MSF Awards Scholarships To 15 Montana Students

Butte, MT (WorkersCompensation.com) - Montana’s aging workforce faces a wave of retirements, especially in construction and trades industries. In an effort to improve workplace safety, and to prepare the next generation of workers, Montana State Fund (MSF) awarded fifteen Montana students with $4,000 scholarships for higher education on Friday. The recipients all have an area of study focused on occupational health and safety or trades and industry.

The scholarships are part of MSF’s Growing a Safer Montana (GSM) initiative which aims to emphasize the importance of workplace safety to young workers before they enter the workforce. Historically, Montana has ranked among the highest in the nation in workplace accidents and fatalities.

“The goal of Growing a Safer Montana is to improve the health and safety of Montana workplaces through education and awareness,” said MSF President and CEO, Laurence Hubbard. “Construction and trade industries are high risk occupations and Montana is faced with a wave of retirements in the near future in these areas. Because young workers are twice as likely to be injured in an on-the-job accident, it is imperative we properly equip the next generation to continue to improve Montana’s safety culture.”

The scholarships are one tier of the GSM initiative, the other tier consists of personal protective equipment (PPE) grants for Montana high school industrial arts programs.

“We want all workers to return home to their families at the end of each day in the same condition as when they arrived to work. The more we can educate and the more we can focus workers on staying safe, the closer we can get to making that goal a reality,” said Hubbard.

To find out more about GSM, MSF encourages high school teachers, and counselors to visit the website:

https://www.montanastatefund.com/web/about/scholarshipsgrants.jsf

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