Dede Montgomery, M.S., C.I.H., President of the Columbia-Willamette Chapter of the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) was recently awarded the Region 1 Safety Professional of Year (SPY) for 2022. The ASSP Regional Safety Professional of the Year Award acknowledges the dedication and outstanding contributions of a member to a specific ASSP region.

ASSP formed over 100 years ago, is the leading professional society supporting occupational safety in the U.S. and has become a well-recognized global society. ASSP has approximately 150 chapters, nine regions, nearly 40 sections and more than 70 student sections. There are four chapters in Oregon including its largest, the Columbia-Willamette (which also includes Santiam Section, Mt. St. Helens Section and the Oregon State University Student Section), Cascade, Broken Top and Southern Oregon. ASSP Region 1 includes members and chapters in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii.

Spy candidates are judged by the scope, depth, quality and impact of their efforts over the past three years, in the safety profession, ASSP and the community. Dede’s award is given for superior accomplishments based on recommendations by her colleagues, a manager and selected by a chapter committee.

Dede has more than 35 years of experience as a safety and health professional and is one of Oregon’s most influential and widely-recognized resources and mentors in safety and health, including in Total Worker Health®. Her colleagues recognize her as having a very unique role in the center of “what is happening in occupational safety and health.” “She is a highly respected technical expert, a connector and a doer.”  Dede currently serves as the President of the ASSP Columbia-Willamette Chapter for the 2021-2022 term, after serving in other positions for the chapter. Dede received the 2010-2011 Columbia-Willamette Chapter SPY award and the Pacific Northwest Section American Industrial Hygiene Association’s Distinguished Industrial Hygienist award in 2018.

At the national level, Dede has worked within ASSP Professional Affairs Committee (2017-2020) and the ASSP Total Worker Health (TWH) taskforce where she has influenced national policy. In 2020, she was invited by National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to serve as an IPA (inter-personnel agreement) in the region working to support the safe return of workers as related to the pandemic, a national recognition of her capabilities and impact.

Dede is a Senior Research Project Manager at the Institute and co-Principal Investigator of Outreach and Education at the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center, a NIOSH-funded Center of Excellence in Total Worker Health®, based in the Institute. There she has organized educational events on emerging topics within occupational health, shares communications including newsletters, developed the Institute’s Oregon and the Workplace blog, stimulated and coordinated the development of the first-in-the-nation state-wide TWH Alliance and provides instruction, technical industrial hygiene assistance to projects, advisory committees and initiatives.

Dede is one of the two most frequent Oregon instructors of the TWH curriculum that is uniquely practitioner-directed but draws from across the occupational spectrum. As her manager wrote about Dede: “I thought last year would be your best year ever, and then you went and exceeded that [often substantially] this year.”

Congratulations to Dede Montgomery, the Region 1 ASSP Safety Professional of the Year Award, 2022!

Learn about more awards throughout our Institute:

• Saurabh Thosar receives $2.97 million R01 NIH Grant
• Staff Spotlight: Sami Moellmer
• Kent Anger receives ICOH Honorary Member Award
• Steven Shea receives 2021 Medical Research Foundation of Oregon mentor award