Senior Vice President Candidate

James D. Smith, M.S., CSP

BIOGRAPHY

James D. Smith, M.S., CSP, is director, risk control services, for Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services in Boca Raton, FL. He resides in West Palm Beach, FL, and is a professional member of the Gold Coast Chapter in Region IV. Jim has been an ASSE member for 30 years. He was previously employed as safety and claims (liability) manager for 18 years. He currently serves on the ASSE Board of Directors (BOD) as Vice President of Finance.

Society experience includes 10 years on the BOD, serving in three major leadership positions that include vice president of finance (two terms), managing the Society's finances, budget and investments; Executive Committee (4 years), managing the BOD; vice president, Council on Practices and Standards (two terms), overseeing practice specialties, branches, the Standards Development Committee (SDC) and common-interest groups; and vice president, Council on Professional Affairs (one term), overseeing the Government Affairs, Educational Standards and Professional Recognition committees, and intersociety relations. Jim was chair of the SDC and a member of the Public Relations/NORA Research Task Force, and he is a two-time past chapter president.

Jim holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Industrial Safety from University of Central Missouri. Society recognition for service includes ASSE's Edgar Monsanto Queeny Safety Professional of the Year (2004); Charles V. Culbertson Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service; and President's Award (2010) for financial management.

Jim has served on several ANSI standards committees [ANSI Z590 (chair), Z10, A14, A10.33, A14.3 (chair), A1264.1/1264.2] and he has been an expert reviewer for Professional Safety. His influence and contributions continue to shape ASSE policy, procedures and processes that sustain the Society as a successful, leading SH&E professional organization.

PLATFORM STATEMENT

For a decade, I have served in three major leadership positions on the Board of Directors. My primary servant leadership objective has been promotion of positive change for members, our profession and Society. This requires deep understanding of Society operations, building relationships amongst members and staff advancing our strategic plan. You have trusted me to do this as Vice President of Council of Professional Affairs, VP of Practices and Standards and VP of Finance.

Vision:  ASSE’s strength is our global member networks and diversified collective knowledge. As Vice President of CoPs, we launched the Body of Knowledge advancing a vision that shares 100 years of technical expertise and creates an easily accessible knowledge exchange platform to access technical information. I will continue to invest in technologies to improve this offering.

Leadership: I pledge to continue working to advance our strategic plan, sustain a relationship of respect and trust with board members, ASSE staff and you. I believe the Senior Vice President must have leadership courage to advocate for the members on important issues and stand against initiatives which offer no value to the members nor advancing our strategic plan.

Results: You trusted me to manage the Society finances, protect the budget and investments during challenging economic times. We slashed expenses, removed wasteful programs, worked to create cost effective solutions. At the end of my four year term, membership growth was historically high and our investment portfolio remained near the highest on record. We must continue these efforts.

During my tenure as Vice President of the Council of Practices and Standards (CoPS), the focus was on expanded product and service offerings to our members. The Practice Specialty membership increased over 5,000, proof that “if you build it they will come.” We achieved quality services such as improving PS newsletter technical article content and creating a CoPS common vision and means to network among practice specialty members. Further we leveraged web technology and social media, to address emerging risks and provide recognition for those contributing to our Practice Specialty. I would like to expand those efforts to reach more members by sharing subject matter experts’ technical materials to Chapter and Regions to allow for a local touch. We have the ability to accomplish this by using Region/Chapter web sites as a means to deliver such efforts. Education offerings are a key to providing assistance.

As Vice President of Professional Affairs, we created the Outstanding Educator of the Year Award, to recognize academic contributions to student growth, a key to our professions future growth and success.  It was clear that supporting/expanding our student’s involvement in our profession; we needed to look at the academic educator growth as well.  I advocate for creating more university PhD tracks in safety, which we started in this Council.  In my view, this is critical in attracting and preparing students entering the profession.  As one who started as a student member, it resonates with me that we must invest resources in these efforts for students and faculty.

Growth: I support investing in the value of the profession to enhance employer and community understanding and contributions members achieve. I will be a vocal advocate for our profession to ensure members’ career choices remain strong. This will be accomplished through Professional Affairs, governmental and public relations efforts to bring focus on our profession. I will advocate for investment in SH&E research, and build on our 100 year heritage of SH&E leadership to enhance employer and public awareness of the value of our profession.

Safety Professionals need professional development offerings which require investing in advanced web technology that supports member technical and business acumen. A key to this endeavor is to create a Corporate Executive Safety Practice Group to address the business needs of our profession. We can also achieve this through the Business of Safety Committee who advances evidence-based SH&E practices proving safety is good business.

Global Growth is important to future expansion and organizational survival. Our world is growing smaller. Corporate ownership has also become global and with which we manage SH&E.  We must be responsible in our growth and how we expand this effort so as not to waste valuable resources.  As we listen to our global membership, understand the needs of our corporations, reviewing the success/failures of other professional organizations, and determining viable opportunities that will be the key to creating the road map to growth. As a member of the Executive Committee, we created an international staff position to assist these efforts. We know that our members’ diversified collective knowledge in SH&E is what many employers seek world-wide, and we must continue to showcase the value of the profession and hence our members.

I support investment in the advancing the growth of our members through Practice Specialties. We must sustain global opportunities for networking, membership services and professional development based on trends impacting existing/future professionals. Further, we must nurture our Chapters and Sections throughout the world providing a personal and local touch supported by the best technology available. Technology applications provide viable solutions.

We can also achieve this through the Business of Safety Committee who advances evidence-based SH&E practices proving safety is good business.

My 32 years as chapter, region and Society leader provides a solid foundation for trustworthy and focused service you can count on. I ask for your vote as Senior Vice President.