This audio is automatically generated. Do us know if you have comments.
The American Society of Safety Professional appointed Georgi Popov the recipient of the Thomas F. Bresnahan Rules Medal by 2025 to pay tribute to his work in development Voluntary rules of national consensus In environmental health and safety.
Popov, originally from Bulgaria, served the military in his country as an EHS officer for a United Nations mission in Cambodia. He moved to the United States in 2000 to work in Kingston Environmental Services, in Kansas City, Missouri. Today he is a professor in the Department of Risk Sciences and Occupational Safety at the University of Missouri Central in Warrensburg.
ASSP recognized Popov with the prize due to his work on prevention through design, which works to evaluate risk as part of project planning, and develop it from the concept to reality in the development of the organization’s voluntary rule.
Here, Popov talks about the immersion of construction on the configuration of safety rules, how he has changed risk management in the last twenty years and where he sees from here.
The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Construction division: How did you do the transition to be a safety professional?
Georgi Popov: I think the profession found me. Of a chemical officer [in the Bulgarian army] In an environmental company, it was an easy transition. We treated all types of environmental security and safety problems in the army. And then we dealt with civilian safety and environmental safety such as asbestos, lead -based paint, the mold.
Georgi Popov
Courtesy of Asspp
When the university needed someone in an emerging manner, at that time I had joined the American Industrial Industrial Hygiene Association as a professional organization, I was encouraged to look at the American Society of Safety Engineers, the name of the ADP at the time. So now I have to go to two different conferences.
I started developing new courses and expanded not only on the environmental side, but also on the side of industrial safety and hygiene. We established a technical advice in the United States and started developing different methods to modify and combine risk management, which is what I do mainly. This is what we teach.
And, honestly, this is where our profession goes. This is my opinion and many other experts. We went from a compliance -based approach when, when I started in 2001, to a risk -based approach these days.
You have helped to create prevention through ASSP design standard, first published in 2011. What is the most important thing to know?
Our goal is to manage the risk throughout the life cycle of a system or building, starting with the concept of design.
It turns out that security professionals spend 90% of the time in the operational phase where we make audits of compliance with the management of the program, incident research, employee training, loss analysis. So we spend 90% of the time on an operational base and only 10% of the time in preoperation.
This is to change. Now many more of our administrators and security professionals participate in the design phase before they do it operational. And if we do, we will have less than I call “embedded risks” in the operational phase.
Imagine, for example, if we can replace less toxic materials. We will treat with less risks in the operational phase. And, of course, it reduced the cost for commissioning and end of the service. Therefore, this is the nucleus of prevention through design standard. We want to be involved in the design phase and design the risks of safety and safety safety.
You have mentioned that two decades ago there was a security approach based on compliance and that it is now based on risk. How has this evolved over time and do you see that this trend continues?
Yes. The answer is yes, yes, yes.
Now, as it evolved, when Osha began to promulgate standards in the United States, we had no existing standards. But after 2000, more organizations realized that security is integrated with the quality, profitability and reputation of the organization.
Therefore, we are studying the so -called business risk management. There we have four quadrants. We have the risks of danger or occupational risks, then we have the operational risk, financial risks and strategic risks.
If we look at the safety and how it has evolved, we are right in the middle of this risk quadrant. Because if we have injuries and illnesses, we will have operating delays. This means that we have financial losses. This means that our reputation will suffer. When you attach all this, it is not so difficult to explain to higher level management.
You have said that 10% of the risk assessment is happening in the preoperative phase. Is this changing?
Here, as we have sometimes, I would not call them conflicts, but sometimes misunderstanding with designers and engineers. “Don’t belong here. Let’s design it. And then you come with the safety vests and hard hats and steel boots.” And I would ask them, “What if you don’t design it very well?” Of course, they say, “We always do it.”
One way to find -to work is to speak their language. Therefore, they basically use risk assessment methods such as failure, mode and effect analysis, but we use the same methods. So, if they say “you do not understand what we do in engineering”, ask them, “Well, can you show -me your fault mode and effect analysis?”
Then they are very eager to show -you have done risk assessments. Many organizations realize that it is much cheaper to involve security professionals at the beginning of the design phase to avoid risks. And I think that improves quite a bit.
That 90-10 figure I showed was the 2011-2012 survey. So, over the past 10-12 years, things have improved. And depending on my observation, this number could be around 80-20 years. But imagine -if we bring this to 90% of the time when our safety managers will be involved in the design phase.
