Steven P. Smith is the President of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE). “To be a safety professional means to watch out for other people’s care. It’s my unique job to make sure that people are doing their jobs safely.” Smith said.

To be a safety professional to me means to watch out for other people’s care. I’m in a unique situation at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, where we see the deaths and accidents and what occurs to people all the time. And it’s my unique job to make sure that the people, who are figuring out what happened to these people, are safely doing it. So to me, I’m kind of the guy who’s watching the back of the doctors, who are finding out what went wrong for somebody else.

For more than 100 years, we have supported occupational safety and health (OSH) professionals in their efforts to prevent workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities. We provide education, advocacy, standards development and a professional community to our members in order to advance their careers and the OSH profession as a whole.

Our identity is rooted deep in history. ASSP was founded in response to one of history’s worst workplace disasters. Learn more about our history and the catastrophic event that launched us into existence — spurring us to fight for workplace safety alongside our members.