Always getting Weis about safety and saving lives in stores

Safety specialist Jason Kaufman of Weis Markets discusses consumer safety and saving lives in Maryland stores. Nestor gets an education on modern AED devices and what happens when an emergency happens in a store.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

wise, markets, maryland, associates, people, cpr, love, emergency, ice cream, stores, sunbury, thinking, safety, conversations, automatic external defibrillators, baltimore, wife, week, trained, preakness

SPEAKERS

Jason Kaufman, Nestor J. Aparicio

Nestor J. Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home we are wn St. am 5070, Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are taking the show back out on the road. It is the Maryland crabcake Tour presented by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I have these fantastic PacMan scratch offs, you can get these wise markets as well and these wise conversations, our friends at Liberty pure solutions keeping my water clean. I’m usually drinking out of the orange colored glasses right now with the Orioles but my water is clean, as well as our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care for keeping us on the road and powered up we’re going to be fade these each and every Friday during the baseball season. I’m a little family shirt on here. I had to feed these crabcake before the Oreos beat up on the Yankees last week. So that was perfect for me as well. But we can eat things called wise conversations here and wise markets great sponsor bars. We don’t have them on specifically as much as perhaps we used to, I’d like to, I know the heritage bears coming up in a couple of weeks. And I put pictures up and anytime I cook food. It comes from wise markets in general unless I’m at a restaurant so we have some fun with the conversations but it’s been a little while since I caught up and I saw that they had done something in Maryland and this is totally down the cup of Super Bowl lane of what companies do to keep people safe and what they’re thinking about in ways that like, Look man, I go in I get the ice cream. I’m a big vanilla bean guy already knows that they know I love Mr. Ron’s rice pudding. I like those little shrimp caps on the crab that I get over at the carny location. They don’t have everywhere specialty items. But the Jason Coffman is here he is the safety specialist at wise markets. They are our partners and these wise conversations. And Jamie put something up about the friggin plating and safety specialist. And I’m like, you guys are thinking of everything. They’re wise markets. And I was up in the ice cream factory two summers ago now and I need to return non COVID times and have a good time up there. But I got the tour everything and see everything that wise markets does up in this beautiful valley in the middle of Pennsylvania. And JC gets to go to work there each and every day and does something that I find me fascinating. How are you? I don’t know that I’ve had a safety specialist ever on my show and 32 years of doing this. So it was a pleasure to have you on especially with those baseball coins behind you.

8

Jason Kaufman  02:16

Thank you. I’m doing great today.

Nestor J. Aparicio  02:18

So your background is in what because I know when I was sort of pre meeting you on? Like how does one become a safety specialist at Weis markets?

Jason Kaufman  02:27

Well, my background is before I worked for wise markets i i worked as a 911 dispatcher, I was the training coordinator for our local area through our Emergency Management Agency. And then COVID came and some budgets were, you know, decreased and opportunity came that they had a safety position open at wise markets and my wife works at wise markets in the accounting department and I put in for the job and the rest is history. So I brought a lot of my emergency services background to wise markets and you know, we’re improving safety and health every day. I

Nestor J. Aparicio  03:01

8

you know, we talk about trauma, and I live in a city where you know, things happen, right? We’re in Baltimore, Maryland here and we’re Baltimore positive, we’re trying to lift the city but bad things happen every day. Right? And you know, the 911, and calls and accidents and things like that. How does that what you were doing in the big picture of, you know, oh, my god, something’s happened to my god, something happened and I have 11 or somebody slipped on something or my god, someone’s having an incident of some kind. I always I always think about being behind the wheel. You know if something I’ve seen, but my wife’s diabetic, right? So if she were to have a diabetic incident while driving, let’s say, like, I always see things and say, Oh, my God, but then there are the 911 in the emergency teams that show up. But there’s the thing that happens before that when the incident happens, right? Like you were on the other end of that 911 call, we have an incident here at the Towson wise whatever it would be something has happened that has forced us to reach to an emergency service on in our space and the place where we are. And, you know, can we you know, I think all of us as kids went and had the the mouth, the mouth and CPR and trying to learn a little bit about that as we were kids to help other people. But I think from a corporate level, you guys have taken it to a different level. And I see you’ve changed things in Maryland and improved it.

Jason Kaufman  04:26

Yeah, we did. Now Maryland did pass a law that’s going in effect in 2025. That requires grocery stores to place automatic external defibrillators AEDs in their stores. But why is Margaret’s has took a stance of not only are we putting automatic external defibrillators in our stores, but we’re also providing the necessary training for our associates to recognize an emergency. So our associates will have the ability to recognize your wife having a diabetic emergency, somebody passing out the difference between a cardiac arrest Just enter in a heart attack. You know,

Nestor J. Aparicio  05:03

I always know where the orange juice is Jason, very diabetic, I know where the orange juice aisle is every day. But

Jason Kaufman  05:10

teaching our associates to recognize that teach our associates, if somebody has a bleeding emergency where hey, maybe they cut themselves somehow. And we’ve also placed stop the bleed kits and all of our stores. And we trained our associates to that we have over 3000 associates that are trained and stop the bleed. As of today, I have over 415 associates that are trained in CPR and First Aid, and not just trained, they’re certified. They’re nationally certified by the American Heart Association, barwise, markets, trainers, because the other thing we did, we, we have trainers in wise market, so I have trained other people to be trainers and certified instructors. And we’re also going to be doing some community based classes, we’re going to allow the community to come in to our wise Market stores, and we’re going to teach them how to act and how to operate in an emergency situation. And we’re gonna do that free of charge.

8

Nestor J. Aparicio  05:58

I think the other part of this is the human experience of you know, my daughter in law’s big Disney fan. So I’ll just use them as an example that, oh, we’re busy working for Disney, right, you have a certain amount of training that especially in the 80s and 90s, for six sigma on the GE side and how you do business and how you do things, but more the thinking of everything. And, and the government forces, obviously compliance in lots of issues in lots of ways across lots of industries, for safety, and all sorts of human measures. But there’s also the part of training your associates to do something that quite frankly, I’m not qualified to do. But if I work for you, you’d make me have to have that skill that I would then have for the rest of my life. I had a tourniquet somebody, I’m queasy about blood, everybody knows my wife, if you see my 25th anniversary document, or we’ve been promoting big thanks to wise market, you’re involved in it as well. But you know, you mentioned I’m married to a diabetic, so I know some diabetic stuff, you know what I mean? If I weren’t, I might not write, and I might not know what to do. And I am not a paramedic, and I am freaky about blood. But if I were annihilate someone were cut as a human, you’d want to help them but then do you have the skill to help them? And do you have the devices there to keep them safe until somebody can, you know, somebody comes over and dials 911 And, hey, we need to save somebody’s life. Um, that’s a beautiful thing that you’re thinking about it, but I think a lot of people think about it, but then you train someone, and then they take that with them the rest of their life.

Jason Kaufman  07:33

Right, the training they can utilize outside of wise markets too. And I just want to add, we’re not requiring them to become trained, we’re encouraging any associates interested become trained, we’re averaging three to five associates for every store that are trained. But this training is also good if we have somebody that works in our stores that might work at a, you know, maybe working on a part time job at a sports complex or maybe they volunteer for their kids soccer team. Maybe they do things like that. And this certification is what’s required for that. So we’re, we’re equipping them with that we’re equipping them to be able to act in an emergency at Thanksgiving dinner, we’re equipping them to act in an emergency at their children’s school, when they’re when they’re, they’re watching a play. You know, we’re giving them the tools for their toolbox to be better people. Like

Nestor J. Aparicio  08:18

I know I look young, I’m old. I gotta be honest, Jason Coffman of wise, Marcus. I am old. But I’m old enough to remember it. Was it Annie? Was that the name of the dummy that did it right. I mean, resuscitation Annie, right. Yep, that was it just, I was thinking of it. And I was trying to, I didn’t Google it or anything. I came up with this. But I’m laughing about it a little bit. And it’s certainly not a laughing matter. But 40 years ago, was the last time that I had such training, right? And I’m like, I would, you know, I would try like how, you know, I mean, but I’m gonna know that I’m equipped. Right? So having folks where I’d be like on the plane, something happens on the planes, we have a doctor on the plane, you know, I would hope that there is a doctor but I would also hope that there’s something there a first aid kit, like, you know, as I’m thinking about an emergency situation, so for wise markets, the state of Maryland, what can you tell me about defib to aid give me the give me the vocabulary on and educate me a little bit about God forbid anything were to happen to me or a loved one. What then happens in a store.

Jason Kaufman  09:21

8

So every store is equipped with an automatic external defibrillator and placed into service about a week ago. So they’re in a cabinet so that when you walk in the front door, and whatever wise markets Maryland stores right now, you will you will see an ad hanging on a wall, you’ll see the sign there’s a sign on the front door, you’re gonna walk over to the cabinet. That ad is in the cabinet. We’re gonna you open up that cabinet. If there’s, God forbid an emergency, somebody has went into cardiac arrest, you get that add? You open it up, I’m going to then get a I’m going to get an email and a text message saying hey, that add at store 206 and Maryland has been deployed. So I’m going to know that hey there. If there’s an emergency and they’re using it, second of all, you’re going to open it up and you’re going to turn it on from that point forward, that AED is going to tell you everything you need to do, from calling 911, to cutting the cloth off to placing the pads where they need to go to clearing the patient and analyze for that shock. And if it’s a shockable rhythm, that means the heart is in cardiac arrest. And it can be shocked, the AED will say, clear the patient, and air deliver the shock. it’ll light up, it’ll beep, and he will push the button, it’ll deliver the shock and it will say, continue CPR, you will then do CPR for another two minutes. And the AED will stop you at two minutes and say stop CPR. reanalyzing. And it will continue to do that. Until which time, the patient either gets a sign of a life. And then the ad will say that there’s a sign of life and animal and the whole time

Nestor J. Aparicio  10:55

we got 911 on the call, right? Like literally as this is going on tech. Yes. Yeah. Hopefully the paramedics get there within three to eight, you know, within that timeframe Correct.

Jason Kaufman  11:05

You have the average response time for EMS from the time that 911 is called to late arrive on the scene in the nation is six to 12 minutes. So just depending on you know things, so, but that’s a lot of times. So that’s that’s the other reason why we really wanted to do this, we want to provide the training, because every minute that passes decreases the person’s chance of survival. But if we have that add, we have trained people, we’re increasing their chance of survival by mountains will say we’re just we’re increasing their chance of survival. And we have since we’ve implemented a CPR program, that our wives markets stores, we’ve had three CPR saves over the past 13 months. We’re associates performed CPR, they have been given the American Heart Association Hero Award. And those people are back shopping at their stores. Because of our associates. Awesome. Awesome.

Nestor J. Aparicio  12:00

You know, because I saw this on my timeline. I’m like, this sounds like something I just want to learn a little bit about because I mean, Jamie was proud of it. You guys are wise marks. And I’m thinking you guys are really thinking about all of these things because they’ve happened like this is and i I’ll be really honest with you now that we’re talking about this. I was at the Oreo game this week. And our friends at curio wellness gave us beautiful when I was close enough to heck all the Yankees coming off. But But I saw an incident now that I’m thinking about it was 100 degrees. I mean, it was really, really odd. And I saw mergency folks with an older person on a gurney as I was coming out of the bathroom, cleaning up, it’s hot. There’s kids, there’s ice cream, there’s a lot of people, there’s Yankees fans, right? And so and there had been an incident and I’m thinking, you know, the Orioles train people for this and there’s people on site, and there’s 20,000 People here and you know, on 100 degree day, something’s gonna happen. something’s gonna happen, you know? So nonetheless, you guys are thinking that’s why I love wise market. So we call them wise conversations. Jason Coffman is a safety specialist. And now I know why and that is special. So we appreciate you. You come by Listen, I want to say this for wise because I haven’t. I’m not feeling the love. They haven’t had me back to the ice cream factory. You know, when I’d like to have you here. When I came up, it was during like, a bad Summer of Code was like 22, maybe? Or 21. Is it been that long? It can have been three years. Whatever it was, we were all messed up. And, you know, I’m like the Tesla song wrapping my hair up because I let my hair down. So I have to put my hair up in a bun. And but I went through and did the milk, the dairy. The ice cream was on that day. You have to have me up there when you have a peach online or sharing something where I get that soft serve. And it looks like Willy Wonka. It was like being in the factory tasting room. And I saw good one point into the ice cream vats and like all that. So I want to come do it again. My wife didn’t get to do it. And I really, I mean, they really, I don’t think they broke rules but they made rules for me to get in there and be a part of it and make a fun day and I was on this crazy crabcake tour. But I want to come up and do it. sanely and I’ll just say this. We had a burger up there at Penn’s tavern I Skeeters up on a hill with a barbecue and I just went I went up to Sunbury just being partners and like all this and I went back on my own without wise last year went to the Sun Gorilla Glass fiberglass Spyglass in Sunbury, they do concerts on the hill up there and a friend of mine mentioned I want to for Pat Benatar parked on a hill. You live in God’s country. We call Baltimore the land of pleasant living because there was this old national beer national right you love the taste. It’s from the land of pleasant living so we call it the land of pleasant living and some people would disagree with that in Baltimore, but I love it here, but when I come to Sunbury, I’m like It’s like Pleasantville. It’s It’s a beautiful place with this river and this hill and these bridges in these. You live in a beautiful place.

8

Jason Kaufman  15:07

Well, I thank you for that. I’d like to have you up here and give you a tour. I’d like to certify you and your wife and CPR and first aid so I’d love to do that for you. Oh

Nestor J. Aparicio  15:15

man, I feel like Wayne’s World like I’m not worthy I’m not quite you know what I mean? Like I’m not what I have to think about that but it doesn’t involve ice cream. It does. Ice Cream especially if especially flavor like you got that butterscotch ripple going right now I know but I you know, I miss having these conversations with people to come because I bring up the ice cream I know what’s going on. Because I shop and wise markets. We help you shop and wise markets as well. They’ve always been supportive the community here since becoming involved and when even when I called them lease, I learned how to pronounce it. But it’s why so that’s why I call them wise conversations. They support us. We support them. We we round up we do all the right things around here. Folks, like Jason Coffman are behind the scenes up there in Sunbury, taking it a step beyond resuscitation and making sure that folks stay safe. As a safety specialist. Look, I don’t want to talk sports with you or whatever. But like you got to Penn State Games up there. I want to first Springsteen concert, but it’s a whole call thing, the whole Penn State thing, right? Like y’all go and it’s fun. And it’s wrestling and there’s football and there’s a you know, it’s important, very, very important. The wise tailgate, right?

Jason Kaufman  16:23

Yep, absolutely. That’s what it’s all part of it. Well, look, we’re

Nestor J. Aparicio  16:27

8

in the big 10 down here in Maryland. So I can’t pretend that we’re gonna be all nice about the Penn State thing, because it you know, it becomes very fractious in football season and basketball season. But we always love having you guys as partners. I love the story. He told the 911 stuff and for all the lives, you know, dadly it saved. My wife’s a two time survivor in certain ways as well. So big appreciation for folks like you have been out there and thinking about stuff that quite frankly, when I come in to get a gallon of milk, I don’t think about these things. You know what I mean?

Jason Kaufman  16:57

No, you don’t. You think about shop and I think about hey, when you’re shopping, I want to make sure you’re safe. I want to make sure the person in a parking lot safe. I want to make sure that the mother that pulls up with her baby that is choking into the front door that our associates can go out and help give that infant a better chance of survival till the ambulance arrives.

Nestor J. Aparicio  17:15

Well, I’m glad you’re there. All I’m thinking about is I hope the raspberries are fresh this week. You know what I mean? Like and I know I’ve had to produce people on and they always are but raspberries are weird man. They don’t keep the way to my blueberries my strawberries keep but but um, you know, I’m always getting the fresh fruit fresh produce. That’s my jam. And we love wise markets and we appreciate them for partnering with us having wise conversations keep folks safe. JASE Keep up the great work up there and God’s country here Pleasantville. Get some Skeeters for me today. All right. All right. I’ll do it. Appreciate you. safety specialist. JC golf majority is here for wise Marcus. We’re having fun around here when we can because our baseball teams good. And our football team is going to be good. And we got elections going on. We’re encouraging everybody to get out and vote here as it’s going on. We’ve had some conversations with political candidates. We’ve had lots of horse racing conversations with the Preakness coming up in two weeks. Dictor already came on and gave us a front and back we were up in Greenmount station and cream out bowling. I did the show from a bowling alley with real duck pins on the show. We did a history of the Preakness and Maryland racing the future of the Preakness and Maryland racing. And we have the Preakness on the brain coming up here this month and baseball in the brain as well. We will be back down to fade Lee’s having a delicious crab cake No doubt some shrimp salad on Friday the 10th with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and we’re gonna be there each and every Friday. So while Luke and I gathered do some baseball and then we usually have some other fun guests as well, it’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery in conjunction with Liberty pure solutions in our clean water and Jiffy Lube. Multi care I am Nestor we are wn st am 1570 Taos to Baltimore and we never stop talking Baltimore positive