What is an SSHO?
SSHO stands for Site Safety and Health Officer. On a USACE construction contract that invokes EM 385-1-1, it is the employee the contractor designates in writing to oversee and ensure the prime contractor's safety and occupational health program at the project site. Since the 15 March 2024 edition of the manual there are three of them.
Three levels, and the one your contract asks for
Level 1 — full time
A designated employee whose safety and health responsibility is the whole job. One Level 1 SSHO at each project site, at the site of work whenever work is performed. This is the default, and the only level allowed on a project with a residual risk assessment code of high or extremely high.
Level 2 — collateral duty
A designated employee carrying safety responsibility alongside other work. Three years of experience rather than five. Cannot be assigned to a project with a residual RAC of high or extremely high.
Level 3 — task specific
A designated qualified or competent person doing SSHO duties as part of their primary responsibilities, with the experience to identify the hazards and put the controls in for the work in front of them. Also barred from high and extremely high residual RAC.
An alternate SSHO is a fourth term rather than a fourth level: an employee who meets the contract-required level but is not the primary SSHO. Additional or alternate SSHOs may be needed for projects with multiple sites, multiple shifts, or simply size — and when they are, the contract says so.
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.
Two things the manual is specific about
Not supervising your crew
A Level 1 SSHO is not permitted to supervise non-safety personnel at the site of work. It is not a hat your superintendent puts on in the afternoon.
Reports upward
The SSHO reports to the corporate safety official, the senior project manager, or a corporate official — so safety has a line that does not run through the person being pushed to keep the job on schedule.
Designated in writing, before work starts
A designation letter is required for all levels of onsite SSHO, on mandatory ENG Form 6282. Both the corporate safety official and the SSHO sign it, and it goes to the contracting officer or the COR for acceptance. Work must not be conducted until that form is accepted, the accepted copy is kept at the site of work, and a new or additional SSHO means a new designation letter. This is the step that catches people out, because it sits between award and the first day of work.
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.
What the SSHO is doing all day
SSHOs are present at the site of work and located so they have full mobility and reasonable access to all major work operations occurring during the shift. The role is what makes the accident prevention plan and the activity hazard analyses real on the ground: daily safety inspections and a deficiency tracking system, reporting and investigating every accident and near miss on ENG Form 3394, site safety orientation for all project personnel including subcontractors, attendance at every pre-construction, tailgate, preparatory and in-progress meeting, and ongoing evaluation of the APP across the life of the project to keep it current and site-specific.
Activity hazard analyses are drawn up by competent persons using the knowledge of the employees, supervisors and safety personnel doing the work. An activity does not begin until its AHA has been reviewed, accepted and signed by the proper acceptance authority and reviewed by everyone involved, each signing to say so. AHAs stay readily available on site for 12 months, or for contracted work the length of the contract.
On the contractor's site of work, it is the prime contractor's project management team, with the assistance of the SSHO, that is responsible for managing, communicating, implementing and enforcing compliance with the accepted APP.
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.
Coverage when the SSHO is not there
The Designated Representative is gone. It was a term in the 30 November 2014 edition and it is not in the current one — if a safety consultant is still offering you a DR, they are working from a superseded manual.
What replaced it is measured in hours. If the Level 1 SSHO has to leave the site temporarily — up to 24 hours, or one day, for something unforeseen or an emergency — a Level 1, 2 or 3 SSHO may be used in the interim, and must be on the site of work at all times when work is being performed. If the Level 1 has to be off site for longer than that, an additional or alternate Level 1 SSHO has to be at the site of work, carrying the same roles and responsibilities.
There is one more case worth knowing. Where an activity, task or definable feature of work covers multiple sites and has been assessed at a residual RAC of low or medium, any level of SSHO may be appointed for each site more than 45 minutes' travel time from the primary Level 1 SSHO's site of work.
NAVFAC and Air Force jobs
EM 385-1-1 is issued by USACE and applies to USACE contracts and those administered on its behalf. Navy and Air Force work picks up the same requirement through the specification instead: UFGS Section 01 35 26, Governmental Safety Requirements, is published for USACE, NAVFAC and AFCEC with NAVFAC as the preparing activity, it directs the contractor to comply with the most recent edition of EM 385-1-1, and it defines the same Level One, Two and Three SSHOs and the same ENG Form 6282. Because a guide specification is tailored per project, the test is whether that section is in your contract — not which agency's badge is on the sign.
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.