Ashok Garlapati, CSP, CFIOSH, QEP is a health, safety and environment professional certified. He has 30 years' of experience in HSE consultancy and HSE management in the oil and gas industries. He is also the lead auditor of the ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 / ISO 45001 standards and approved as an authorized trainer for several HSE certificate courses. He has extensive experience in implementation of HSE management systems for process industries in line with international standards.
Ashok is a professional member of ASSP and current Vice President of Region IX (Global), which serves all 10 international chapters. He played an important role in the Kuwait Chapter's establishment, which is ASSP's largest global chapter. He served as a member of ASSP's Global Taskforce and supported in establishment of ASSP chapters in India, UAE, Nigeria and Pakistan. He received the Charles V. Culbertson Award in 2007, ASSP President's Award and the Region VI Safety Professional of the Year Award in 2010, and the Edgar Monsanto Queeny Safety Professional of the Year Award in 2011.
Ashok has been appointed as ASSP Ambassador for the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia in recognition of his professional volunteering. Ashok is a member of the IADC HSE Committee, taskforce member of the IOGP WM Committee, member of IPIECA Climate Change Group and International Representative of Offshore Group, IOSH-UK.
Employer commitment and employee involvement in achieving occupational safety and health (OSH) goals in any organization is critical. OSH professionals play a vital role towards these critical aspects and organizations have always counted on them to guide the core development of OSH strategies, its implementation and functioning. ASSP has been the huge resource for OSH professionals for over 100 years in U.S. and in the recent years the same services have been expanded to some international locations. ASSP has been putting several efforts by updating its strategic objectives and I have been associated with all these global efforts and continuing my efforts to help increase the global outreach of ASSP.
As per ILO statistics, about 2.2 million workers are getting deceased annually due to work place accidents. There is a huge necessity for professional organizations like ASSP to provide needed resources to global OSH professionals. ASSP must continue to support consistent global OSH standards and enforcement to ensure adequate levels of worker protection. Currently, less than 10% of ASSP's members are from international locations and my objective is to increase the involvement of global OSH professionals by enlightening them with ASSP resources. To become a leading resource for global OSH professionals, ASSP needs to expand its resources toward system safety engineering for manufacturing industries, establish country-specific OSH expert databases, consider awards and honors recognition program for corporate companies, and develop solutions for emerging OSH challenges in third-world developing countries to cater the ongoing globalization process. I will put my best efforts in this direction as an ASSP director-at-large on the ASSP Board of Directors, with the networking of current ASSP international presence, other global OSH Organizations, etc. My vision is to make ASSP the leading global OSH organization by strengthening ongoing ASSP efforts in this direction.