[Mary] Hi there. Welcome to Safety Labs. Most of our OHS guests are responsible for workers in environments like resource extraction, manufacturing, warehouses, sometimes public-facing spaces like retail stores. But we have yet to interview anyone who also has to consider elephant calves, stingrays, and bearded barbets in their plans. Well, that changes right now.
Domini Montgomery is the director of safety and risk management for the St. Louis Zoo. Drawing from her background in biology, public health, and safety, Domini focuses on guest and staff safety, disaster preparedness, biosecurity, and environmental health. She holds a master's degree in public health, with a dual focus on environmental and occupational health and biosecurity and disaster preparedness, as well as a bachelor of science in biology with a minor in psychology. Domini is an Associate Safety Professional and Certified Safety Professional. She co-leads her local chapter of Women in Safety Excellence, and co-leads chapter WISE at the national level. She also chairs the St. Louis ASSP Professional Development Committee. She joins us today from St. Louis. Welcome.
[Domini] Mary, thanks for having me, I'm excited to be here.
[Mary] I'd like to start with your career path, because lots of people have very different paths, but biology doesn't often lead to OHS — in your case, though, it's actually a pretty perfect fit. Can you describe how you got to where you are today, through biology and public health?
[Domini] Yeah, for sure. Like most folks with a bachelor's in biology, I thought I was for sure going to be a doctor, going to med school. I finished my bachelor's degree and quickly decided that wasn't the jam for me, I did not want to go to med school, I was pretty done. At the time, I was actually working at Wash U Med School in anatomy and neurobiology, doing research, alongside a couple other jobs, but that was my main focus. I was telling my mom, I don't really know what I want to do, I definitely don't want to go to med school anymore, and she suggested public health. I thought, okay, what is this? I did some research and realized it was a great way for me to still do the things I wanted — make a difference, give people the education and tools to take care of themselves, the environment, and others.
I ended up applying to grad school, did a Master of Public Health program, found a really cool program at St. Louis University's School of Public Health, and decided on that dual focus, environmental and occupational health and safety, and biosecurity and disaster preparedness. My first job out of grad school was working corporate safety for Schnucks Markets, a grocery store chain. It was fine, good, I learned a lot — I had an excellent boss, Jen Horseman, who's still a mentor and friend today, and I learned a lot from her during my time there. The zoo job really just fell into my lap — I hadn't necessarily been looking, but I knew I probably wasn't going to be at Schnucks forever, I wasn't really fulfilled in the work. My internship preceptor from grad school, Mark Bagby, had seen the zoo job posted and called me. I was actually in a parking lot waiting to meet Jen for a store walkthrough when he called and said, "hey, I saw this job posting at St. Louis Zoo, I think it'd be a really good fit for you." I said, wow, okay, I'll take a look.
I ultimately applied, interviewed, and accepted it. A fun, kind of serendipitous detail — the job was actually posted on my mom's birthday, so I thought, maybe this is fate. It really was a lucky, serendipitous find — a great place for me, combining science, public health, and one health, and working hard to keep humans alive and safe.
[Mary] Do you think this path to safety, through biology and then public health, gives you a different perspective than other OHS managers you've worked with or met?
[Domini] That's a really great question, and I think the answer is yes — though it also depends on how that person approaches problems and challenges generally. For me, I'm really focused on the science, the data, the hard facts, but also on this public health component — the total worker health approach, focused on the whole person, the whole individual, really wanting to understand the "why" behind a behavior or an attitude, why someone's being argumentative, whatever it is — because typically it's probably not me, I'm probably not the problem, there's likely something else happening. Is it a misunderstanding, an education or tool issue, is there a lot happening at home and this is just one more thing piling on that feels out of their control?
What I'm most excited about is that we've got more and more safety programs and organizations embracing the CDC and NIOSH Total Worker Health approach, which is founded in those public health components. I think that's a great opportunity for some of our old-school or traditional safety pros to rethink how they approach safety programs and work with their teams. The way I approach safety is really more individual, or holistic, focused on that single person — team dynamics matter too, of course — but building relationships where possible can be hugely impactful.
[Mary] I'll ask more about that in a minute, but I'm curious — what are the unique challenges of handling safety and risk at a zoo, and is there anything other safety pros, not at a zoo, might learn from it?
[Domini] Obviously the big variable is wild animals.
[Mary] The elephant in the room, literally.
[Domini] Right. There are a couple of different challenges. First and foremost, quite frankly, the humans themselves — that's the biggest challenge. And on the flip side, we're also a public entity, open to the public, so I'm not just looking at the safety of staff and volunteers, but ensuring we're a safe space for families to gather and visit. So we're looking at slips, trips, falls, general liabilities, all those things public-facing organizations deal with — though sometimes that's not necessarily the traditional safety person's role, maybe that's maintenance, or risk management, depending on how things shake out at a given organization.
Other unique components in the animal world are zoonotic diseases — not just from a storm-preparedness standpoint, but also weather patterns changing, sometimes more extreme temperature swings, and how that impacts staff caring for animals. So even on days we're closed to the public, we still need to get on-site safely to care for the animals — what does that look like, what risk factors do we need to consider? On the flip side, in settings open to the public, like our retail stores or theme park elements, we're aligned with other organizations on a lot of the same risk considerations — especially as it seems, the last six or so years, people have gotten a bit litigation-happy. As a nonprofit, that's very difficult to manage from a general liability standpoint — sometimes safety Domini and risk management Domini get really frustrated with some of the claims that come in, thinking, where's the personal autonomy here, you're walking and texting, you trip over your own foot, I don't see how that's our fault. Along that same line, being a nonprofit, it can be difficult to prioritize different projects or maintenance needs based on budget — some organizations have lots of cameras and fancy bells and whistles, and that's not always something we have access to. We have an excellent security team and a really good camera system, don't get me wrong, but not complete coverage like some organizations can invest in. But I'd say the biggest zoo-specific one is zoonotic diseases.
[Mary] That's interesting — last time we spoke, you mentioned that COVID-19, which was a zoonotic disease that jumped to humans, reshaped approaches to safety. Can you expand on how it affected your approach?
[Domini] For sure. At our organization, we definitely saw changes and buy-in toward different safety approaches. It was a tough time, not just for me, but for probably everyone, basically every human, I'd think. We understood we needed to take precautions not just for human-to-human transmission, but for potential impacts on the animals in our care too. We do know now that several animal species are more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, similar to other diseases — tuberculosis is one where transmission risk can be higher — so there could be a need for heightened precautions. Specifically, our animal care teams worked in split teams, so they could continue caring for the animals while having protection in case we needed to quarantine an entire team — a secondary team trained on that routine and those species could step in. That matters a lot, because we have many different species at the St. Louis Zoo, and how you care for a bird isn't the same as how you'd care for a carnivore, especially a dangerous one. It's really important to have people with the subject matter expertise and training to properly care for animals while also keeping themselves safe.
We also found a lot of burnout, leading to compassion fatigue, or the newer, broader term, empathy fatigue. Staff were coming to work already exhausted — kids learning virtually at home, caring for family members at risk because of age or illness, whatever it was. Our folks, quite frankly, were just exhausted, and they were coming in to care for animals while a lot of other people were working remotely, or not working at all, because there was nothing to do from home if you're a carpenter or a welder — those folks don't have a work-from-home option. The silver lining of the pandemic, in my humble opinion, was the focus on mental well-being. What we learned, or what some of us already knew but others in the organization really started buying into, was that mental health impacts physical health — it's all connected. If you're not focused, not at your best, you may not be showing up as your safest self, may not be ready to make decisions in the moment, may have a hard time thinking critically through a situation to develop the best path forward.
So we really started focusing on the mental well-being of our staff, to give them resources and tools to show up at whatever their best capacity is for that day, because it can change — but also providing the psychological safety and trust for them to say, "today's not the day, I can't be on this routine," or, "I need a day, I can't come in." The pandemic was an opportunity to showcase, across the organization and our different audiences, the importance of mental well-being, openness, trust, and communication, and how all of that builds a psychologically safe team, where you can have uncomfortable conversations, can have that clarity, can rely on your team members, so you can show up as your best self individually and collectively as the safest team.
The pandemic really helped us understand what our staff needed, what was working, what wasn't. A few things I'd call genuine safety wins born of the pandemic include what we call respiratory illness days — during the thick of the pandemic, we called them COVID days — paid time off for everyone, even if they were out of regular time off, or not benefits-eligible, whatever the case. Specific hours available if you or a family member were ill and you couldn't come to work, because we were, and still are, following CDC quarantine recommendations. What incentive do I have, as someone who's symptomatic, to tell you, "hey, I'm symptomatic, I can't come in," if I don't have hours to take? There's no good incentive beyond the goodness of my heart, and that's hard when you need a paycheck to cover rent or a mortgage. So we implemented respiratory illness days, available to everyone — and we're about six years post-pandemic, or post the start of it, and we still have them in place, for all twelve hundred-plus employees. That's a huge benefit, especially for staff who don't otherwise have paid time off. If you're sick, your family's sick, your kid's sick, stay home and take care of them. These hours are specifically for missed workdays — not free vacation days — but if my kid's sick tomorrow, or I'm sick and scheduled for a six-hour shift, I can use those six hours in place of work hours. It's still in place today, a really great benefit, and we still get emails from people asking, "hey, can I have these loaded to my account, is this still a thing?" And we say, yes, it's still a thing, and they're just so grateful — and frankly, I'm grateful too, please keep your germs to yourself, I don't want you here sick.
The emphasis during the pandemic itself was multi-layered — there was a business reason, please stay home if you're sick, we're not looking to quarantine an entire team if we can avoid it, and we weren't looking to have any COVID infections in animals, especially early on, before a vaccine was available.
[Mary] And we didn't really know in the beginning how it would affect different animals.
[Domini] You're spot on — you can actually still read about this on our website, I believe, we put out a release about it. We did have a COVID-19 outbreak in some of our carnivores, some of our large cats. Luckily everyone was fine, but it was a very uncomfortable situation for everyone — humans and animals were fine, mostly just stressful, there were definitely some symptoms, but overall everyone, and every animal, was just fine. Sorry, I tangented there a bit.
Specifically, that highlight, that showcase of the importance of mental well-being, was really the push some of our leaders needed to understand the approach I'd already been taking with safety generally. I'm a big fan of "ask for forgiveness," though that's very much dependent on knowing your leader and team — what works for Domini may not always work for you, I don't want to give bad advice, but sometimes asking for forgiveness is the way to go. I'd really started hammering home this holistic, total-worker approach a couple of years into my time at the St. Louis Zoo, but it was definitely 2020 that highlighted the need and importance of focusing on mental well-being and staff support, and how that ties into safety, culture, and retention.
And frankly, engagement too — if you've got engaged staff, going through training, focused on what they're doing, making safe choices, speaking up if they need clarity, have a suggestion, an idea, or even, "hey, I really disagree with this, let's talk about it" — that opens doors for really constructive conversations and innovation. Isn't that what we all want — innovative staff, innovative processes that propel the organization forward, all while keeping people safe and healthy? I think that's what all safety professionals want, and I'd argue all organizations want it too — a productive, engaged staff, and positive impacts to the bottom line.
[Mary] I think you've just answered my next question, but I'll ask it anyway in case there's more to add — you mentioned you've focused on the whole-person approach to safety since around 2018. How do you integrate mental health and psychological safety into your safety programs?
[Domini] That's a great question, and I can speak to what's worked for me personally and for our organization. It's important to acknowledge it's not a one-size-fits-all approach — what works for me and my style may not be the jam for you, but sharing ideas is the best way to develop our own styles and ways of leading and caring for the people in our care.
Specifically, I spent a lot of time learning — the nuances and quirks of the St. Louis Zoo. When I started here in 2015, the role had been vacant a while, so I spent time learning those nuances, but what I really needed to focus on was building relationships and trust with people at the organization, specifically those who'd be my biggest "customers," so to speak — typically the departments with the highest frequency of claims or injuries, the highest-cost injuries, higher-risk departments. For us, that was Facilities Management, our trades team, and Animal Care.
I spent a lot of time focusing on our facilities team, and I was intentional about it — there's always that saying, if there's a fire or emergency at your facility, you want the maintenance person with you, because they'll know where everything is. My mindset was, they probably know the most about the inner workings, from a traditional safety, risk management, and environmental health standpoint, and that's what I needed right then. In the meantime, I could build relationships and credibility with them. I spent a lot of time job-shadowing, pushing trash caddies, emptying poop caddies — if it was safe for me to shadow a tradesperson and do something, I was doing it. I'm obviously not a licensed electrician or plumber, I want to be clear about that — my trades experience is being a retired carpenter's daughter, and I really hate painting. I know just enough to say, "that doesn't seem right," and I know absolutely nothing about welding — we have an excellent welding team, and if I have a welding question, I ask them. But if I'm ordering PPE, I know exactly what they want and need from a safety professional standpoint, even if I have no idea how to actually weld — I just ask the experts.
I spent a lot of time building trust and relationships, which laid the groundwork for a psychologically safe environment. I built credibility, built trust through open communication, operating with integrity, admitting when I'm wrong, which is often, not making up answers — if I don't know something, my answer is, I don't actually know, but I can tell you right now, I don't like the way you described that, so let's not do anything until we can follow up and get more information. Sometimes the answer is, "I don't like how you're doing this, can we hold off, let me look into other options, and we'll dive back in." Sometimes I don't need more information — sometimes it's, "yeah, this isn't the best way, but I have a better idea," and we figure out together what they want to do. It's also acknowledging, I hear you that this is hard, I know you don't want to do it this way because it takes longer, can we try it for a week before revisiting whether to redo it entirely? That collaboration helps, but so does follow-through — doing what I said I'd do, in the time I said I'd do it, and if I can't meet a deadline, updating people on that, not throwing anyone under the bus, because at the end of the day, this is a team approach, and I want you to go home safe and no worse for wear than when you came to work.
It took a couple of years, not just with Facilities Management but other departments too, for me to build that street cred, and really focus on trust and relationship-building. Once I had their trust, and in most situations their respect — they don't have to like me, that's not really the goal, though it helps and I don't want to downplay that — but trust and respect were the goal, because they're the experts in what they do, and I need their expertise to help develop or update programs and policies that keep them safe. Building that foundation let me really focus on psychological safety and culture — people asking for clarity, speaking up because they have a better idea, reporting a near miss. It's as simple as someone calling me and saying, "hey, I'm at this job site, I've stopped work, I don't know what the problem is, but it doesn't feel right." What I think is the biggest win is when they've already called their supervisor first — "I stopped this job, I'm calling Domini next, can you guys come down here?" What's really cool about that is it reflects an approach where leaders are also on board with openness and communication, giving everyone stop-work authority, because we all have deadlines, and it can be scary and uncomfortable to say, "we're supposed to have this done today, but I have to stop work because of this factor, and now I'm worried we'll miss the deadline" — but they have the power, the authority, and the backing of their leader to do it.
It's been really great to see that evolution of mindset and culture — definitely prevalent in Facilities Management and our trades team, definitely prevalent in Animal Care, but what's been most impactful organization-wide is seeing this evolution of trust, openness, and communication over the last ten or so years. We implemented our three keys and values around the time I started, and there were definitely people who thought, "it's just the flavor of the week." It was a great coincidence, because those three keys and values — creativity, openness, integrity, communication — are things I personally value too, so I thought, this could be really cool. What I noticed, as different leaders came in with different processes and mindsets, is that some of our old-timers, with impressively long careers here, are really seeing the organization start to walk the walk. What I think is really important is that the foundation our safety and risk management team, and our HR/People and Culture team, have built around communication, openness, and trust, builds the foundation for psychological safety.
We still have a ton of work to do, as a whole — I don't think any organization is perfect — and while I've built a lot of trust and psychological safety within the organization and the safety department specifically, some teams still feel siloed, or a bit uncomfortable bringing up ideas. What's cool, though, is that they can bring those ideas, concerns, or suggestions to me, and I can take them to their leaders on their behalf, keeping things anonymous until they're ready to dive deeper themselves with their leaders or peers. That's been impactful, and has shifted some of the culture and engagement we see in the organization.
I also think it's important to acknowledge that, while I'm an "ask for forgiveness" type, I always kept, and continue to keep, my leader in the loop — "hey, I'm starting this new program, here's why," so he's never blindsided, he doesn't like surprises, and frankly, neither do I, especially not publicly. He's an excellent advocate. I report up through our Chief People and Culture Officer, through HR, and I think that speaks to how our organization values safety — though again, just my personal opinion, reporting through a different function doesn't make safety any less valued elsewhere. Our folks see safety as a human-centered department, not a cost center, not me trying to suppress injury reporting because it impacts our premium, which impacts the bottom line, and our CFO would be upset.
I've been at this organization almost eleven years, and we've had three different CFOs in that time. Our first transitioned, and our second, Cassandra Brown-Ray, our first female and Black CFO, very cool, took over, with him staying on to help with the transition. Cassandra recently retired, and we have a new CFO, Kathy Tessone, who also came from a nonprofit, and it's been really interesting connecting with her, since she actually managed different insurance lines in a previous role, so we've had good conversations there. The bottom line is, none of our three CFOs has ever treated safety as a cost center costing the organization money. I think it's important to acknowledge that, regardless of who you report to, your role as a safety professional is to care for people and serve as a resource to keep them safe and healthy. When you approach safety, especially depending on your audience, it's worth asking, what's the bigger picture, what are we trying to impact, what's your organization's mission, and how does safety play into that role? Yes, absolutely, we're accountable for our EMR rate, our workers' comp premium, submitting injuries — but what's the bigger picture? How can you, as a safety professional, impact the people in your care, while also elevating the organization and being a thought partner? I think some people get so caught up in the nitty-gritty that they forget they can be a change-maker. Safety isn't always sexy — I work at a zoo, and safety still isn't sexy — but you can make it your own, build relationships, and figure out how your department fits into your organization's mission and values. A partnership with your leader is hugely impactful, especially if you're not at the executive table yourself. Having a leader who understands the importance of safety and risk management is essential, and if you think they don't, it's worth having a conversation to figure out where the disconnect or miscommunication is — maybe I need different words to explain something, or maybe you're a visual person and need visuals instead of a thirty-minute conversation. That's where knowing your audience really matters.
[Mary] I'll ask more about that, in the vein of things you've learned and advice, in a minute — but first I'd like to talk about one of the tools from Safety Products Global, the company behind the podcast, which owns the world's widest range of safety knives.
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And now, back to our show. This is a bit more personal — are there any moments in your career that stand out to you as times when you learned something, or maybe changed your approach to your job? "Aha moments," I guess people call them.
[Domini] Several — but I want to talk about two that happened around the same time, very personal, I'll try to keep it shortish. I became a mom nine weeks early, in 2019, on Friday the 13th, during the last full moon. It was an adventure, and not a good one, quite frankly. I was out of town with my husband, visiting my family in Arkansas — I'm a military kid, my mom recently retired from the Air Force after almost thirty years, full bird colonel, very cool, way cooler than me. We'd all met up in Arkansas, where my extended family lives, where I was born, along with my brother, his wife, and my niece, my goddaughter, in from South Dakota. We called it "Thanksmas" — after Thanksgiving, before Christmas, acknowledging there are other holidays around that time too, but those are the two big ones my family celebrates.
We were in Arkansas visiting with extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and so on — for reference, I did not live in Arkansas in 2019, I lived here in St. Louis. While we were there, I went into labor. It took me a while to realize it — I just thought it was the round ligament pain everyone said I'd eventually get. I'd done a workout that morning, run hills, everything seemed fine, and then it wasn't. The insurance company said it wasn't medically necessary for us to go home to St. Louis, so they wouldn't transfer my kiddo from the NICU in Arkansas to any of the level four NICUs here, and we have multiple. Peyton was born at thirty-one weeks, critically ill, and needed a specific type of NICU care.
The insurance company wouldn't let us come home, and I thought that was really stupid — not exactly a safety-related point, just wanted to share my personal opinion there. We finally got released from the NICU after 43 days and came home, but for the majority of that time, I was in the NICU largely alone, because my husband had to come home — we had three dogs at the time, and someone has to work. It was very unexpected, since he came nine weeks early. We were finally back in St. Louis in late January 2020 — and I don't know if everyone listening remembers what happened in 2020, but right around then, into March, we went from NICU isolation straight into quarantine isolation.
At that point my mom was still active duty, she and my dad were in DC, my brother and his wife live in South Dakota, my husband's family lives two hours away — so there was no one nearby in the St. Louis area, and I had a medically fragile, complex preemie, in a pandemic. It was delightful. As a safety professional, specifically one with a public health education, I was very nervous, and having a hard time making decisions based on the limited facts and data we had, which weren't clouded by emotional judgment, versus people saying, "what do you mean you don't want to wear a mask to keep others safe, including my three-month-old?" I didn't understand why someone wouldn't do that.
I was having a hard time separating those things, and then I realized — sometimes I call these "precipitating factors," those unconscious biases — sometimes you don't need to separate them. Sometimes those personal factors and traits can make you a more impactful leader and storyteller. At that point in my career, I'd been at the zoo almost five years, and a safety professional for almost seven — an interesting crossroads, since I'd just become a manager, gotten approval for an additional headcount in July 2019. That person had worked for me about six months — he was great, phenomenal, actually left us to work in emergency management and preparedness in a hospital setting, so he's doing great — but it was a really interesting time to reconcile "mom Domini" and "safety Domini," to understand how this huge life change would shape me as a leader, alongside how this global pandemic was shaping my approach to leadership.
We'd talked earlier about how I'd already started implementing a total worker health approach back in 2018 — becoming a mom, in the traumatic way I did, really made me personally understand and relate to the importance of mental well-being, and the importance of having a leader, team, or peers who can recognize, "hey, I don't know what it is, but you're not at your best, you're not yourself, you're not okay," and check in. In that moment, or really a very long stretch of moments, I was able to realize that separating those parts of myself doesn't always have to happen — I could still be an impactful safety professional, sometimes an even more impactful leader and collaborator, by showing up authentically. I stopped trying to separate new-mom Domini, preemie-mom Domini, from safety-Domini.
What I used in that approach was something like, "hey folks, the information's telling us this, I really think we need to move forward this way, but I also want to make sure we're considering all sides — personally, I have a medically fragile child, I don't know what would happen if he got COVID right now, he would probably die. We have other folks here who might be in similar situations. We have animals in our care who could be impacted similarly, and we don't know yet. So I think we should implement all precautions — droplet precautions, footbaths, multiple PPE changes, all of that." What I found was that sharing those different reasonings, those personal parts, helped me present in a way that was personable, authentic, but also real — I'm presenting information, data, and facts, but the personal aspect matters too, because it helps people consider different angles.
What was also cool is that, by giving myself permission to show up that way, I became more open to hearing other people's perspectives too — and sometimes that can be hard and sticky, "it's my way or no way," and while I've been guilty of that before and probably will be again, hearing other people buy into your perspective really fills that trust bank, making you more open to hearing from others in return.
I also think that experience, and becoming a mom, made me a more empathetic person and leader. Empathy was a skill, or trait, depending how you think of it, that I had to, and still have to, work hard on — it's not that I don't care, because I do, but I sometimes have a hard time expressing it or coming across that way. Having that personal experience, that "aha moment" of giving myself permission to show up authentically as both a safety professional and a leader, has really helped me approach things with an open mind — "what do you mean this person refuses to wear their hard hat? I'm sure there's something else going on, what's the deal," because it's probably more than just defiance. It's interesting looking back at baby-safety-professional Domini, ten-plus years in — sometimes I'll see emails from 2016 and think, ooh, I was not being a very good team player there. It's interesting to take those "aha moments" and look at the before and after, and important to acknowledge you always need to stay open-minded and keep learning, because we all have more to learn.
[Mary] On that note, I know you're quite involved in a number of safety organizations, like ASSP — what advice do you have for safety pros who feel isolated and want to build or tap into a community of practice?
[Domini] I'm so glad you asked. There are so many resources and tools out there, and I really want to highlight ASSP, the American Society of Safety Professionals, and also BCSP, the Board of Certified Safety Professionals. ASSP is this national body of safety professionals — and even though it says "American," there are chapters globally, which I think is important to point out.
[Mary] Good to know.
[Domini] There are also common interest groups — I'm co-chair of chapter WISE, Women in Safety Excellence, actually wearing a WISE shirt right now, though if I got up on camera it'd just be awkward, so you'll have to take my word for it. What's great about WISE is they have a formal mentoring program, whether you want to get involved as a mentor or mentee, a great way to collaborate and check in. ASSP also has hundreds of local chapters, and I'm confident there's probably one near you — if you don't know where to start, you can visit ASSP's website, or just message me on LinkedIn and I'll help point you in the right direction. Local chapters are a great way to connect with your local safety community, especially because if you're having an issue at your job site, someone else may not have the exact same issue, but probably someone's experienced something similar and can offer advice — or, if you're not really looking to problem-solve and just need to vent, that's a good option too.
BCSP, for those with a CSP, ASP, or CHST, is a credentialing body, but they also have excellent resources, including a mentorship program — what's cool about theirs is it can be episodic, long-term, or just, "I need to connect with someone for a month," which is a nice way to pick and choose what you need versus more formalized, time-bound programs. BCSP also has the Hub and other learning resources, and free training webinars, all of which are very good. There's also the National Safety Council, NSC, which has a lot of training and learning opportunities and some really cool common interest groups too — not comparing the two directly, but NSC has fewer local chapters than ASSP, so while they're great at a larger scale, if you're looking for local community connection, I'd absolutely recommend ASSP. If you're not sure how to get involved with ASSP, NSC, or BCSP, you can search online or message me on LinkedIn, and I can help connect you.
[Mary] I have one, well, two last questions — what are you most excited about when you look at the industry as a whole? Where do you see it going that you're excited to participate in?
[Domini] Great question, and probably obvious — the total worker health approach that people are really starting to employ, gaining a lot of traction. There are a lot of layers to that approach — mental well-being, stressors, social determinants of health, and how that plays into the workplace, but also, on the flip side, what's actually causing those stressors. I'm most excited about the evolution around mental well-being, opioid use, substance use, and suicide — those aren't bad words, they're words we need to use, terms we need to focus on, so we can end the stigma and address these preventable deaths, just like we address preventable injuries, the "focus four" or "focus ten." It's great seeing more safety professionals buy into and understand the importance of mental well-being, and addressing those stressors and pathways.
Specifically here in St. Louis and the Midwest, we're seeing great work on the opioid and substance use front — we've got a wellness coalition here, multiple agencies and organizations working to address the opioid crisis. I'm also really excited to see Narcan programs in workplaces, which is really impactful. And again, partnerships with regulatory bodies — specifically in St. Louis, we have a really great OSHA Area Office, with Bill McDonald and Marianne Hoyer, excellent partners in safety. At the end of the day, their goals are the same as ours — keeping people safe and healthy. I can't necessarily speak nationally about OSHA, but I can speak to how the partnership here in St. Louis has been impactful, creating an excellent safety community in the Lou that, in turn, positively serves our broader community.
[Mary] You did mention this, but where can listeners find you on the web if they want to reach out and learn more?
[Domini] Great question, thank you. You can find me on LinkedIn — you could probably find me on other socials too, but please, just find me on LinkedIn. As far as I know, I'm the only Domini Montgomery out there, but if you find another one, let me know.
[Mary] Yes, that would be good to know. Well, that's a wrap, folks. Thanks so much for joining me, Domini.
[Domini] Absolutely, thanks for having me, it was a pleasure.
[Mary] And, as my thanks to listeners who've patiently waited with this burning question in their heads since the beginning of the episode — a bearded barbet is a bird native to West Africa. It lives in tropical forests and loves to eat figs, and it has distinctive feathers under its beak that look like a beard. I know that's what you were thinking the whole time. Thanks, as always, to the Safety Labs team, and bye for now. This podcast is created by Safety Products Global, the world's leading manufacturer of safety knives. Through our trusted brands, Klever, Slice, and PHC, we empower companies to prevent injuries by providing safer cutting tools for every material and application. Until next time, stay safe.
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