Department of the Interior

Safety and Occupational Health Specialist

Lakewood, Colorado Full time

Safety and Occupational Health Specialist

Department: Department of the Interior

Location(s): Lakewood, Colorado

Salary Range: $83265 - $129742 Per Year

Job Summary: What General Information Do I Need To Know About This Position? GS-11 Salary: $83,265 (Step 01) to $108,251 (Step 10); GS-12 Salary: $99,800 (Step 01) to $129,742 (Step 10); NOTE: First time hires to the Federal Government are typically hired at the Step 01. Open to current or former Federal employees: USGS-DEN-26-12898899-ST-DLA

Major Duties:

  • As a Safety and Occupational Health Specialist within the Geology, Geophysics, & Geochemistry Science Center some of your specific duties will include: Provides and coordinates training. Maintains applicable standards and regulations including hazardous waste storage and disposal policies. Responsible for scheduling or conducting safety inspections. Reviews job hazard analysis and field safety/communication plans. Identifies hazards and ensures abatement of hazards has been performed. Evaluation of accidents, investigations, and reporting. Serves as the centers primary contact for establishing required safety training and receives, distributes, and maintains safety information material. Organizes Center safety committee and trains the Center collateral duty safety program coordinators. Operates a government owned or leased vehicle as an incidental driver.

Qualifications: CONTINUED FROM REQUIREMENTS SECTION Conditions of Employment for this Position: As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1- year probationary period during which your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest will be evaluated. This probationary period is an extension of the appointment process and therefore requires the agency to determine if continued employment would advance the public interest, meet the organization goals and mission of the agency, and/or otherwise promote the efficiency of the service. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, the agency will consider: - your performance and conduct; - the needs and interests of the agency; - whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and - whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service. Under applicable law, the employment of an individual serving a probationary or trial period automatically terminates when that period ends unless the agency affirmatively certifies, in writing, that the individual's employment should continue and that their appointment should be finalized. In the absence of agency action to affirmatively certify continued employment beyond the probationary or trial period, such appointments are terminated. Upon completion of your probationary period your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest. QUALIFICATIONS: Definitions: SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Specialized experience is experience in or related to safety and occupational health that provided the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position to be filled. Examples of qualifying specialized experience may include: Managing safety or occupational health program elements. Developing or recommending safety and occupational health policy to higher levels of management. Applying safety and occupational health laws, regulations, principles, theories, practices, and procedures to advise on or resolve technical matters dealing with occupational safety and health requirements. Developing safety and occupational health standards, regulations, practices, and procedures to eliminate or control potential hazards. Developing or implementing programs to reduce the frequency, severity, and cost of accidents and occupational illnesses. Analyzing or evaluating new and existing jobs, processes, products, or other systems to determine the existence, severity, probability, and outcome of hazards. Designing or modifying workplaces, processes, products, or other systems to control or eliminate hazards. Inspecting or surveying workplaces, processes, products, or other systems for compliance with established safety and occupational health policies or standards and to identify potential new hazards. Training of workers, supervisors, managers, or other safety and occupational health personnel in safety or occupational health subjects. Work in occupational fields such as industrial hygienist, safety engineer, fire prevention engineer, health physicist, and occupational health nurse. UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION: A year of undergraduate education is 30 semester hours, 45 quarter hours or the equivalent of college study. This education must have been obtained in an accredited college or university for which high school graduation or the equivalent was a prerequisite. GRADUATE EDUCATION: In the absence of specific graduate program information, a year of graduate education is 18 semester hours or 27 quarter hours of graduate level college course work, or the number of credit hours the school attended has determined to represent 1 year of full-time study. This education must have been obtained in an accredited college or university. FOR GS-11: At least one year of appropriate professional experience in safety and occupational health that is directly related to the duties of the position to be filled is qualifying if it is equivalent to at least the GS-09 level in the Federal service and if it equipped the applicant with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the duties of the position. Examples of experience includes providing safety and occupational health services, such as, but not limited to, administering previously developed health and occupational safety programs for individual laboratories, reviewing laboratory safety procedures and guidelines, researching personal protective equipment (PPE), learning from team members on how to make technical recommendations regarding unsafe practices, work environments, or procedures, providing hazard recognition training, arranging for safety training for field operations, tracking and recording the completion of require safety training courses, tracking the purchase, storage, usage, and disposal of hazardous or volatile chemicals and materials, and overseeing compliance for safety procedures for both manned and unmanned aerial vehicles. The complexity of this work may require modification and adaptation of standard procedures, methods, and techniques, and the development or adaptation of new methods and techniques to address novel or obscure problems for which guidelines or precedents are not substantially applicable. FOR GS-12: At least one year of appropriate professional experience in safety and occupational health that is directly related to the duties of the position to be filled is qualifying if it is equivalent to at least the GS-11 level in the Federal service and if it equipped the applicant with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the duties of the position. Examples of experience includes providing safety and occupational health services, such as but not limited to, developing and administering health and occupational safety programs for different science centers and individual laboratories, recommending and reviewing laboratory safety procedures and guidelines, researching and making recommendations on personal protective equipment (PPE), conducting job hazard analyses (JHAs), developing and providing hazard recognition training, conducting, identifying and arranging safety training for field operations, tracking and recording the completion of required safety training courses, tracking the purchase, storage, usage, and procuring the disposal of hazardous or volatile chemicals and materials, and overseeing compliance for safety procedures for both manned and unmanned aerial vehicles. The complexity of this work may require modification and adaptation of standard procedures, methods, and techniques, and the development or adaptation of new methods and techniques to address novel or obscure problems for which guidelines or precedents are not substantially applicable. You must meet all qualification and eligibility requirements for the position by the closing date of the announcement.

How to Apply: Applications (resume and application questions) for this vacancy must be received on-line via USAJOBS BEFORE midnight Eastern Time (Washington, D.C. time) on the closing date of this announcement. If you fail to submit a complete online resume, you will not be considered for this position. Requests for extensions will not be granted. Most libraries, employment offices, and all USGS personnel offices can provide access to the Internet. If applying online poses a hardship for you, you must speak to someone in the Servicing Human Resources Office listed on this announcement PRIOR TO THE CLOSING DATE for assistance. Instructions for Applying Online for this Vacancy Announcement: 1) Click the blue "Apply Online" button. 2) If you are not a registered USAJOBS user, please create a new account and follow the instructions to complete your application process. If you are a registered user, login to access your existing USAJOBS profile. 3) As a registered user, select a stored resume and select one or more of your stored documents to attach to your application. 4) Check the "Certification" box and click the "Apply for this position now!" button located at the bottom of the screen. 5) Address the eligibility questions as well as the questionnaire containing questions and/or task statements that address the knowledge, skills, abilities and/or competencies for this vacancy. 6) Submit required documents. 7) If you experience technical difficulties during the online application process, please contact the USAJOBS helpdesk.

Application Deadline: 2026-03-22