Safety Specialist

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Promote and maintain a proactive safety culture throughout the facility and serve as a visible safety resource for all employees.
• Conduct routine and daily observations of production, maintenance, material handling, yard, warehouse, and support activities to identify unsafe conditions, unsafe acts, and opportunities for improvement.
• Exercise Stop Work Authority whenever an imminent danger, serious hazard, or uncontrolled risk is identified; communicate the concern, initiate appropriate controls, and document resolution.
• Perform and/or coordinate formal safety inspections, behavioral observations, audits, job hazard analyses, risk assessments, and workplace exposure evaluations.
• Lead the development, review, and continuous improvement of safety policies, procedures, programs, and work instructions.
• Ensure safety procedures are practical, understood by employees, and implemented consistently across operations.
• Investigate all recordable and potentially serious incidents, injuries, illnesses, near misses, property damage events, and other significant safety events; identify immediate, underlying, and root causes and establish corrective actions.
• Track corrective and preventive actions to completion, verify effectiveness, and escalate overdue or ineffective actions to management.
• Maintain OSHA-required injury and illness records and support required reporting, documentation, and record retention.
• Support safety metrics and reporting, including leading and lagging indicators, incident trends, corrective-action status, inspection findings, and training completion.
• Conduct new-employee safety orientation and recurring safety training; develop or update training materials based on identified hazards, incidents, regulatory changes, and operational needs.
• Maintain accurate safety training records and verify that employees are qualified or authorized before performing safety-sensitive work.
• Coordinate or support training and qualification programs for forklift operators, crane/rigging activities, PPE, Hazard Communication, lockout/tagout, emergency response, fall protection, electrical safety, fire prevention, hot work, heat stress, and other applicable topics.
• Lead emergency response activities involving medical incidents, fire alarms, evacuations, hazardous material incidents, severe weather, spills, and other facility emergencies.
• Coordinate emergency drills, evaluate drill performance, document deficiencies, and implement corrective actions.
• Inspect and maintain records for fire extinguishers, AEDs, eyewash stations, emergency equipment, spill response equipment, first-aid supplies, and other emergency response resources.
• Assist with development, implementation, and periodic review of Emergency Action Plans and other emergency response procedures.
• Support industrial hygiene activities and exposure assessments involving noise, heat stress, welding fumes, dust, chemicals, lighting, ventilation, ergonomics, and other workplace exposures; coordinate outside resources when specialized testing is required.
• Evaluate PPE requirements, assist with PPE selection, and maintain or support PPE assessments and programs appropriate to the hazards of each operation.
• Assist operations with machine guarding, electrical safety, hazardous energy control/lockout-tagout, material handling, powered industrial trucks, cranes and lifting operations, welding/hot work, ergonomics, and other manufacturing hazards.
• Review safety aspects of new equipment, process changes, facility modifications, and new or revised work practices before implementation when requested.
• Participate in contractor and visitor safety activities, including orientation, site requirements, and verification of applicable safety documentation.
• Coordinate with supervisors and managers to correct hazards while minimizing unnecessary disruption to production.
• Participate in regulatory, insurance, customer, corporate, and internal safety audits/inspections; assist with responses and corrective-action documentation.
• Monitor changes in applicable safety regulations, industry practices, and company requirements and recommend program updates as needed.
• Serve as a liaison with Human Resources, Operations, Quality, Maintenance, Environmental, and other departments on safety-related issues.
• Provide periodic safety reports and recommendations to the Safety Manager and facility management regarding trends, significant hazards, incidents, corrective actions, and program performance.
• Support safety committee activities, toolbox talks, safety meetings, safety campaigns, and employee engagement initiatives.
• Maintain confidentiality and professionalism when handling incident investigations, employee information, and other sensitive safety records.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the Safety Manager or management.

Education and Experience:

• High School Diploma or GED.
• Minimum of five (5) years of progressive experience in manufacturing, industrial safety, construction safety, or a closely related industrial safety environment.
• Experience working directly in an active manufacturing or industrial facility is required; experience in steel fabrication, welding, electrical equipment, material handling, or heavy industrial operations is preferred
• Demonstrated knowledge of OSHA requirements and practical application of safety programs in an industrial workplace
• Demonstrated experience conducting incident/accident and near-miss investigations, including identification of root and contributing causes and development of corrective actions
• Minimum of three (3) years of experience as an emergency responder, or related public safety position.
• Emergency Medical Technician Certification preferred
• Experienced in conducting post-accident investigations
• Ability to work independently and make sound decisions during emergency and non-emergency situations.
• Experience conducting employee safety training.
• Hazardous Materials Operations or Technician Certification preferred.
• Certified Occupation Safety Specialist Certification
• Forklift Trainer Certified
• Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point, and Access required.