As a physical therapist and industrial ergonomics specialist, I have found the SIO! program to be a valuable tool to help companies improve their safety and work injury prevention efforts. The keystone of SIO! is the program’s structure, which allows a consultant to confidently offer employer’s a stretching program that can be successfully and smoothly implemented with a great opportunity for longevity. The program provides all the necessary training and educational materials, saving the consultant time and effort.

Ben Sanford, PT, MS – Physical Therapist / Ergonomic Specialist
ARI Integrated Work Injury Solutions

As the EHS Manager of a mid-size (500+ employees) manufacturing facility, my primary function is to prevent occupational injuries. This is a formidable task given the nature of manufacturing activities performed at the plant. Like most manufacturing plants today, our workforce is aging and susceptible to injuries that are caused by, or at least aggravated by “repetitive” work. While there are several factors that have contributed to our world class safety metrics, a great deal of credit goes to services provided by our physical therapist / ergonomics specialist, Scott Ege. The combination of ergonomics, early intervention, and the Stretch It Out!^® program were key elements for achieving this success. In the years that I have worked with Mr. Ege, I have found him to be intelligent, resourceful, professional, dedicated to his clients, and an individual of high integrity. I have no doubt that our organization has greatly benefitted from his expert services and programs.

We have just implemented Stretch It Out!^® at our second onsite location. Both of the rollouts went very smoothly and the support tools you have provided in the PowerPoint and training DVD helped greatly. The manual with the clear pictures, verbal descriptions, and alternate stretches provides a great resource for the stretch coaches as well as the therapist onsite. This program saved me hours of development time and therefore cost to my client companies. Well done!

Mr. Ege, the Stretch It Out!^® Program is amazing! The training DVD’s and manuals are complete and easy to use. The program is applicable to any industry and is easily adaptable for unique situations. Stretch It Out!^® will be a great addition to my existing work injury management and prevention program. I will no longer have to spend endless hours trying to develop my own stretching program for my clients. I can’t wait to share it with my employer clients.

In October of 2011, our EH&S department requested help from the statewide Safety Steering Committee in approving and helping rollout a stretching program for our entire company. This includes roughly 300 employees located across six islands, eleven offices, and every position from trench diggers to pipe fitters, tank installers to propane drivers and operators to office personnel. As a proponent of stretching in general for better company wellness and someone who has been part of a small office department that has regular done daily stretches since February of 2011, I was immediately on board to help find the solution that EH&S sought out. When I found Ege’s Stretch It Out!^® program, I was very impressed to see that it covered every base we were looking for. I called Scott Ege, President of Ege WorkSmart Solutions, PC, to ask a few follow up questions (almost every one of them were readily available as FAQs on the website). While talking to Scott, I found a very professional individual who knew everything about implementing stretching solutions and someone willing to help in any way to implement and sustain his program in our work environment.

We received the license, DVDs and Stretch Coach Handbooks in November; our EH&S Manager and myself took the roles of Co-Champions and began rollout at the Safety Steering Committee level. All members were very impressed, but due to our unique situation of having so many types of personnel and offices, advised that we really needed to come up with not only an implementation plan, but also a sustainability plan. The SIO! Manual and resource materials gave perfect guidance on how to do both. In February of 2012, we rolled out the program statewide to all chiefs, vice presidents, supervisors, managers and chairs. Our Director of EH&S had me present the SIO! work plan at three meetings in order to get our top level workforce on board. Rollout was very simple because Ege makes it simple regardless of which work environment you’re in. Our Stretch Coaches had the materials they needed and have been extremely eager since the beginning to keep this rolling.

Our staff has been on board since and actually looks forward to stretching each day; everyone feels much more energized and less stressed during the work day. We found that Stretch It Out!^® is the perfect solution to anyone looking to implement not only a stretching program, but more so, any company who cares about their workers’ wellbeing. If you would like to contact me directly to speak more about our experiences with Ege and Stretch It Out!^® I’ll be more than willing to chat.

Once again, we highly recommend such a quality program like Stretch It Out!^®.

Scott, just a follow up to our SIO! program start up and implementation. I want to thank you for taking the time to conduct the training for my 11 EHS managers. The presentation was powerful and the material on point. When you asked me what I was looking for from this training, my response was nothing. As in I do not want to have to do anything. My expectations were high but we have now had a successful launch at each of our North American plants and I had zero problems. I want to thank you again for a very well thought out program and implementation process. SIO! is a great program!
Director EH&S Global Operations

The SIO! Program has provided us with an excellent road map for implementing a consistent stretching program and tools to evaluate its effectiveness. This program has been a great time-saver for roll-out of a stretching program. I would definitely recommend this to others.

Thank you Scott for the SIO! Program! We have now implemented SIO! in our second plant. The implementation is made so simple with the employee handouts and training video. We have many employees that have taken stretching to the next level and are stretching during breaks and at home! The benefits of increasing blood flow through this simple program can be felt immediately. No man is left behind with the alternative stretches provided in the manual for those people with various limitations.

The SIO! Program is outstanding. J.L. Clark wanted to introduce a stretching program into our workplace and really wanted to do this right and only do the installation once. We contacted several providers and reviewed their programs but finally realized that SIO! provided the guidance and structure we needed. The concepts make sense and stretches are easy to follow for all of our employees. We are now implementing the SIO! at our other facility as well.