Environment, Health, and Safety Professional

Position Title

Environment, Health, and Safety Professional

Alternate Titles

Health and safety engineer and safety specialist.

Brief Job Description

Environment, health, and safety (EHS) professionals advise on, develop strategies for, and lead workplace safety and health management. They work to eliminate fatalities, injuries, occupational illnesses, property damage, and environmental harm. 

Education and Training Level Description

EHS professionals often have a bachelor's degree in science-related fields, such as chemistry, biology, environmental science, engineering, fire protection, or environmental health and safety. It is common to find EHS professionals with other bachelor’s degrees as well. Employers also value experience, so internships or cooperative-education programs at universities are a plus. 

Job Profile

EHS engineers design procedures and systems that protect people, facilities, and the environment from damage. They develop these procedures and systems by assessing marine energy facilities, identifying potential hazards, and applying their knowledge of regulatory codes. EHS professionals are needed in both marine energy generation facilities as well as marine component manufacturing plants.

EHS professionals can specialize in a variety of different fields, which include safety training, construction safety,  fire prevention and protection, system safety, industrial hygiene, accident investigation, and chemical spill response, analyzing and identifying hazards associated with complex procedures and systems and developing appropriate controls to prevent accidents.

EHS professionals also investigate accidents and injuries. They determine the root cause of the accident and determine the appropriate corrective actions to prevent future occurrences. They interview employers and employees to learn about work environments and contributing factors that lead to accidents. They also evaluate the corrections that were made to remedy violations found during inspections.

EHS professionals typically:

• Maintain and apply knowledge of current environment, health, and safety policies, regulations, and industrial processes
• Review plans and specifications for new machinery and equipment to make sure that they meet safety requirements
• Identify and correct potential hazards by inspecting facilities, machinery, and safety equipment
• Evaluate the effectiveness of various industrial control mechanisms
• Ensure that facilities and job sites comply with health and safety regulations
• Guide the installation and testing of safety guards, devices and interlocks
• Review employee safety programs and recommend improvements.

Job Skills

EHS professionals typically need:

• Communication skills. EHS engineers must be able to interpret federal and state regulations and their intent so that they can propose proper designs for specific marine energy sites or product manufacturing environments. Health and safety engineers also prepare and present training materials to marine energy workers and must be able to describe new regulations and procedures to a variety of audiences.
• Creativity. EHS engineers produce designs showing potential health and safety problems and remedies for them. They must be creative, in order to deal with situations that are unique to a project.
• Critical-thinking skills. EHS engineers must be able to identify hazards to humans and property in the workplace before those hazards cause material damage or become a health threat.
• Observational skills. EHS engineers must observe and learn how marine energy operations function so that they can identify risks to people and property. This requires the ability to think in terms of overall processes within an organization. Health and safety engineers can then recommend systemic changes to minimize risks.
• Problem-solving skills. In designing solutions for entire organizational operations, EHS engineers must take into account processes from more than one system at the same time. In addition, they must try to anticipate a range of human reactions to the changes they recommend.

More Information, Job Opportunities, etc.

For more information on EHS professional jobs, see: 

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook: Health and Safety Engineers
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook: Occupational Health and Safety Specialists and Technicians

Resources

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook: Health and Safety Engineers