2025 Awards of Excellence Recipients

BCSP presents its Awards of Excellence annually to the best of the best credential holders among its various certification categories. The 2025 awards recognize recipients from among the CSP and SMP certifications.

CSP Award of Excellence

Matthew Herron, MS, PE, CSP, CPE

Matthew Herron’s career of nearly 15 years as an Ergonomist and Safety Professional has spanned a range of industries, including healthcare, automotive, aerospace, and research and development. He is currently the Lead Safety Engineer for the Mechanical Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute.

Herron has demonstrated expertise in building, managing, and auditing occupational health and safety management systems and solving complex safety issues by applying occupational safety engineering, industrial engineering, and ergonomics principles.

He holds a master’s degree in Occupational Safety Engineering and Ergonomics from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of West Georgia.

Herron is a volunteer leader for ASSP, serving as a Regional Vice President with oversight of 13 ASSP chapters and student sections, and a BCSP Ambassador, encouraging others toward professional safety certification.

SMP Award of Excellence

Georgi Popov, Ph.D., CSP, QEP, SMP, ARM, CMC, FASSP, FAIHA

Georgi Popov is the chair of Occupational Risk and Safety Sciences at the University of Central Missouri and the co-author of three books on risk assessment and management.

He is a previous recipient of ASSP’s Heart of America Chapter and Region 5 Safety Professional of the Year awards and the organization’s Outstanding Safety Educator Award. He is also a three-time recipient of the AIHA President’s Award.

Dr. Popov is a member of ASSP’s Risk Management/Insurance Practice Specialty, serves as chair or vice chair of multiple ANSI/ASSP standards committees, and holds three ASSP professional certificates.

He earned a Ph.D. from the National Scientific Board and a master’s in Nuclear Physics from Defense University in Bulgaria and graduated from the United States Army Command and General Staff College.

Dr. Popov has served as Editor-in-Chief of the SHIFT Journal, the BCSP Foundation’s research publication, since 2022.