Knife River Corporation Continues Stellar Safety Record

Knife River employees recently marked 10 years of safety performance improvements, reaching overall recordable incident rates and lost-time accident rates far below the construction industry average. Since 1998, Knife River has achieved a 75 percent reduction in its injury and illness rates.

“Safety is Knife River’s number one core value. Employees at every level have embraced safety as their individual responsibility,” said Bill Schneider, president and CEO. “Our priority is to ensure the safety of our employees and also the general public traveling near our worksites. Ten years of improvements is an outstanding achievement and each employee deserves recognition.”

For 2008 Knife River’s recordable-incident rate was 2.74, down 17 percent from 2007 and 52 percent lower than the national industry average. The lost-time-accident rate was 0.60, which is 6 percent lower than the previous year and 72 percent below industry average.

“Our goal is to be a World-Class leader in safety by developing a zero-incident safety culture,” said Knife River Corporation safety director, Zach Knoop. “We created several new safety programs and employee-managed safety improvement teams. By giving front-line employees ownership, there has been a remarkable grass-roots safety culture change.”

Knife River Corporation mines aggregates and markets crushed stone, sand, gravel and related construction materials, including ready-mixed concrete, cement, asphalt, liquid asphalt and other value-added products in 14 states. It also performs integrated construction services. Knife River operates in the central, southern and western United States and Alaska and Hawaii. Knife River is an indirect subsidiary of MDU Resources Group, Inc., a multidimensional natural resource enterprise traded on the New York Stock Exchange as “MDU.”

Media contact: Pamela Trhlik, Senior Public Relations Representative; (701) 530-1054 pamela.trhlik@mduresources.com.

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