Project Construction Health and Safety Lead

At Weston Solutions, Inc. you will do meaningful work and make valuable contributions. Employee ownership at Weston is a path to professional growth and access to diverse opportunities in a highly connected community that works together across key service areas to make a difference in the environment. Weston has continued to evolve and adapt to our changing world as a premier provider of environmental and infrastructure services for over sixty years. In both the public and private sectors our teams help identify, solve, mitigate, and manage critical environmental issues to help clients achieve a more sustainable future.
Weston is seeking a Project Construction Health and Safety Lead to provide health and safety leadership for a major capital project from design and mobilization through construction, commissioning, qualification, and handover. This role implements the client’s construction health and safety framework, protects people and business continuity, and ensures compliance with applicable legal, corporate, and ethical requirements.
Location: Charlottesville, VA, with regular travel to project offices, contractor facilities, supplier locations, and company meetings.
Expected Outcomes:
• Lead the project construction health and safety strategy and align it with project objectives, client standards, and applicable regulatory requirements.
• Develop and maintain the project construction health and safety plan, including governance, emergency preparedness, assurance activities, and controls for high-risk work.
• Provide health and safety leadership across design, procurement, contractor mobilization, construction, commissioning, qualification, and handover.
• Establish contractor safety requirements for prequalification, selection, onboarding, performance monitoring, corrective action, and intervention.
• Ensure effective controls for high-risk activities, including work at height, lifting, excavation, temporary work, electrical work, confined spaces, hot work, traffic management, and permit-to-work systems.
• Partner with project, engineering, and design teams to eliminate or reduce risk during design, construction planning, and change management.
• Lead audits, inspections, management reviews, contractor reviews, critical control verification, and follow-up of findings.
• Monitor and analyze safety performance, trends, observations, incidents, high-potential events, and lessons learned.
• Lead or support incident investigations, root cause analysis, corrective actions, escalation, and communication of lessons learned.
• Advise project leadership on risk-based decisions, accountability, and timely intervention when controls are inadequate.
• Coach project leaders, construction managers, supervisors, site teams, contractors, and safety professionals to strengthen field execution and safety performance.
• Coordinate with project stakeholders and the client’s global construction health and safety function to apply standards consistently, obtain technical support, and escalate significant risks.
• Represent construction health and safety in governance meetings, design reviews, contractor meetings, planning sessions, and risk reviews.
• Support construction-related emergency preparedness and the safe transition to operations, including commissioning, qualification, and handover activities.
Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional education in occupational health and safety, construction management, environmental health and safety, engineering, or a related field.
• Advanced health and safety credentials such as CSP, ASP, CHST, MSP, CSM, SMS, NEBOSH certification, or an equivalent qualification.
• At least 10 years of construction health and safety experience, including work on major or complex capital projects.
• Experience leading health and safety projects in pharmaceuticals, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, industrial, process, or similarly regulated environments preferred.