tehran didn’t agree to U.S. terms.
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Iran said it was reviewing the latest American proposals on ending the war, as Trump threatened the country with a new wave of bombing unless a deal is reached that includes reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz to international shipping.
Hope that the two-month conflict could soon end buoyed international markets on Thursday, even as the U.S. military fired on an Iranian oil tanker attempting to breach an American blockade of Iran’s ports hours earlier. The developments followed days of mixed messaging from the Trump administration over its strategy to end the war.
Trump posted on social media that the two-month war could soon end and that oil and natural gas shipments disrupted by the conflict could restart. But he said that depends on Iran accepting a reported agreement that he did not detail.
“If they don’t agree, the bombing starts,” Trump wrote.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio opened a fence-mending visit to the Vatican on Thursday after President Donald Trump’s broadsides against Pope Leo XIV and the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran angered the Holy See and sparked ongoing sparring between the two American leaders.
Rubio, a practicing Catholic, had an audience scheduled with Leo, which was complicated at the last minute by Trump’s latest criticism of the Chicago-born pope. Leo has pushed back, calling out Trump’s misrepresentations of his views on Iran and nuclear weapons and insisting that he is merely preaching the biblical message of peace.
Rubio was also due to meet with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who on the eve of his visit strongly defended Leo and criticized Trump’s attacks in understated diplomatic terms. “Attacking him like that or criticizing what he does seems a bit strange to me, to say the least,” Parolin said Wednesday.
Parolin said Washington had requested Rubio’s audience, and that the pope was open to continued dialogue.
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President Donald Trump speaks during a Mother's Day event for members of the military, Wednesday, May 6, 2026, in the East Room of the White House, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump adjusts his microphone while speaking during an event for military mothers in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, May 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
