Its program has evolved over a decade, beginning the day in 1980 when company president Charles Sawyer got word that one of his 3,000-gallon propane trucks was lying upside down in a ditch. When he arrived, the driver was in a rescue van. Stepping inside, Sawyer suspected instantly that his driver was high. The man admitted he had been smoking marijuana.
"If we had one who was doing it, we probably had others," Sawyer recalls thinking. "So we had a town meeting, so to speak, of all the employees and asked what we should do about it. Our own people suggested that we start testing."
Immediately, the company decided to screen applicants for drugs. Sawyer turned to an outside polygraph specialist, who quizzed prospects about whether they had used drugs. Some 60% of them flunked. As word spread that Sawyer Gas tested for drugs, the number of job seekers plummeted. Sawyer lost no sleep over that -- at least the ones getting through were clean. He broadened the testing program to include the entire company, including the president. Polygraph tests were mandated on an annual basis and after any accident or injury occurred.
But testing alone, Sawyer knew, didn't attack the root of the problem. Education, he reckoned, was the answer. He wanted to deal not just with today's workers but also with their children. That, after all, was the future work force.
So in 1987 Sawyer and his wife, Joanne, looked around for materials they could use to teach their employees about the dangers of drugs. Together, over time, they distilled and fashioned all the information into a comprehensive drug-education program. They called it Knowledge Is Power.
"It's a very unintimidating, very positive type of education," Sawyer explains. "It never says don't do drugs because it harms your company. Instead, it's a program to teach our people the signs of drug use, the paraphernalia used, what to watch for in both their fellow employees and their families."
The Sawyers kicked off the program in October 1988, assembling the entire company -- 160 strong -- at a local Marriott hotel. They had charts and videos and pictures of narcotics, as well as tips on drug detection. The local sheriff made a presentation of his own. Crack had infiltrated Jacksonville, he informed the group, and the drug was quite popular among the area's teenagers.
"That knocked me off my chair," recalls office manager Pat DeWitt. "I was sitting there thinking about my kids" -- two daughters who were teenagers at the time. "I figured that they must be around drugs all the time."
Sawyer's program is run by his seven branch managers. Once a year they hold drug-education classes for the troops in their charge. Every new employee must take the class in the first three months on the job. The three sessions, with three short videos and workbook exercises, last about one hour each. The instruction is done on company time, and participation is mandatory. "It's all directed at employees and their environment," says general manager J. N. "Sandy" Kicliter. "We stress in the handouts that they share the information with their families."
Two years into the program Sawyer is confident that his managers and supervisors are proficient at detecting drug abusers. They have learned to watch for danger signals -- slipshod work habits, paperwork errors, dilated pupils.
"The way to get to most people about drugs is in the workplace," Sawyer says. "I think every business in the country has a responsibility to have a drug-free work force. Because when you reach those parents, you're reaching their kids. Every time you educate an employee, you're educating 3 to 10 other people."
In Jacksonville, at least, that philosophy is catching on. Last fall Sawyer, a member of the executive board of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, solicited $6,000 from each of 22 local companies. Those companies became the sponsors of an upgraded version of Sawyer's Knowledge Is Power program called Put Drugs out of Business. Each of the sponsors was supplied with kits for its own programs, and Sawyer bought a Put Drugs out of Business T-shirt for each of his employees. The program has been adopted by more than 600 companies. The cost is $100 to chamber members and $295 to non-members. Any profit goes to the chamber. The Jacksonville chamber owns the program and is making it available nationally.
When Congress outlawed polygraph testing of employees in 1988, Sawyer switched to urinalysis. He screens all applicants. Additionally, all employees and managers are automatically tested once a year and after any accident, no matter how minor. Supervisors, moreover, can request a urinalysis for anyone anytime they are suspicious. Refusal to submit to one is considered a positive test and grounds for discharge. No one gets a second chance.
"We make a flat statement -- if you do drugs, go somewhere else," says Kicliter. "We are not a rehabilitative employer. We might, however, consider the reapplication of a good employee who's gone through rehabilitation and can demonstrate that he's been clean for at least a year."
Since 1980 about 15 employees have tested positive. Sawyer hasn't had to fire a single one. "They have quit immediately," he says. "They don't even want to talk to you about it." In the past year only one employee has tested positive, a marijuana case that surfaced after an accident. Sawyer will bet heavy odds, he says, that his crew is now drug free or close to it. And his employees are the program's biggest backers, he says.
But as at Warner, there has been an undercurrent of indignation. "Some of the younger guys resent it," says Hollis Williams, a 34-year-old pipe fitter. "They think their personal life should be their own business. But if you have nothing to hide, it's no problem. If you are going to have any kind of decent job these days, you're going to have to go through drug testing here or someplace else. To tell you the truth, I'm all for it. We have guys driving propane trucks and looking for gas leaks -- that's sensitive work."
