Dan Steen Larsen

At the moment, Dan is, in collaboration with COWI, completing the construction of the Bodil Eskesen Centre for the Capital Region of Denmark, where he has been involved almost since the beginning 4 years ago.

On the project, he describes his most important task as "keeping things running and catching whatever falls between the cracks."

Also in the literal sense, as can happen when many different trades are working at the same time.

In general, Dan tends to take on many different tasks and has therefore also been responsible for access control and the alarms on the project.

"I have the ability – or the commitment, if you will – to embrace a lot. Anything can be done, is my attitude," he explains.

Dan has been part of MI Support for 15 years, but a career path within the safety field has not always been on the cards.

Originally, Dan is a trained bicycle mechanic and has, in addition, dealt quite a bit with demolition work. Over the past 10 years, however, safety has been the main focus of his working life.

"What sets me apart from many other safety managers is that I don't have an academic background. I naturally have the working environment coordinator training, but apart from that I don't have a background as a building constructor or similar," he explains.

On the other hand, Dan has himself tried being part of the crew and in that way experienced the entire safety aspect from a different perspective.

"An insight I consider a great advantage to have in my work as a safety coordinator to this day."

"Safety is rarely a topic that sparks great enthusiasm on a construction site. That's why everything goes a little more smoothly when I establish a good relationship with the tradespeople and the construction management."

He therefore has a goal of being 80% out on site and 20% in the office during a working day.

"At the same time, together with the construction management, I'm very keen to recognise people for their good work – whether it's with a hot dog stand, an ice cream van, or whatever else we've had. I can tell that it makes a big difference to the collaboration on the construction site."