Leading Safety: Building a Strong Safety Culture Through Leadership

Join two respected leaders – Elizabeth Roe, current President of SWANA, and K. Scott Griffith, former Chief Safety Officer of American Airlines and a 2024 SWANA keynote speaker, for an engaging session focused on the critical role of leadership in shaping safety culture across the waste and recycling sector.

This session will explore how visionary leadership and a commitment to safety culture can drive measurable improvements in workplace safety, operational resilience, and employee engagement. Attendees will gain actionable insights into: 

• The principles and practices of effective safety leadership
• Strategies for fostering a culture of safety at every organizational level
• Real-world examples of successful safety initiatives and their impact
• The importance of continuous learning, transparent communication, and frontline empowerment

This session offers practical tools and inspiration to help you champion safety and build a culture where every worker goes home safe, every day.

About the Speakers

Scott Griffith
Founding Partner and CEO | SG Collaborative Solutions LLC 

Scott Griffith gained his reputation for world-class reliability and collaborative skills through success in high-consequence industries across the globe. He came to prominence as a leader in the field of aviation as an international airline captain and chief safety officer at American Airlines and is widely recognized as the father of the airline industry’s landmark Aviation Safety Action Programs (ASAP). He is the recipient of the Flight Safety Foundation’s Admiral Luis de Florez Award for his outstanding contribution to aviation safety. He is the three-time recipient of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Good Friend Award. Throughout his career, Scott has worked closely with government regulators in several high-consequence industries worldwide.

In 2006, he retired from American Airlines and dedicated himself to just culture performance improvement integrations at several large healthcare systems, airlines, railroads, energy companies, emergency medical services, and fire and law enforcement agencies, leading many state- and nation-wide sectors. An acclaimed speaker, author, and socio-technical physicist, his experience brings insight into how the collaborative model supports a wide range of values and objectives, from patient safety and clinical outcomes to privacy, compassion, fiscal responsibility, customer satisfaction, and operational excellence. 

Griffith is the principal architect of the Sequence of Reliability® model of socio-technical improvement, bringing the science of reliability to diverse industries and organizations. He has pioneered the development of multiple predictive risk management strategies, including socio-technical probabilistic risk assessment (STPRA) and Reliability Management Systems (RMS). He has worked extensively with management, labor, and government officials and is widely recognized for his ability to help organizations achieve consensus results in support of common goals.

 
Elizabeth Roe
President | Eco Partners

For more than three decades, Elizabeth Roe has been helping public agencies and private companies communicate with the public about recycling, composting, waste reduction, water pollution prevention, sustainability, proper disposal, and more. Elizabeth has led sessions on communications planning and messaging across media channels at various state, regional, and national conferences. Elizabeth is President of Eco Partners, Inc., a firm devoted to providing high-quality, cost-effective, customized local newsletters designed with residents in mind. 

Within the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), she currently serves as President on the international Board of Directors. She is a member of both the Arizona and Indiana Hoosier Chapters of SWANA, as well as several of SWANA's technical divisions.

Elizabeth and her husband Gary are parents to Vic, who works in the industry and is also a SWANA member. When they aren’t talking trash, they enjoy hiking, cooking, and reading.