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Kyle Zimmer

Kyle spent 25 years with the Operating Engineers in Connecticut and retired in 2024 as Director of Health and Safety at IUOE Local 478. He built the local's Members Assistance Program, a peer support system members still run today, and co-developed the peer training curriculum Operating Engineer locals use across the country. Through Zimmer Consulting, he now co-delivers Workplace Peer Programs and Recovery Friendly Workplace training nationwide with Brett Lovins.

What Kyle does

Kyle helps unions, contractors and employers build Workplace Peer programs people actually use. That means picking the right people, training them, and setting the program up so it outlives any one champion. It also means training the people around them: stewards, supervisors, foremen and leadership, so they understand what the peers are doing and back them up.

The training is practical. What to say, what not to say, how to help without making things worse, and where to send someone for a higher level of care. Real tools, not theory.

He also trains treatment center staff on how tradespeople think about work, benefits and getting back on the job, built from the union side.

Where it comes from

The Members Assistance Program at Local 478 started after a power plant explosion killed six trade workers. Kyle built the response, and it grew into a year-round, member-run peer system: a confidential program for members and their families, a licensed clinician on retainer, and referral partnerships with treatment centers across the region.

The part that mattered most was the coaching. Members coming out of treatment were matched with peers who had been through it. The peer checked in daily, went to meetings with them, and walked the return to work with them for up to a year. Kyle ran the program for 14 years and helped a lot of construction workers get into treatment and back on the job.

He says it plainly: he is the guy members call before they call anyone else. A trusted peer reaches a struggling worker faster than any program. The job is making sure that peer knows what to do.

Workplace peers reach the person. A Recovery Friendly Workplace readies the company around them. One without the other leaves a gap.

It starts with the top boss saying it out loud.

Credentials and appointments

• Retired Director of Health and Safety and Director of the Members Assistance Program, IUOE Local 478. 25 years with the local.
• Co-developer of the IUOE International's Members Assistance Peer Training curriculum, used by Operating Engineer locals across the country.
• Instructor, IUOE National Training Fund. Safety and health training to thousands of Operating Engineers.
• OSHA Safety and Health Specialist.
• Chair, Mine Safety and Health Research Advisory Committee, NIOSH.
• Member, Connecticut Workers' Compensation Advisory Board. Governor-appointed.
• Member, the Connecticut committee guiding the state's opioid settlement funds, 2022 to 2025. Governor-appointed.
• Member, Opioid Task Force, North America's Building Trades Unions.

Working together

Kyle and Brett co-deliver everything from a one-hour session to a multi-day workshop: Workplace Peer training, steward and supervisor training, conference sessions, toolbox talks, and training for treatment center staff on the trades. Two facilitators, real scenarios, role play, language people will actually use. Printed workbooks included.

Kyle is also the subject matter expert on the Washington State project building a free, public-domain Workplace Peer support toolkit for construction crews. Read about the toolkit →

See the training page →

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