Safety and health are part of our culture at AEP. We have created programs to improve our employees' safety and health and believe we are seeing results. For the first time in AEP's 102-year history, we had back-to-back years with no on-the-job employee fatalities in 2007 and 2008. Unfortunately, an employee was killed at the Dolet Hills lignite mine in March 2009 while moving a walking dragline. Although investigations are still under way, we will learn from this tragedy and make appropriate modifications to our policies and procedures to prevent a similar event. We have made progress across AEP to refocus and recommit ourselves to working safely each day, but the loss of one of our employees shows that we still have work to do.

Our core value is to have every employee return home from work safely each day. To reach our goal of zero harm, we must have the right policies, procedures, tools and training, as well as a culture that encourages peer coaching, incident reporting, information sharing and corrective and preventive actions.

Zero harm involves more than just preventing accidents; it also means preventing occupational illnesses that can have long-term effects on health. During our work force stakeholder meeting, employees expressed a desire for AEP to encourage a culture of safety that extends beyond the work day, to prevent vehicle accidents and other harm to employees and their families. By placing a value on safety and health, we will achieve our goal of zero harm — preventing injuries and illnesses all the time. The loss of life should never occur.

We had very serious injuries last year that changed the lives of some of our employees and their families forever. In many cases, pure luck prevented serious injury or death. These breakdowns happen in an instant, and the consequences can be severe.

We failed to meet our goal of zero harm because we had 39 life-altering injuries in 2008, and the fact that this was 11 fewer than in 2007 was small consolation. Our goal is zero, and we will not be satisfied until we reach it. This year's employee fatality underscores the urgency with which we must act.

Many of the injuries were caused by falls or employees being struck by equipment. In 2008 we held seven significant-event conference calls with affected business units to ensure that information was shared and appropriate corrective and preventive actions were taken across AEP. We train employees to constantly assess and reassess the hazards in their environment and to minimize the associated risks by using the appropriate tools and techniques.

We ask employees to look out for each other on the job and to speak up if safety or health is compromised. Creating a culture in which employees are comfortable stepping forward remains a challenge.