About Us

The Story of Us

1993	Worksafe Traffic Control Industries was founded by Lorena Laprade and Debra Ricker. Began manufacturing temporary construction signs in a small shop garage.
1994	Hired an outside Sales Representative to build the market in Vermont and New Hampshire.
1995	Built an 8,000-square foot manufacturing facility and offices. The new facility included silk screening equipment, automated equipment for sheeting application, and a full PC system that runs on Flexi-Sign Pro. The PC was designed for highway use but was designed to also be used for commercial/custom signs.
1998	Formed Always On Time Sign & Design, a division of Worksafe. The name Always On Time Sign & Design was created as a marketing tool used to increase sales and market share of the commercial sign market. We found that it was difficult to relate sign manufacturing to the name Worksafe, so we wanted to create a more easily identifiable name in the market. This opened us up to capture business from the commercial/custom sign market. The creation of Always On Time Sign & Design has effectively increased Worksafe’s sales and market share and continues to grow.
2000	Always On Time Sign & Design expands into the project sign, political sign, and real estate silk screening market.
2000	Debra Ricker was elected the Chairman of the Associated General Contractors of Vermont.
2002	Launched our website: www.worksafetci.com and www.alwaysontimesigns.com which has allowed us to expand our business across New England utilizing the internet.
2002	Debra participated in the National Dialogue on Transportation Operations for FHWA representing the traffic safety sector.
2005	In an effort to better serve our southern New England customers we opened a full service sign shop in Bow, NH
2007	Worksafe Traffic Control Industries enters the world of smart technology for work zone and roadways. Worksafe was contracted as a subcontractor in Salem-Manchester, NH and we deployed the first Smart Work Zone project in New England.
2007	Began to aggressively market commercial signage and graphics market- we purchased a large format printing system that outputs outstanding photographic quality and laser sharp text at stunning resolutions of up to 1440 dpi. Printing up to 54″ wide our large format printing produces amazing color and quality at competitive prices!
2008	Began to offer the installations of permanent message signs.
2009	Worksafe awarded the Best Builder award by VT AGC for our Smart Work Zone Technology Innovation on the Richmond-Bolton, VT I-89 project.
2010	A full line of portable traffic control equipment was added to the rental fleet including the addition of I-CONE, trailer-mounted traffic signals, trailer-mounted speed trailers, truck mount crash attenuators, trailer-mounted que detection, video trailers and water-filled barriers.
2011	Worksafe partnered with VTRANS and was awarded the Innovative Best Practice by the National ITS Association for its automated weather station system. This project was deployed in Vermont and is a roadway weather information system that collects information and then via the use of changeable message signs gives the traveling public information about the roadway conditions such as black ice.
2011	Vtrans was awarded the Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence for our RWIS automation with variable message sign system.
2012	Worksafe was awarded our first RWIS (Roadway Weather Information System) installation contract in NH launching them into a growing new market area.
2012	Worksafe partnered with the University of Vermont Transportation Center in a study utilizing the I-CONE smart technology system. The purpose of the system is to determine the effectiveness of Uniformed Traffic Officers in the work zone. In addition, it also is used for data collection before and after the project work zone was activated for traffic planning purposes.
2016	Scott Deschamps was appointed Vice President and partial owner of Worksafe.
2016	Hosted the ATSSA National Work Zone Memorial recognizing those who have lost their lives in work zones.
2016	Debra Ricker was elected the Chair of American Traffic Safety Services Association.
2018	Expanded our services to include the installation of permanent solar powered static signs as well solar arrays for closed circuit tv.
2018	Hosted the ATSSA National Work Zone Memorial recognizing those who have lost their lives in work zones.
2018	Restructured our marketing strategies to expand our social network presence with the creation of our new website, Facebook, and Twitter profiles.
2020	Worksafe Traffic Control was deemed as an essential business during the COVID19 epidemic and remained 100% operational to provide safe traffic control devices and equipment for messaging information regarding COVID19.