Industrial Safety Specialist

Fantastic challenges. Amazing opportunities. GKN Aerospace is reimagining air travel: going further, faster and greener! Fuelled by great people whose expertise and creativity sets the standards in our industry, we’re inspired by the opportunities to innovate and break boundaries. We’re proud to play a part in protecting the world’s democracies. And we’re committed to putting sustainability at the centre of everything we do, opening up and protecting our planet. With over 16,000 employees across 32 manufacturing sites in 12 countries we serve over 90% of the world’s aircraft and engine manufacturers and achieved sales of £3.6bn in 2025. There are no limits to where you can take your career.

About the role

Provide hands-on industrial safety support across manufacturing areas that produce acrylic and glass aircraft transparency products for civil and military platforms, ensuring employees and contractors follow safe work practices and control high-risk tasks at the point of work. Inspect work areas, coach employees and supervisors, verify safety controls, support incident investigations, and maintain required records for occupational safety programs including IIPP, hazard communication, LOTO, hot work, machine guarding, PPE, respiratory protection, forklift/mobile equipment, ergonomics, and emergency readiness. Help translate California, local, federal, aerospace customer, and site-specific EH&S requirements into practical daily behaviors for vertically integrated acrylic casting/forming, solvent bonding, coatings, machining, optical finishing, glass processing, and maintenance activities.

Responsibilities

• Daily Safety Field Execution
  • Conduct planned and unplanned safety inspections across acrylic casting, forming, bonding, coating, machining, glass fabrication, maintenance, warehousing, laboratory, and utility areas.
  • Identify unsafe conditions and behaviors; coach employees and supervisors in real time; document findings; assign corrective actions; and verify closure.
  • Participate in daily tier meetings, shift start-ups, Gemba walks, area audits, and pre-job briefs to reinforce safety expectations and hazard awareness.
  • Exercise stop-work authority and immediately escalate imminent danger, uncontrolled chemical hazards, serious machine-guarding deficiencies, or life-safety concerns.
• California, Local, and Federal Compliance Support
  • Support implementation of Cal/OSHA Title 8 and OSHA general industry requirements including IIPP, LOTO, machine guarding, hazard communication, PPE, respiratory protection, hearing conservation, powered industrial trucks, fall prevention, emergency action/fire prevention, and ergonomic controls.
  • Maintain inspection logs, training records, safety observations, incident files, corrective-action evidence, equipment checklists, and other records required for agency or customer audit readiness.
  • Assist with agency inspection preparation and corrective-action follow-up involving Cal/OSHA, Orange County Health Care Agency CUPA, Orange County Fire Authority, City of Garden Grove authorities, South Coast AQMD, DTSC, EPA, or wastewater/stormwater stakeholders when safety controls overlap with hazardous materials or process changes.
  • Perform field checks for chemical storage, secondary containment, labeling, emergency equipment, eyewash/showers, flammable cabinets, compressed gas cylinders, waste staging interfaces, and spill response readiness.
• High-Risk Work and Manufacturing Process Controls
  • Verify LOTO planning and execution for machines, autoclaves, ovens, presses, mixers, tanks, conveyors, CNC equipment, dust collectors, pumps, and utility equipment.
  • Support hot work, elevated work, confined-space-adjacent activities, tank work, contractor work, crane/hoist lifts, maintenance shutdowns, and other non-routine tasks through permit review and field verification.
  • Inspect machine guarding, interlocks, emergency stops, pinch-point protection, cutting/grinding controls, guards on rotating equipment, and barricading around temporary hazards.
  • Observe handling of large transparencies, glass sheets, molds, fixtures, sharp edges, heavy carts, vacuum lifts, and ergonomic risk points; recommend practical improvements.
• Acrylic, MMA, Solvent, Coating, and Glass Safety Support
  • Perform safety walkdowns in areas using methyl methacrylate (MMA), monomers, resins, flammable solvents, adhesives, coatings, primers, cleaning agents, and other hazardous materials.
  • Check chemical-container labeling, SDS availability, compatible storage, grounding/bonding where applicable, ventilation use, PPE selection, spill kit availability, and employee knowledge of hazards.
  • Support industrial hygiene monitoring activities for MMA, VOCs, coating constituents, dust, respirable crystalline silica/glass particulates where applicable, noise, heat, and other exposures.
  • Promote process safeguards for polymerization control, thermal processes, flammable vapor management, tank and drum handling, cleanroom/controlled finishing areas, and contamination-sensitive aerospace production zones.
• Training, Communication, and Employee Engagement
  • Deliver or support safety orientations, toolbox talks, job-specific refreshers, safety alerts, near-miss learning briefs, and multilingual/visual communications as needed.
  • Coach employees on hazard recognition, PPE use, SDS access, chemical handling, emergency reporting, stop-work authority, pre-task planning, and safe maintenance interfaces.
  • Collect employee safety concerns, help prioritize corrective actions, and encourage reporting of hazards and near misses without fear of reprisal.
  • Support safety committees, emergency response drills, evacuation exercises, spill-response exercises, ergonomic events, and focused risk-reduction campaigns.
• Incident Response and Corrective Action
  • Respond promptly to injuries, near misses, property damage, chemical exposure concerns, spills with employee exposure potential, fire/life-safety concerns, and unsafe-condition reports.
  • Secure facts through interviews, photographs, scene observations, equipment status, training records, and work instructions; support root-cause analysis led by the Manager/OHS or EH&S leadership.
  • Track assigned corrective and preventive actions through completion; verify effectiveness in the field and escalate overdue or ineffective actions.
  • Assist with OSHA/Cal OSHA recordkeeping inputs, first-aid case documentation, return-to-work observations, and corrective-action communication to affected teams.
• Aerospace & Defense Audit and Operational Continuity Support
  • Ensure safety activities reinforce aerospace operating discipline, including documented verification, change control, contamination/FOD awareness, controlled access, customer property protection, and special process readiness.
  • Support customer, insurance, AS9100/NADCAP-style, and internal audits by maintaining clean records and demonstrating effective shop-floor safety controls.
  • Coordinate with quality, engineering, and security when safety work occurs in restricted, customer-specific, military program, controlled-processing, or special-process areas.
  • Recognize that EH&S events can disrupt critical civil and defense supply commitments and therefore treat safety control failures as operational risks, not only compliance gaps.

Requirements

• High school diploma or GED required; associate degree, technical certificate, or equivalent coursework in occupational safety, industrial hygiene, manufacturing, engineering technology, chemistry, or related field preferred for entry into the role.
• 3+ years of experience in industrial safety, manufacturing operations, maintenance, quality, aerospace manufacturing, chemical processing, plastics, glass, coatings, machining, or similarly complex production environments.
• Working knowledge of core safety programs including IIPP, hazard recognition, LOTO, machine guarding, HazCom/GHS, PPE, respiratory protection basics, emergency action/fire prevention, powered industrial trucks, fall prevention, ergonomics, and incident reporting.
• Ability to perform shop-floor inspections, document findings clearly, coach employees respectfully, and follow corrective actions through closure.
• Comfortable working around manufacturing chemicals, flammables, solvents, resins, coatings, ovens, autoclaves, furnaces, CNC machines, glass processing, maintenance work, and mobile equipment.
• Ability to read and understand SDSs, safety procedures, work instructions, equipment checklists, training materials, and regulatory/program requirements.
• Basic computer skills including Microsoft Office, safety management systems, inspection applications, training systems, or corrective-action databases.
• Strong communication skills and ability to work effectively with hourly employees, supervisors, engineers, maintenance technicians, contractors, and EH&S professionals.
• Must be a U.S. Person per ITAR regulations to comply with export compliance requirements.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in occupational safety, industrial hygiene, environmental health, engineering technology, manufacturing, chemistry, or related field.
• OSHA 30-Hour General Industry, Cal/OSHA training, ASP, GSP, OHST, CHST, STS, HAZWOPER, forklift trainer, first aid/CPR/AED, or equivalent safety credentials.
• Experience in aerospace transparency manufacturing, PMMA/MMA acrylic casting or forming, laminated glass, optical coatings, cleanroom/controlled finishing, autoclaves, ovens, furnaces, CNC machining, or precision assembly.
• Experience supporting industrial hygiene monitoring, respirator fit testing, noise dosimetry, heat-stress assessments, ergonomic evaluations, or chemical exposure-control programs.
• Familiarity with AS9100, NADCAP audit expectations, FAA/DoD prime contractor environments, customer-flow-down requirements, and disciplined change-control cultures.
• Experience supporting South Coast AQMD, Orange County Health Care Agency CUPA/CERS, Orange County Fire Authority, Cal/OSHA, DTSC, EPA, or other California regulatory inspections or corrective actions.
• Bilingual English/Spanish capability or demonstrated success communicating safety expectations with a multilingual manufacturing workforce.
• Experience using lean manufacturing, 5S, visual management, layered process audits, behavior-based safety observations, or serious injury/fatality prevention tools.

Benefits

A Great Place to work needs a Great Way of Working. Everyone is welcome to apply to GKN. We believe that we can only achieve our ambitions through a coming together of diverse minds who enjoy collaborating in an inspirational environment. Through our commitment to diversity, inclusion and belonging and by living our five powerful principles we’ve created a culture where everyone feels welcome to contribute. It’s a culture that won us ‘The Best Workplace Culture Award’. By embracing and celebrating what makes us unique we encourage everyone to bring their full self to work. We’re also committed to providing an accessible recruitment process, so if you require reasonable adjustments at any stage during our recruitment process please get in touch and let us know.

Pay

Salary Range: $9