As the wind industry expands its reach across the nation and prepares to begin building offshore wind farms, federal agencies and contractors are focusing on improving safety for the growing industry.

“Whether you are erecting a wind farm in the mountains of Colorado or the cornfields of Iowa, you can run into a totally different situation and weather can change in a second,” says Brian Sturtecky, area director at the Jacksonville, Fla., Office of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration. “If you erect one tower and have to do 150 the same way, you cannot become complacent [because] that's when accidents occur.”