Safety and Occupational Health Specialist

Description:

Requirements:

Definitions:

UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION : A year of undergraduate education is 30 semester hours, 45 quarter hours or the equivalent of college study. This education must have been obtained in an accredited college or university for which high school graduation or the equivalent was a prerequisite.

GRADUATE EDUCATION : In the absence of specific graduate program information, a year of graduate education is 18 semester hours or 27 quarter hours of graduate level college course work, or the number of credit hours the school attended has determined to represent 1 year of full-time study. This education must have been obtained in an accredited college or university.

SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE : Specialized experience is experience in or related to safety and occupational health that provided the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position to be filled. Examples of qualifying specialized experience may include:

• Managing safety or occupational health program elements.
• Developing or recommending safety and occupational health policy to higher levels of management.
• Applying safety and occupational health laws, regulations, principles, theories, practices, and procedures to advise on or resolve technical matters dealing with occupational safety and health requirements.
• Developing safety and occupational health standards, regulations, practices, and procedures to eliminate or control potential hazards.
• Developing or implementing programs to reduce the frequency, severity, and cost of accidents and occupational illnesses.
• Analyzing or evaluating new and existing jobs, processes, products, or other systems to determine the existence, severity, probability, and outcome of hazards.
• Designing or modifying workplaces, processes, products, or other systems to control or eliminate hazards.
• Inspecting or surveying workplaces, processes, products, or other systems for compliance with established safety and occupational health policies or standards and to identify potential new hazards.
• Training of workers, supervisors, managers, or other safety and occupational health personnel in safety or occupational health subjects.
• Work in occupational fields such as industrial hygienist, safety engineer, fire prevention engineer, health physicist, and occupational health nurse.

Applicants must meet one of the following to qualify for the GS-11 level:

** Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree or 3 years of progressively higher-level graduate education (54 semester hours, 81 quarter hours or the equivalent) leading to a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree in safety, occupational health, or industrial hygiene. Or a Ph.D. degree in other related fields that included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours or the equivalent of study from among the following (or closely related) disciplines: safety, occupational health, industrial hygiene, occupational medicine, toxicology, public health, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biological sciences, engineering, and industrial psychology. To be creditable, the education must have provided the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to do the work of the position to be filled.

**OR one year of appropriate specialized experience as defined above under "Definitions". To be creditable, this specialized experience must have been equivalent to at least the GS-9 grade level in the Federal service.

Examples of GS-09 level experience may include: 1) inspecting conventional construction projects and designs to determine compliance with applicable safety standards; 2) preparing formal training materials and communicating standard safety and occupation health techniques and steps to participants; 3) advising supervisors and safety representatives of appropriate safety and occupational health measures to control or eliminate hazardous operating processes or environmental conditions. For example 1-3, assignments were received with instructions as to objectives, priorities, possible problems and deadlines. Recurring assignments wee carried out independently. Conferred with designated person on difficult or unusual situations. Selection and application of appropriate technical criteria was necessary which frequently required adaptation to meet assignments needs.

**OR a combination of successfully completed graduate level education, as described above, that is beyond the second year of progressive graduate study and specialized experience, as described above. (CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS ON HOW TO COMBINE GRADUATE EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE)