International professional recognition for Kuwait based Indian HSE professional, Ashok Garlapati by BCSP, USA and IOSH, UK

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Playing a leading role in the promotion of professional Health, Safety and Environment certifications internationally, especially in GCC Countries, Indian Sub-continent, Northern America and Africa is Ashok Garlapati, Kuwait based Indian Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) professional.. He is currently holding CSP (Certified Safety Professionals, USA), CFIOSH (Chartered Fellow in Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, UK) and QEP (Qualified Environment Professional, USA) Certifications. After attaining his certifications, he continued to extend his mentoring services to many HSE professionals through ASSE (American Society of Safety Engineers, USA), IOSH (Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, UK) and IPEP (Institute of Professional Environmental Practice), USA. His mentoring efforts to HSE professionals in Kuwait, helped the nation to attain the 3rd highest number of CSPs in the World followed by USA and Canada. In recognition of his voluntary professional mentoring to HSE professionals, BCSP has recently appointed him as its Ambassador to promote the BCSP Mission in line with its vision. BCSP is recognized as the leader in high quality credentialing for safety, health, and environmental practitioners in order to enhance the safety of people, property, and the environment. The mission of BCSP is to set and certifies technical competency criteria for safety, health and environmental practitioners worldwide; enhancing careers, advancing the profession, protecting the public and its Vision is to create a safer world through safety, health and environmental certification programs

Ashok is confident in his position on the significance of HSE certifications globally. He perceives that only the change from region to region is the varying HSE regulations. These differences depend on various factors like climatic conditions, type of operations, and location of operations, economy of country etc. It is very important for HSE practitioners to ensure that relevant standards are implemented irrespective of their location. Such confidence, required knowledge, and competency will be provided by HSE certifications."

Ashok recently attained his CFIOSH certification from Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, UK. Fellowship of the Institution is awarded only to those members, who can demonstrate an outstanding commitment to the health and safety profession, who have helped to develop and influence the careers of others, including less experienced occupational safety and health professionals and carried out outstanding service on local, national or international professional committees. Currently there are only 77 HSE professionals attained IOSH Fellowship and Ashok happens to be the first international member from this part of the World (apart from UK and USA).

Ashok serving ASSE since the year 2000 and one of the founding member of ASSE Kuwait Chapter. Founded in 1911, USA based American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) is the oldest professional safety society and represents more than 37,000 SH&E practitioners committed to protecting people, property and the environment and are at the forefront of safety engineering, design, standards development, management and education in virtually every industry, governmental agency, labor and in institutions of higher education. Presently, ASSE has several chapters, sections and student sections around the globe with members in over 80 countries. ASSE Kuwait Chapter is actively supporting several programs in Kuwait with a concept of Think Globally… Act Locally and supported by KOC and several other K-Companies, private sector companies etc. Ashok has been extending professional volunteering services with ASSE at local, regional and international level for more than a decade. To further encourage his mission, he has been elected as ASSE’s first Global Region Vice President for the term 2015-17 and for the second term 2017-19. Global Region of ASSE consists of all international chapters located at India, Nigeria, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Egypt, Ecuador and Kuwait. Currently, 8% of ASSE membership is from international locations and he will provide the required body of knowledge to the global membership and vice-versa. As a Global Region Vice President, he is instrumental in connecting with ASSE members representing from more than 80 countries across the globe in sharing best practices, lessons learnt, will have an access for larger body of knowledge HSE database etc. Ashok also received SPY (Safety Professional of the Year) Award from American Society of Safety Engineers; this award is given in an honor acknowledging the dedication and outstanding contributions of ASSE member to a specific individual on yearly basis.

Ashok believes in the concept of making a positive difference On-the-job and off-the-job with his professional volunteering. Ashok extended his deep gratitude to his employer as well as to the leadership of ASSE Kuwait Chapter for their continuous support.

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