Year after year, BCSP has been successful in attracting new qualified professionals and practitioners wanting to pursue and maintain quality accredited SH&E certifications. Early indicators tell us that 2013 will be yet another year of growth.

Along with this success comes renewed Board of Directors and Staff commitment to governance and fiscal responsibility. During a time of stagnant economies and high unemployment worldwide, BCSP has forgone scheduled price increases that occur every three years on its primary revenue sources; applications, exams and renewal fees. We continue to evaluate pricing changes with sensitivity and respect to our credential holders.

BCSP staff is making significant progress with the Credential Management System (CMS) project. In preparation, they recommended opportunities for standardization and simplification of processes that were approved by the Board. Current efforts are in the vendor selection aspects and preparing for the more intense design phase ahead.

BSCP Standing and AdHoc Committees have initiated their activities. We are excited to have current Directors work alongside former Board Members and Certificants appointed to serve in these committees with staff support. Their contributions will soon be considered as part of continuous improvement efforts of processes and services and to advance BCSP and the profession.

We participated in the InterSociety meeting held in Chicago and sponsored this year by the National Safety Council. It was a great opportunity to share our initiatives, plans and results with BCSP sponsoring organizations and other participating non-profit SH&E organizations.  

The BCSP Spring Board meeting will be held in San Antonio, Texas April 12-14. Along with the customary professional and business agenda items, we will be reviewing the BCSP vision and mission, the board self-assessment and our strategic plan. We look forward to a having a productive meeting.

Any organization with a strong safety culture knows that the maintenance of that safety culture is as big a challenge as its initial creation. New team members have to learn safe practices, experienced individuals have to refrain from acting with complacency, and safety leaders have to promote the culture among personnel. To consistently inspire safe practices among team members an organization requires sustainable safety leadership. A proven, reliable tool in maintaining sustainable safety leadership is the regular use of safety certification.

BCSP's STS Sponsorship organizations know this. Using the Safety Trained Supervisor� (STS) certification, they have created programs which generate front-line leaders and ensure the safety of their workforces. Among the most intensive STS Sponsors, the Diamond Class, Hensel Phelps Construction Co. reports an improvement in supervisor training, Clark Construction a decrease in incident rates as safety ownership grows, and URS an 88 percent reduction in injuries.

URS is one of the foremost pioneering organizations in the use of safety certification to build sustainable safety leadership. The company started using STS certification 14 years ago, has over 2,263 supervisors who hold the STS today, and is now encouraging those supervisors with the experience and drive to achieve the Construction Health and Safety Technician� (CHST�) certification.

"In the decade that followed our use of safety certifications we built a safety program that resulted in a record eight times better than the national averages for all recordable injuries and illnesses," explains URS's Vice President of Environmental Safety Health and Security, Brad Giles, PE, CSP, STS.

Giles is the latest in a long line of safety leaders at URS. One of the organization's heritage companies, Morrison Knudsen (MK), had three CSPs in their corporate office, led by Ben Rietze, Past President of ASSE, who began encouraging project staff to achieve certification in the 1980s. He and another CSP, Lowell Townley, the successor to Rietze as Corporate ES&H Director, encouraged Giles to become certified. They worked to increase the professionalism of the safety staff and by the late 1990s certification became one of the most important components in building sustainable safety leadership at the company. The certification became a requirement for all senior safety management positions.

"The professionalism practiced in preparation for, and the confirmation of knowledge that is a result of, achieving a certification has made our regular use of quality certification one of the greatest contributing factors to our improved safety culture and record," Giles says.

L-R: Terry Grisim, CSP, Fred Manuele, CSP, Fred Fortman, ASSE Executive Director

The 2013 Technician, Technologist, and Supervisory Scholarship is named after Kevin Moorhead, CHST.

L-R: Kevin Moorhead, CHST, Carl Heinlein, CSP, OHST, STS

"Moorhead's contributions to safety practice have been phenomenal," stated Carl Heinlein, CSP, OHST, STS, BCSP Board Past President. "He was instrumental in transitioning the original CCHEST certifications into the BCSP family, and was an important leader in the construction of BCSP's new world headquarters, working with the project team and contractor to ensure a quality project built safely and delivered on time."  

You can see the list of available scholarships on the ASSE Foundation webpage. 

BCSP released information gained from a 2012 salary survey it conducted in conjunction with the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) this February.

The survey quickly became a popular industry news item. Dr. Treasa Turnbeaugh, CSP, CET, BCSP CEO, said the results illustrated that "...certificants' hard work, and proving their knowledge and dedication through achieving a BCSP certification, frequently leads to personal material benefit."

Survey results revealed that the median annual salary of a CSP is over $25,000 greater than the median annual salary of the average Occupational Health and Safety Specialist, and that OHSTs and CHSTs receive median annual salaries about $20,000 more and $24,000 more than the average Occupational Health and Safety Technician, respectively.

Results are searchable on the BCSP Salary Survey webpage.  

Over six hundred BCSP certificants have enrolled in eSafetySource since its launch.  

The eSafetySource website allows BCSP certificants to design profiles

Users determine how much contact information they share, and those searching the database are able to contact certificants using a form on the certificant's profile, keeping certificants' emails confidential.

You can view, search, and join eSafetySource at eSafetySource.org.

 

Join the Who's Who in safety practice today  

BCSP is eager to share your story on what certification means to you. 

A video recently shared by BCSP, Chuck Soderquist, CHST, STS, Safety Manager for Sturgeon Electric, credits the Construction Health and Safety Technician (CHST) and Safety Trained Supervisor (STS) certification programs for giving him insight into the knowledge required to maintain a safe workplace, which he applies in his own professional development and the creation of training programs.

"Pursuing the certification has been well worth it," says Soderquist. "I use it everyday as part of my job, and I'm quite proud of it." 

Your video may be shared on BCSP's social media and website as well. To submit a video, contact Colan Holmes, BCSP Communications Specialist.  

Safety practitioners are preparing for conference season.

ASSE Region IV leads us in this year with its regional Professional Development Conference (PDC) April 3-5, 2013. 

Early registration for ASSE's PDC, Safety 2013, will remain open for less than one month's time -- be sure to register before April 15, 2013. 

The BCSP Award of Excellence Ceremony will take place at Safety 2013's Thursday luncheon. Join us by reserving your spot when you register with ASSE.

You can find the conferences which BCSP will be attending on the resource column to the right. If you want to know what activities we are engaged in at any of those conferences, check out BCSP on Twitter.   

CHST and STS applicants who pay their examination authorization fees after July 1, 2013, will take the newest versions of the CHST and STS examinations.

The update, announced in the 2013 Current Changes Index, is the result of a validation study to determine the tasks, knowledge, and skills associated with the CHST and STSs practice.

The latest blueprint and reference materials are now available on the CHST and STS webpages.  

CSP 2013 Anniversaries