Texas Mutual Insurance Company awards $100K to Midland College

By Rebecca Bell
Dean of Community Relations & Special Projects

Texas Mutual Insurance Company has awarded a $100,000 grant to Midland College to fund the Risk Management Institute at Midland College, which provides free workplace safety courses for employers, employees and the general public.

Midland-area employees and employers have benefited greatly from these safety courses, and we are grateful for Texas Mutual's continued support of the risk management institute, said Steve Thomas, Ph.D., Midland College president. The opportunity to educate, and re-educate people about workplace safety is made possible through the ongoing partnership between Texas Mutual and Midland College. We are proud to be a part of educating area employees and employers about the importance of workplace safety.

This is the seventh consecutive year that Texas Mutual, the state's leading provider of workers compensation insurance, has awarded the grant to the college to sustain the Risk Management Institute.

Midland College is one of three community colleges in Texas, in addition to Kilgore College and College of the Mainland in Texas City, that provides these free safety classes via funding from Texas Mutual. Texas Mutual has awarded a combined $2.8 million in safety education grants since 1999.

Since the inception of the Risk Management Institute at Midland College in May 2006, over 2,000 people have participated in the program. Approximately 70 percent of participants are from the oil and gas industry, with the remaining participants from city government, health care and other industries.

The 2012 schedule at the Risk Management Institute includes courses on forklift and driver safety, OSHA training, an introduction to safety management and CPR training, among others.

In addition to these safety grants, Texas Mutual hosts free workers compensation workshops across the state for local employers. The workshops include a presentation by Texas Mutual safety professionals and an opportunity for continuing education on workplace safety, workers compensation and fraud prevention.

These grants and workshops exemplify Texas Mutual's ongoing commitment to the workplace safety and prevention of workplace accidents through education, said Bob Barnes, chairman of the Texas Mutual board of directors. We recognize the value safety education provides to employers giving them tools to keep their businesses, and more importantly, their employees safe. Safety education is always a sound investment.

For more information about the Risk Management Institute at Midland College, please visit midland.edu/continuing_education/rmi or call (432) 681-6303.