New Year gong for HSE deputy
HSE deputy chief executive Kevin Myers awarded a CBE for services to occupational safety
THE Health and Safety Executive’s deputy chief executive, Kevin Myers, has been recognized in the 2015 New Year’s Honours list with a CBE for services to occupational safety and health.
Having joined the HSE as a trainee factory inspector in 1976, Mr Myers has held a number of diverse roles within the organization following a range of operational posts in the field in London, East Anglia and the South West.
In the late 1980s he transferred to the HSE’s London headquarters to support the deputy director general in setting up the Field Operations Directorate (FOD), and in 1991 he helped set up the newly created Offshore Safety Division following the transfer of regulatory responsibility for that sector from the Department of Energy to the HSE.
In 1993 Mr Myers was seconded to Brussels to work on the development of the ‘Seveso’ Directive and environmental auditing. Returning to the HSE in late 1995, he initially project managed the creation of a new Chemical and Hazardous Installations Division, established to implement ‘Seveso’, and then took up a senior management post in the new Division – covering the southern and eastern parts of the country.
In 1998 Mr Myers was promoted to Home Counties regional director in the HSE’s Field Operations Directorate. He was the HSE’s chief inspector of construction from January 2000 to April 2005, establishing and leading a new GB-wide Construction Division in 2002.
In May 2005 Mr Myers became director of the HSE’s Hazardous Installations Directorate (HID), with responsibility for the regulation of various ‘major hazard’ sectors, including the onshore chemical industry, offshore oil and gas, high-pressure gas storage and distribution, explosives, mining, and biological agents.
In October 2008 he was appointed as the HSE’s deputy chief executive to oversee the work of FOD, HID and Nuclear Safety.
Mr Myers said: ‘It is a real honour and privilege to be recognized in this way. I see it as much as recognition of the important work of the HSE as me personally. I’m pleased that awareness and standards of safety and health have improved so much over the years, but there’s still much to be done – we need to get people to focus on real health and safety issues rather than the urban ‘elf ‘n safety’ myths proliferated in some quarters.’
Judith Hackitt, chair of the HSE, added: ‘Kevin’s lifelong commitment to the organization has been fittingly recognized on the HSE’s 40th anniversary with this New Year Honour. I can think of no better way to start the HSE’s anniversary year than with seeing Kevin rightly recognized for his outstanding work for the organization over four decades.’
