Environmental Health Safety Lead in Bensenville, Illinois

EHS Lead

My client is a rapidly growing advanced energy and engineering technology company operating in a highly regulated industry. As the organization continues to scale its reactor development and testing activities, they are seeking an EHS Lead to provide independent environmental, health, and safety oversight across engineering, testing, and operational programs. This is an excellent opportunity to join a well-funded, mission-driven organization at an exciting stage of growth while helping shape the safety culture and compliance framework for next-generation energy technologies.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the independent EHS authority for engineering, testing, and high-risk operational activities.
• Develop, implement, and maintain EHS programs, policies, procedures, and training initiatives to support safe operations.
• Identify hazards, conduct risk assessments, establish mitigation strategies, and ensure appropriate safety controls and PPE requirements are in place.
• Lead incident investigations, root cause analyses, corrective actions, emergency response planning, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Conduct safety inspections, audits, and compliance reviews while ensuring adherence to OSHA, EPA, and applicable regulatory requirements.
• Manage permits, regulatory filings, compliance documentation, and interactions with regulatory agencies, auditors, and external stakeholders.
• Partner with engineering, operations, and leadership teams to promote a strong safety culture while maintaining independent oversight.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of Environmental, Health, and Safety experience within a regulated industrial environment.
• Experience with in nuclear, energy, aerospace, defense, advanced manufacturing, or similarly regulated industries is highly desirable.
• Strong knowledge of OSHA, EPA, and applicable federal, state, and local regulations.
• Experience supporting permitting, compliance programs, audits, incident investigations, regulatory reporting, and emergency preparedness.
• Demonstrated ability to identify hazards, assess risk, and implement effective mitigation strategies.
• Familiarity with high-pressure systems, high-temperature operations, testing environments, or other high-hazard industrial settings is preferred.
• Engineering education or technical background preferred.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and EHS management/documentation systems.