Occupational Health and Safety Specialist Career Assessment
Other people’s worksites, and the conversation nobody wants to have
Welcome
Occupational health and safety specialists keep people from getting hurt at work. They inspect worksites, measure hazards, investigate what went wrong after an injury, and train crews on how not to repeat it.
This one has the best numbers in the whole group: the most jobs, the fastest growth, and pay above the national middle. It also asks something of you personally that the others do not.
This takes about 15 minutes.
What is a Occupational Health and Safety Specialist?
A safety specialist walks other people’s worksites and looks for what could hurt somebody. You check fall protection on a scaffold, guarding on a machine, lockout on an electrical panel, confined space entry on a tank. You take measurements: air sampling for dust or vapors, noise readings, sometimes ergonomic assessments. You write the findings up and give them to the people responsible for fixing them. When somebody does get hurt, you investigate why, and the answer is usually a system problem, not a careless person. You write and update safety programs. You train new hires and run toolbox talks. And you sit in meetings explaining why a shortcut that saves an hour is not worth what it risks.
The Reality: Here is the part that decides whether this job fits you. You will regularly be the least popular person on the site. You will tell a foreman who is behind schedule that the crew cannot go up until the guardrail is right. You will tell a plant manager that the line has to stop. People will push back, and some will try to go around you. If you need to be liked in the moment, this job will grind you down. If you can be calm, specific, and unmovable about the thing that matters while still being decent to people, you will be very good at it and you will be in demand. On education, O*NET reports 74% saying a bachelor's degree was required, with 9% saying a post-baccalaureate certificate and 9% a master's. And here is the thing to know about North Dakota specifically: I could not find a bachelor's degree in occupational safety at any North Dakota college.
Your Responsibilities:
- Inspect worksites, plants, and job sites for hazards
- Take air, noise, dust, and chemical exposure measurements
- Investigate injuries, near misses, and incidents and find the real cause
- Write and update written safety programs and procedures
- Train workers, new hires, and supervisors on hazards and controls
- Check that required protective equipment is present and used correctly
- Keep required injury records and regulatory paperwork
- Tell people in charge what has to change, and follow up until it does
Nobody thanks you for the injury that did not happen. Do it anyway.
A Day in the Life
6:45 AM — Coffee, then a toolbox talk with the crew before they start. Five minutes, one topic.
7:30 AM — Walk the site. Photograph an unguarded floor opening and a missing ladder tie-off.
9:00 AM — Set up noise dosimeters on two operators in the shop.
10:30 AM — The hard conversation. The foreman is behind. The scaffold still has to be fixed first.
12:00 PM — Lunch in the truck and a call from a second site about a near miss.
1:00 PM — Drive over. Interview three people. Nobody is in trouble; find out what happened.
3:00 PM — Write the incident report. The cause is a procedure, not a person.
4:30 PM — Update the written program and schedule retraining for Thursday.
Other people’s worksites, all day, and the one unpopular sentence.
Training in North Dakota
North Dakota has no safety bachelor’s degree. Here is how people get here anyway. Be prepared for this: I checked the North Dakota colleges and could not find a bachelor’s degree in occupational safety or industrial hygiene anywhere in the state. That does not close the door, because most working safety specialists did not major in safety. They came from a related degree plus experience, or from a trade plus certifications. What North Dakota does have is an online certificate at BSC, related science and emergency management degrees, and out-of-state or online safety degrees that transfer in fine.
Training Pathways:
- Related degree plus certification (4 to 6 years): The most common real route. Earn a bachelor’s in a related field — environmental science, chemistry, biology, natural resources, industrial technology, or emergency management — then add the BCSP credentials while you work. Minot State’s environmental science BS has an Environmental Health track that fits well.
- Trade experience plus credentials (varies): Many safety people started on the tools. If you already work construction, oil and gas, or manufacturing, the BSC online Environmental and Safety Regulations certificate plus a technician-level BCSP credential can move you into a safety role without starting college over.
- Out-of-state or online safety degree (4 years): Occupational safety, safety management, and industrial hygiene degrees exist elsewhere and many are online. If you want the degree that matches the job title exactly, this is where you look. Verify accreditation directly with the school before you enroll.
Where to Train in North Dakota:
- Bismarck State College (Bismarck) — Environmental and Safety Regulations, certificate, online. BSC says it was built for working energy industry personnel and that its courses stack directly into the BSC Bachelor of Applied Science in Energy Management — bismarckstate.edu/academics/programs/EnvironmentalSafetyRegulations
- Minot State University (Minot) — Bachelor of Science with a Major in Environmental Science, 120 credits, including an Environmental Health track built on chemistry and biology. The closest thing North Dakota has to a health-and-safety bachelor’s — catalog.minotstateu.edu/undergraduate/academicprograms/environmental
- North Dakota State University (Fargo) — Disaster Resilience and Emergency Management, listed in the NDSU catalog as an undergraduate major with accelerated and online options. Related to safety work, though it is emergency management rather than occupational safety — catalog.ndsu.edu/curriculum/undergraduate
- North Dakota State University (Fargo) — Natural Resources Management, BS, and Microbiology, BS, both reasonable science foundations for an environmental health and safety career — ndsu.edu/programs/undergraduate/natural-resources-management
- North Dakota State College of Science (Wahpeton) — Fire Science, AAS, plus Firefighter I and II certificates and EMT training. A different door into hazard and emergency work — ndscs.edu/academics/programs
- ND Occupational Safety and Health at Bismarck State College — not a degree, but worth knowing about. BSC runs a free OSHA-funded consultation program with professional safety and industrial hygiene consultants who do on-site surveys, air sampling, noise measurements, and ergonomic evaluations for North Dakota employers. Call 701-224-5539 and ask to talk to a consultant about the work — bismarckstate.edu/continuingeducation/ndosh
Before You Start: High school diploma or GED. Take chemistry, biology, and writing seriously, because you will write findings that people argue with. Work experience in construction, a plant, or the oil field is a genuine advantage and employers value it. A driver’s license is required, because the worksites are not where you are.
Tip: Start with financial aid and scholarships. Fill out the FAFSA, ask the school’s financial aid office what you qualify for, and ask an employer whether they help pay for school. That is where the money starts. After that, a career counselor or Job Service North Dakota may be able to help with what is left over, like tuition, books, a laptop, or exam fees. What can be paid for depends on the program and on your own situation, so ask before you enroll rather than after. Worth asking about specifically: two-year degrees that train you for a job, like civil engineering technology, land surveying, mechatronics, electronics, or instrumentation. North Dakota two-year colleges also cost far less than a university. Ask about paid summer internships too — engineering firms, plants, and survey crews hire students while they are still in school.
Certification & Licensing
The Board of Certified Safety Professionals credentials are what count here. There is no North Dakota state license for safety specialists. What the field uses instead is the credential ladder from the Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP), a national certifying body. In a state with no safety degree, these credentials do a lot of the work a degree would do elsewhere, which makes them more valuable here, not less.
The BCSP Ladder:
- Associate Safety Professional (ASP) — the usual first rung. BCSP requires a bachelor’s degree in any field, or an associate degree in safety, health, or the environment that includes at least four courses covering 12 or more semester hours in those areas (bcsp.org)
- ASP experience — one year of safety, health, and environment experience, at least half of which is preventative, professional-level work with real breadth and depth (bcsp.org)
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP) — the one employers name in job ads. Requires at minimum a bachelor’s degree, four years of safety experience with at least half being preventative professional-level work, AND a prerequisite credential first (bcsp.org)
- CSP prerequisite credentials — the ASP, or the Graduate Safety Practitioner (GSP), Transitional Safety Practitioner (TSP), Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH), or certain international credentials. You cannot go straight to CSP (bcsp.org)
- Technician-level credentials — BCSP also offers the Occupational Hygiene and Safety Technician (OHST), Construction Health and Safety Technician (CHST), Safety Trained Supervisor (STS), and Safety Trained Supervisor Construction (STSC). These are the realistic entry point if you are coming off the tools rather than out of college (bcsp.org)
- Safety Management Professional (SMP) — a management-track credential for people who end up running a safety department (bcsp.org)
The Exams: BCSP lists a $350 fee for a single examination for both the ASP and the CSP. BCSP says official results are available as soon as a candidate submits the exam. Exam length and question counts are not published on the credential pages, so check the current exam blueprint on bcsp.org before you schedule.
Cost: Plan on $350 per exam, plus study materials, plus an application fee that BCSP does not itemize on the credential pages. BCSP also says an annual fee is charged to credential holders to keep using the credential, but does not publish the amount there, so ask BCSP directly or check its Credentials At-A-Glance document before you budget.
Keeping It Current: BCSP credentials carry an annual renewal fee and ongoing recertification requirements. Confirm the current amounts with BCSP rather than relying on a number you read somewhere else.
Salary & Job Outlook
North Dakota Occupational Health and Safety Specialist Pay (May 2025):
- Starting out (bottom 10–25%): $30.61–$35.19/hour ($63,660–$73,200/year)
- Middle (median — half earn more, half earn less): $44.83/hour ($93,250/year)
- Experienced (top 25–10%): $57.55–$62.70/hour ($119,700–$130,410/year)
What that means: North Dakota published full data, and this is the strongest pay picture in the group. The ND middle is $44.83 an hour, about $93,250 a year, above the national middle of $90,150. More importantly, North Dakota beats the national figure at every single percentile except the very top: ND 10th $63,660 against a national $55,000; ND 25th $73,200 against $69,560; ND 75th $119,700 against $111,690. Only at the 90th does the nation edge ahead, $134,950 against ND’s $130,410, and that gap is small. Energy, construction, and heavy industry are why. North Dakota has dangerous work, and dangerous work pays for people who can make it safer.
Jobs in North Dakota: About 550 people do this work in ND today. By 2034, that should be about 630 (about 15% growth). Expect about 60 job openings every year in ND from growth and people retiring or changing jobs. Across the U.S., the change is about 13% growth — much faster than average.
Outlook: The best in this group by a wide margin. North Dakota is projected to go from about 550 of these jobs in 2024 to about 630 in 2034, roughly 15% growth, against about 13% nationally, which the national data already calls much faster than average. That is about 60 openings a year in North Dakota. Compare that to 10 openings a year for chemists and planners. If you want a science-adjacent career with the shortest wait for an actual opening, this is it.
Who Hires in ND: Oil and gas companies and their service contractors, construction firms, pipeline companies, coal mines and power plants, manufacturing plants, food processors, hospitals and health systems, railroads, city and county governments, insurance and risk companies, private safety consulting firms, and North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance, the state workers’ compensation agency, which lists Safety Consultant among the jobs it hires for (workforcesafety.com).
Work Setting: Other people’s worksites, almost always. Construction sites, plants, well pads, shops, warehouses, and hospitals, plus a desk somewhere for the writing. Hard hat, boots, safety glasses, hearing protection, sometimes a respirator. Significant driving, especially in western North Dakota. Some employers expect you to be reachable after hours when something happens.
Physical Demands: Medium. Walking sites for hours, climbing ladders and stairs, getting into and out of equipment, standing on uneven ground, and weather. You also carry monitoring equipment. The bigger demand is attention: you are looking at everything all the time.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, North Dakota, May 2025 (SOC 19-5011); North Dakota and U.S. long-term employment projections 2024–2034, via O*NET OnLine. Numbers are rounded.
Where This Leads
Path 1: Safety Coordinator or Technician — Entry level, often open to a trade background plus a technician credential.
Path 2: Safety Specialist — You own the inspections, the training, and the incident investigations for a site.
Path 3: Associate Safety Professional (ASP) — Certified. One year of experience plus the exam.
Path 4: Certified Safety Professional (CSP) — The credential employers ask for by name. Four years plus a prerequisite credential.
Path 5: Industrial Hygienist — The exposure-measurement specialty: air, noise, chemicals. Often needs more science.
Path 6: Safety Manager or Director — You run the safety program for a whole company and set the culture.
The Real Talk
What's Great:
- About 60 ND openings a year — the most in this group
- ND growth about 15%, much faster than average
- ND pay beats the US at nearly every percentile
- You can enter from a trade background with certifications
- Work where you genuinely prevent harm
- Skills wanted in every industry and every state
What's Hard:
- No North Dakota college offers a safety bachelor’s
- You will be the unpopular voice on the site
- Most jobs want a bachelor’s in something
- A lot of driving to other people’s worksites
- Certification fees are not fully published — you must ask
- You carry it when someone gets hurt anyway
Be Honest: Can you tell a boss who is behind schedule that the work has to stop, and hold that line calmly? Can you write up a finding somebody will argue with? Can you get a bachelor’s degree in a related field, since North Dakota has none in safety itself?