Peter G. Furst, MBA, RA, CSP, ARM, REA, CSI

Mr. Peter Furst contributes articles on construction safety to IRMI.com.

Since 1995, he has been the technical director of Contracting Services for Liberty Mutual's National Technical Center in Pleasanton, California. He is responsible for the Pacific, West, and Northwestern regions (13 states); as well as the Pacific Rim countries served by the company's International Division. As technical director, he provides specialist support for field customer service efforts in the Contracting Service areas. Mr. Furst works directly with field loss prevention consultants and contracting customers to support the quality and quantity of service provided. He has been able to consult with numerous contracting customers, helping them manage their safety programs more efficiently, thereby substantially reducing their cost of risk.

Mr. Furst has 20 years of construction experience with a multinational general contractor. He served as estimator, project engineer, superintendent, and project manager on numerous projects varying in size from $5 million-$350 million, involving hundreds of craftsmen and subcontractors. He also had overall safety responsibility for projects amounting to more than $450 million annually. Under his leadership, on average, the EMR hovered at or below 0.50. Mr. Furst has also consulted with numerous contracting firms in construction and safety management.

He is a Registered Architect, Certified Safety Professional, an Associate in Risk Management, and a Registered Environmental Assessor. Mr. Furst has a master's in business administration with emphasis in management, a bachelor of architecture, and a bachelor of science in construction. He has taught construction management and safety courses at UCLA, USC, Berkeley, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Long Beach, and Cal State Hayward Universities. He has lectured on construction and safety topics at conferences since 1996. Some of the organizations at whose national conferences he has spoken are IRMI, RIMS, ASSE, NSC, CSC, ACI, CSI, US, and AGC. He has also spoken numerous times at regional conferences such as the Alaska, Oregon, Alabama, and Hawaii Governor's conferences, as well as state-level conferences for the AGC, ABC, and CEA.

Mr. Furst is a past member of the San Francisco and Los Angeles chapters of the American Institute of Architects, and the National Safety Council, a member of CSI, ASSE, and AUA. He has served on the California AGC Safety, Labor Relations, Transportation, and Environmental Committees. Mr. Furst also serves as a Commissioner for the California State Board of Architectural Examiners. He is a member of a number of ANSI committees and subcommittees.