Choose your electives within the Environment, Health, Safety (EHS) and Sustainability degree to prepare yourself for a career in environmental compliance. Professionals in this field work with large companies to help them abide by environmental laws, regulations, standards and other requirements such as site permits to operate. In recent years, environmental concerns have led to a significant increase in the number and scope of compliance imperatives across all global regulatory environments. Environmental concerns and compliance activities are increasingly being aligned with corporate performance goals to increase profits and avoid conflicts, wasteful overlaps and gaps.
Skills for this Work:
- Interpersonal skills
- Passion for the environment
- Organized mind
- Approach issues from multiple points of view
- Able to interpret rules and regulations in an applicable manner
- Use of science to solve problems
What These Jobs Do:
- Managing compliance monitoring programs and schedules
- Reviewing and adhering to permits
- Pre-processing, performing calculations and validating the data for compliance with any alert or reporting levels
- Generating routine compliance reports for authorities
- Creation of environmental permits
Course Offerings
In addition to the core ESH and Sustainability courses, you can take the following elective courses that are geared toward the practice of environmental compliance.
Environmental Permit & Reporting (4 hrs)
Investigate the preparation and analysis of the air permits, water permits and quarterly and annual reports which are submitted to state and federal regulators. Students in this course examine and complete various federal and state permit applications regulating air contaminant sources, surface water discharges, discharges to sanitary sewers, and storm-water discharges. They also perform studies of annual generator hazardous waste reports, hazardous chemical inventories, toxic release inventories, and the requirements associated with accidental release reports under the Clean Water Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Responses Compensation and Liability Act, and the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act. Additionally, the regulatory enforcement process associated with an entity's noncompliance with permits and reports, including the administrative and judicial processes, penalty calculations, and negotiations is covered.
Management of Human Capital (3 hrs)
This is a course in human resources and it addresses the human resource function including compensation and benefits; human capital; leadership; performance evaluation; promotion; recruitment and selection; retention and turnover; strategic human resource management; succession planning; and training and development for all managers and human resource professionals.
Public Policy (3 hrs)
Delve into a systematic study of public policy in selected areas with emphasis on the roles of various participants, their contributions, and history. This course includes an analysis of public policy-making in various social fields and its relationship to public budgeting with special emphasis on policy development, implementation, and review.
Environmental, Health and Safety Compliance & Enforcement (4 hrs)
This course identifies current and applicable present-day regulatory and enforcement initiatives that have been established as priorities by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It covers how initiatives are implemented in all levels of industry practice and what to do if you note a violation of an initiative.
Environmental Audits & Assessment (3 hrs)
This is a comprehensive capstone environmental course that instructs students on approaches for conducting industrial operational compliance audits for all applicable air, water, and waste regulations as well as permitting and reporting requirements. Students also obtain a working knowledge of, and ability to conduct or direct, Phase I and Phase II environmental site assessments pursuant to American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards.
Train-the-Trainer (1.5 hrs)
Just as the name of the course implies, this is a practical hands-on course where each student is expected to develop, deliver, and be critiqued on a training presentation. It describes the approaches of needs analysis, task analysis, and performance objectives that are used to design training; lesson plans, delivery and assessment techniques; and the validation and documentation of training programs. Instructional strategies and media and delivery techniques appropriate to the adult learner are also covered. This course is designed for compliance with the ANSI Z-490 standard and participants are eligible to sit for the National Environmental Training Association CET or CIT exam.
Advanced Topics in Environmental, Safety & Occupational Health (3 hrs)
Study what you are passionate about! Work with Findlay faculty and go in-depth on a relevant subject of your choosing.
Geographic Information Systems (3 hrs) This is a computer applications course analyzing datasets that have a spatial or geographic component. Case studies are developed from the fields of natural resources and environmental management, facility and utility administration, regional planning, commerce and marketing, public health and epidemiology, and other topics of student interest.