August 20, 2025  | Makenzie Kellar

The employees of Pueblo West Metropolitan District are quick to sing the praises of their Safety and Risk Manager Steve McDowell. So much so that not one, but two different Safety Hero nominations were submitted on Steve’s behalf, and the picture they paint makes it clear that his selection as the CSD Pool’s latest Safety Hero is well-deserved.

“His dedication to fostering a safety-conscious culture is evident, and he continually goes above and beyond to ensure the well-being of all team members” one nominator wrote. “Steve is a near constant presence at work sites, events, and safety incidents to take care of personnel and share lessons learned,” said another. Both nominators praised his dedication and noted that Steve practically built the district’s safety program during the three years he has been with the district.

However, if you ask Steve, he’ll admit that the road to becoming Pueblo West Metropolitan District’s invaluable safety manager was much longer than many would assume. 

“It only took me thirty-two years to get my degree,” Steve joked during our interview. He explained that he started his academic career studying criminology but eventually landed a job as a Colorado State Trooper in the Hazardous Materials Section. Realizing that a degree in criminology wasn’t going to be useful to him anymore, he switched to fire science, then emergency management, and eventually settled on studying safety.

Some text goes here

In hindsight, Steve says that it was the one common thread in his previous experience. “My whole career has been safety one way or another. I may not have had the title as a Safety Manager, but everything’s been about safety.”

As for how he ended up as Safety Manager, that was simply a case of the right job being open at the right time. After finishing his degree, Steve discovered that the Pueblo West Metropolitan District was looking for someone to improve safety for their district. “I thought that’d be a great place to start out, grow my career, and learn.”
After such a long journey to earn his degree, Steve initially came to the job hoping that things would be a little easier going forward. “When I got here, I was hoping to come to a district that had a safety program built out, I could kind of just ride the coattails into retirement.” However, Steve found that this wasn’t the case. Before Steve arrived, the district’s safety program, as one nominator put it “needed serious work across all facets to identify and remediate safety issues.” 

Steve quickly realized that this job was going to be a much bigger project than he had thought it to be. While others in his position might have chosen to leave for something easier, Steve didn’t seem to think there was much of a choice at all. 

“It’s the right thing to do,” Steve said, citing a responsibility to the district’s employees as the reason for his efforts. “[To] give them a good, safe program so that they go home the way they came to work.”
However, if building up a safety program from the ground wasn’t already a daunting task, Steve had to build one for over 140 employees across fire, emergency services, water, maintenance, parks, and administrative departments.

When asked how he managed to build a robust safety program that catered to so many different needs, Steve emphasized the importance of communicating with those on the ground and being willing to learn. 

“I don’t know all the jobs these people are doing. I count on them to tell me what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.” Steve said, making it clear that the way to identify safety concerns was to be on the ground observing, helping, and learning the ins and outs of every job.

Now, Pueblo West Metropolitan District prides itself on having a much more robust safety program than it did before. But when asked about his proudest accomplishment with their safety program, Steve—instead of choosing a specific milestone or metric—answered that he was most proud of the relationship he had built with other district employees. 

“I’ve got a pretty good rapport with everybody that I work with. And they feel comfortable—I hate to say ‘tattletale’—but they feel comfortable coming to me.” 

When a district has as many employees and departments as Pueblo West Metropolitan District, it’s sometimes hard to spot safety deficiencies unless someone is willing to talk about them. It takes not just time and effort but also trust to build a safety program that truly protects people.

Towards the end of our interview, I asked Steve what advice he would give to anyone wanting to improve safety at their district, especially to those people starting on a journey similar to his own. After taking a moment to think about it, Steve finally settled on this: talk to your people. Once again, he stressed the importance of fostering relationships with others and learning what they do before any sweeping changes can be made. 
“You have to build a path before you can go down that path.”

Though Steve humbly accepted congratulations from his colleagues for being chosen as a Safety Hero, he wanted to be sure that the district's front-line workers were also recognized for their dedication. To truly put his money where his mouth is, Steve has decided to use his Safety Hero award—a $100 gift card—to fund the prizes for the district’s upcoming safety fair. That way, he and his colleagues in the safety program could all have a chance to share the honor.