Jacqueline Handy likes to ask other safety professionals how they got into the field, because there is almost always a story behind it. Hers starts with a marketing job at a site safety company, taken before she knew what site safety was.

In this episode of the Safety Spotlight Podcast, we sit down with Jacqueline Handy, a CSP and CHST who manages environment, health and safety at Haugland Group and serves as president of the ASSP Hudson River Valley Chapter. We talk about the career path most people never hear about, and how she trains the young workers coming into it.

Jacqueline was a mom finishing school when she earned her MBA from Wagner College and found that marketing was the part she enjoyed most. The job she landed was with a New York City site safety firm. At her first board meeting, the field team walked in wearing work boots, jeans and polos, then started talking about elaborate projects and safety plans with an eloquence she didn’t expect. “This is where I want to be,” she remembers telling herself. When she saw the contracts and what safety personnel were paid, she realized she was in the wrong field. She went on to New York City transit, moving through office engineer, environmental specialist and field engineer roles before leaving as a construction superintendent. Later she spent close to three years at the Board of Certified Safety Professionals, traveling the country to speak with safety professionals.

Inside this episode:
– The board meeting that turned a marketing hire into a future safety professional
– Rotating through transit roles in New York City, with safety and environmental performance attached to every one
– Onboarding in a training room covered in photos from Haugland’s own projects, and why new hires turn around when she points at one
– Her case for repetition, humor, breaks and hands-on learning, since adults learn differently
– A rail project flagger her colleagues said they couldn’t work with, and what changed after she let him vent and asked him to show her the job
– The certification she points construction workers to first, and one reason it opens doors: no degree required
– What she tells women on site who feel like they don’t belong, and why she recommends NAWIC

Her mission, in her words, is to keep educating. At career days for Nontraditional Employment for Women in New York City, where she volunteers, students tell her they had never heard of safety as a career, or that they could pivot into it. She points out that safety professionals work everywhere from Disney World to Tiffany & Co., because any kind of work needs one. “People don’t know what they don’t know, and we’re here to deliver that knowledge,” she says.

In the field, her approach starts with respect. She has the authority to shut a job down, and she doesn’t want it to get to that point. When a worker’s methods concern her, she asks about the trade first and offers a safer way second. “You have to give the respect that you want. Give it first,” she says. The flagger she was warned about worked with her efficiently every night after their first conversation, and invited her to the Christmas party.

You will also hear the “safety mom” side of Jacqueline, who checks fire extinguishers on vacation and handed out electrolytes and sunscreen at one of her daughter’s modeling shoots, and why her advice on mentorship is to ask. She talks about approaching a senior transit leader directly, and about calling ASSP’s Women in Safety Excellence group mid-career to request a mentor. She also shares what she would tell her younger self, a single mom who assumed she couldn’t afford to get involved with industry organizations.

If you are starting out in safety, weighing a switch into it from another field, or building onboarding for new workers, this one is worth the listen.

Jacqueline is environment, health and safety manager at Haugland Group, where every new hire goes through her onboarding. She is on LinkedIn.