In honor of Earth Day, DSM planted a couple of trees Wednesday at Lykins Park.

Anthony Hummel, safety health environmental manager at DSM, was one of the volunteers.

The Winchester native has worked at DSM for 23 years; DSM Nutritional Products in Winchester focuses on innovative research and development for a variety of food and dietary supplements, feed, pharmaceuticals, alternative energy and bio-based materials. Before DSM, he worked at Martek.

Hummel started in the maintenance department first, and upon learning about the safety department at DSM 17 years ago, Hummel enrolled at Eastern Kentucky University to pursue a bachelor’s degree with the support of his wife, Janelle, and four children, Hayley, Holly, Natalie and Andrew.

Winchester Sun: What do you do as a safety health environmental manager?

Anthony Hummel: I manage all of the safety of the employees, safety programs, behavior-based safety. We have a really good safety record. We’ve gone 13 years without a lost-time accident. It’s a very good record.

I also help with all of the health initiatives for the site … all the air testing, air quality. Then, environmental, I also do for that all of the EPA permits.

WS: What do you do on a typical day?

AH: A typical day for me is managing new safety programs. So, it’s always constantly something new within DSM safety. Always new programs to be working on. And then training with employees.

WS: What’s your favorite part about working at DSM?

AH: My favorite part about working at DSM is the management believing in the safety culture. That’s probably the biggest part of why I love my job. I love building safety for the employees and having the management support to do that; it makes it a great place to work.

WS: What should people know about DSM?

AH: What’s interesting for this site here in Winchester is this is the research and development site for all of North America’s nutritional product sites. There’s only one; we are the one for North America.

WS: What do you like to do when you’re not working?

AH: Right now, my son consumes my time with baseball … He plays for (Campbell Junior High School). We start travel baseball soon as that’s over. So we’re gone every weekend. We’re playing baseball or riding dirt bikes or four wheelers or hunting. Pretty much anything outside.

WS: Why was DSM planting trees Wednesday?

AH: We’re always looking at how to give back to the community. So, in celebrating Earth Day, we partnered with (Winchester-Clark County Parks and Recreation) to plant two trees every year.

Other things we do, we support most of the sports facilities. We do banner advertisements for most of the sports. So, you see DSM’s name on a lot of ball fields …

It’s nice to give back to the community and work for a company that allows you to do that and gives you so much money a year to give back.

WS: Why is it important for businesses like DSM to give back?

AH: I think it’s so important because most community programs need additional support to run efficiently. They need corporate sponsors to help do that. We give to many of the local charities.