You need a Site Safety and Health Officer. Here is what that actually means.
On USACE construction contracts that invoke EM 385-1-1, the contractor employs a Level 1 SSHO at each project site — full time, on site whenever work is going on, with a 30-hour card, five years behind them and a designation letter the contracting officer has accepted before anyone breaks ground. Most contractors find that out late. This site explains the requirement in plain English, from the current 15 March 2024 edition of the manual, and gives you somewhere to ask when you are short one.
The requirement, in the manual's own words
“The contractor must employ a minimum of one Level 1 SSHO at each project site to function as the primary Level 1 SSHO responsible for ensuring all site personnel are implementing SOH requirements according to the contract, this manual, applicable federal, state, and local requirements. A designated Level 1 SSHO must be at the site of work whenever work is performed.”
USACE EM 385-1-1, 15 March 2024, paragraph 2-8.b(2)
Three things people get wrong about that sentence. It is not automatic on every federal job — it applies where the contract invokes the manual, and the contracting officer and the local safety office can modify the full-time Level 1 requirement in the contract documents based on the job's complexity and size. “Level 1” is a defined bar with a training, experience and continuing-education test behind it, not a job title you hand to whoever is free. And nobody works until the contracting officer has accepted that person's designation letter on ENG Form 6282.
If you are working from the 30 November 2014 edition, the ground has moved. The 15 March 2024 edition replaced the single SSHO with three levels, replaced eight hours of continuing education a year with 24 hours every three years, dropped the Designated Representative, and made the ENG Form 6282 designation letter mandatory.
Sourced from USACE EM 385-1-1, edition of 15 March 2024 (which supersedes the 30 November 2014 edition) — paragraph 2-2.x for the SSHO levels, 2-3.b for training and experience, 2-4.b for roles and responsibilities, and 2-8.b for designation and site requirements. Reviewed 2026-10-02.
Three questions, answered
What is an SSHO?
The three levels, who the role reports to, and why a Level 1 cannot also run your crew.
Do I qualify as one?
The 30-hour card, the five years, the three-year route with an accredited certification, and the 24 hours every three years after that.
I need one on site next week.
Tell us the project, the location and the date. We will come back to you ourselves — no account, no posting your job to a board.
It is not only the Corps of Engineers
EM 385-1-1 is a USACE manual, and USACE is the agency that issues it. But the same requirement reaches Navy and Air Force work through the contract rather than the manual. UFGS Section 01 35 26, Governmental Safety Requirements, is a unified guide specification issued for USACE, NAVFAC and AFCEC, with NAVFAC as the preparing activity. Where a contract includes that section, it directs the contractor to “comply with the most recent edition of USACE EM 385-1-1” and carries the same three SSHO levels and the same ENG Form 6282 designation letter.
So the honest way to put it is this: check your own specification. If Section 01 35 26 is in it — on a NAVFAC, Air Force or Corps job — the SSHO requirement on this site is your requirement. A guide specification is tailored project by project, so the contract you signed, not a general rule, is what governs.
NAVFAC and Air Force requirement sourced from UFGS Section 01 35 26, Governmental Safety Requirements (May 2024, Change 2 of August 2026) — the unified guide specification issued jointly for USACE, NAVFAC and AFCEC, with NAVFAC as the preparing activity. Reviewed 2026-10-02.
Why are you here?
Three different people land on this page. Pick the one that is you.
You need an SSHO
You have the work and you are short the person the contract requires.
Hiring for the longer term? List the role.
You are an SSHO
You hold the card and the years, and you want the work.
Keeping your 24 hours current? Read this.
You want to become one
You are in construction and this looks like the next step.
Start with what the role actually is: what is an SSHO.
Who runs this
SSHO Now is part of GCExperts LLC, a Texas limited liability company, which has spent years getting subcontractors through federal construction paperwork and onto federal jobs. We are not a government body and we do not speak for one; where we state a requirement, we cite the manual it comes from so you can check it yourself.
You can reach a person on (813) 678-5701.