Safety & Occupational Health Specialist

Full Job Description

The incumbent is the Occupational Safety and Health Specialist for the James H.

Quillen VA Medical Center at Mountain Home, Tennessee, a major tertiary medical, long term care, and residential treatment facility having over 50 buildings and approximately 1,700 employees.

The medical center also includes the Knoxville Outpatient Clinic and numerous Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) and Rural Outpatient Clinics (ROCs) in Northeastern Tennessee and Southwest Virginia.

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 03/16/2026.

Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement.

For a GS-11 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-09. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service.

An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials.

If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement.

In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade.

Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment.

You may qualify based on your experience and/or education is described below: Specialized Experience: Do you process at least one (1)full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-09 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization that provided 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.

Examples of qualifying specialized experience include: Managing safety or occupational health program elements.

Developing and 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.

OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level GS 11 you must have a Ph.D.

or equivalent doctoral degree, or 3 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.M., with a Major study -- safety or occupational health fields (safety, occupational health, industrial hygiene), or degree in other related fields that included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours of study from among the following (or closely related) disciplines: safety, occupational health, industrial hygiene, occupational medicine, toxicology, public health, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biological sciences, engineering, and industrial psychology.

OR, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience and education stated above.

You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Compliance Inspection Planning and Evaluating Technical Competence Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social).

Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment.

You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week.

Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities.

Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment.

Physical Requirements: The work requires physical exertion, frequent performance of surveys and on-site visits to areas within the medical center complex, and other off-station sites.

There is regular and recurrent walking, standing, bending, stooping, climbing, and lifting and carrying of moderately heavy objects during inspections and investigation.

The incumbent is occasionally required to work shifts other than normal administrative working hours to effectively accomplish the requirements of extending the safety program to all personnel and phases of the medical center.

For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Major Duties:

Duties include but not limited too: Incumbent is responsible for developing, planning, administering, organizing, evaluating, analyzing data, developing performance improvement activities when data has indicated a need for improvement, and coordinating the implementation of the modifications to ensure a comprehensive program of fire prevention, life safety, and hazard surveillance, in accordance with Veterans Health Administration (VHA), National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), The Joint Commission (TJC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and various other regulatory entities.

The two most significant responsibilities and core duties are fire prevention and construction project safety, which include both life safety and hazard surveillance programs.

The Fire Prevention Management Program, the incumbent advises senior-level management regarding status of the life safety program and ensures that medical center life-safety planning sufficiently manages the following key areas: the inspection process, contractor compliance, testing and maintaining of fire protection and life safety systems; reporting and investigating fire protection deficiencies, failures and user errors; proposing of solutions; and reviewing of proposed acquisitions for compliance with fire safety regulations.

The incumbent conducts a hazard vulnerability analyses to identify potential fire prevention issues and manages the fire prevention program that includes:

Developing and ensuring compliance with medical center plans for fire safety, life safety, and hazard surveillance.

Developing medical center-wide policies and procedures (numbered memoranda, Emergency Management Manual, fire prevention, life safety, and hazard surveillance portion of Safety, Occupational Health and Fire Protection Manual), as well as the annual review of these documents.

Developing, conducting, and evaluating the effectiveness of employee education programs by interpreting applicable regulations.

Conducting Life Safety Compliance inspections of the VA-operated Knoxville Outpatient Clinic and numerous CBOCs and ROCs in Northeastern Tennessee and Southwest Virginia.

In addition, Life Safety Compliance and Occupational Safety and Health inspections are performed at the Veterans Outreach Center, the Mountain Home National Cemetery, approximately thirty

community nursing homes (some located in excess of 100 miles away), approximately fifteen

residential care homes (some located in excess of 80 miles away), approximately eleven

halfway houses (each located in excess of 100 miles away), and approximately seven

adult day care centers (some located in excess of 100 miles away) under contract to provide services to veteran patients. Extensive travel is required to conduct these inspections, as well as considerable administrative time to research applicable codes and prepare inspection reports.

Coordinating the inspection, testing and maintenance of fire protection and life safety systems, equipment and components on a scheduled basis.

Reporting and investigating fire protection deficiencies, failures and user errors, and the investigating and reporting of fire incidents as required by VA policy.

Assisting with the review of proposed acquisitions of bedding, window draperies, other furnishings, decorations, wastebaskets and other equipment for fire safety.

Serving as one of the medical center's primary educator for all issues related to life safety, fire prevention and fire hazard surveillance, developing a life safety orientation for new employees and continuing education programs for annual mandatory review by all employees and other fire safety promotion activities, e.g., Fire Prevention Week, Safety Newsletter items, etc.

Conducting area-specific inspections and providing in-services to staff where significant deficiencies are noted.

Ensuring that emergency procedures address facility-wide fire response needs, area-specific needs and fire evacuation routes; specific roles and responsibilities for staff at and away from point of fire origin; and specific roles and responsibilities for staff in preparing for building evacuation.

11) Planning, coordinating and conducting fire drills as required by NFPA, VA and The Joint Commission standards.

Critiquing the drills and reporting the number of fire drills and performance results periodically to the Environment of Care Committee.

Work Schedule: MON-FRI 7:00am to 3:30pm Compressed/Flexible: Not Authorized Telework: Not Authorized Virtual: This is not a virtual position.

Position Description/PD#: Safety & Occupational Health Specialist/PD074870 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized