On episode 216 of EHS On Tap, Pam Walaski, CSP, FASSP, president of the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), talks about her goals for the next year and the challenges facing occupational safety. This conversation was recorded at the ASSP’s Safety 2024 conference in Denver last week.
Pam Walaski, CSP, FASSP, is owner of RiverLure OSH Services and has 30 years of workplace safety and health experience. She became ASSP’s 110th president on July 1, 2024, serving a one-year term. She also is chair of the ASSP Foundation, the Society’s charitable arm, in her dual leadership role.
Walaski was a director-at-large on the Board of Directors from 2018-21 before rejoining the board on July 1, 2022. She is an ASSP Fellow and an adjunct faculty member for Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Maryland’s Global Campus.
Walaski has been an ASSP member since 2003. Her Society honors include the Charles V. Culbertson Outstanding Volunteer Service Award, Region VIII Safety Professional of the Year, Council on Practices and Standards Safety Professional of the Year, and article of the year awards from Professional Safety in 2011, 2017 and 2021. She resides in Rimer, PA, near Pittsburgh.
Walaski is the author of “Risk and Crisis Communications: Methods and Messages” published in 2011. She was an editor of the “Consultants Business Development Guide” that ASSP published in 2015, a section coordinator for the second and third editions of the “Safety Professionals Handbook,” and a contributing author of “The Wiley Guide to Strategies, Ideas and Applications for Implementing a Total Worker Health® Program” published in 2024.
Walaski has been a presenter at ASSP’s annual professional development conference every year since 2005, and she is an instructor for the Society’s Risk Management Certificate program. She previously served on ASSP’s Finance Committee and the Council on Professional Affairs in addition to being the administrator of the Consultants Practice Specialty and president of the Western Pennsylvania Chapter.
Walaski is only the ninth woman to lead ASSP in its 113-year history, but she is the fourth woman president in the past six years.