International Concerns, Opportunities Beckon
BALTIMORE -- Fourteen educational sessions with international themes are on the program here, demonstrating the growing importance of OSH issues worldwide and the rapid development of alliances and sections abroad. When the advisory committee of ASSE's International Practice Specialty (ISP) meets here tonight, the members will have a lot to discuss.
Jack Fearing, CPEA, who is EH&S director for DynCorp in Falls Church, Va., ISP's administrator, is scheduled to deliver the introduction and overview of recent activities. An ASSE section or chapter may be opened in China, depending on the response of OSH professionals there, he told ISP's members in a message published in their most recent "World Focus" newsletter. ISP also has partnered with the Safety Professionals and the Latino Workforce common interest group of ASSE, and Fearing wrote that these two initiatives "have significant potential to both grow our practice specialty and to leverage existing resources among more ASSE members with similar professional interest." Another article in the newsletter is titled "SH&E Challenges in the Gulf" and cites a lack of accurate injury and fatality statistics in the region as a reason why it is difficult to compare those countries with the United States and other developed countries.
The advisory committee's assistant administrator is Ashok Garlapati, CSP, QEP, RSP, of the ASSE Kuwait Chapter, who is a safety professional for Kuwait Oil Company and was named 2010 Region VI Safety Professional of the Year. ASSE has members in 75 countries and 16 practice specialties.
Garlapati is presenting one of the 14 sessions, a presentation at 3:15 p.m. tomorrow on achieving health, safety, and environmental targets with a diverse workforce. Others on the schedule include a comparison of Australian and U.S. laws, an international SH&E leadership forum featuring Fearing and several leaders of international organizations for safety professionals, and a discussion of the significance and impact of new international risk standards.
For information about ISP, contact Fearing at [email protected] or Norm Keith, its publication editor, at [email protected].