Contact: Linda Whitsett Release 97-6 (202) 606-5398 November 20, 1997

 

 

 

JUDGE STEPHEN J. SIMKO, JR. JOINS JOB SAFETY COMMISSION

Chairman Stuart E. Weisberg announced today that Stephen J. Simko, Jr. will join the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) as an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) on November 24, in the agency's Atlanta regional office.

Judge Simko was an ALJ at the Social Security Administration's (SSA) Office of Hearings and Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia from April 1994 until his appointment to the Review Commission.  Prior to his tenure at the SSA, he was counsel for safety and health at the Department of Labor's Office of the Solicitor. In that position, he supervised more than a dozen trial attorneys in civil and criminal litigation involving enforcement of a number of statutes, including the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Mine Safety and Health Act.  He also spent 19 years as a trial attorney in that office, where his duties included trying cases in the U.S. District Courts and before federal regulatory and adjudicatory agencies. Judge Simko has also taught at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, Georgia and at the OSHA Training Institute in Chicago, Illinois. Among his honors are a 1989 Exceptional Achievement Award from the Secretary of Labor in recognition of his accomplishments in the Harbour Island catastrophe investigation and criminal prosecution.

In appointing Judge Simko, Chairman Weisberg commented that "his wealth of litigation experience and safety and health knowledge should allow him to hit the ground running."

A native of Springfield, Illinois and a 1968 graduate of Florida State University, Judge Simko earned his Juris Doctor from Emory University School of Law in 1971.

The Review Commission is the independent Federal adjudicatory agency that issues decisions in disputes between employers and OSHA over alleged work place safety and health violations.