Registration opened yesterday for the American Society of Safety Engineers’ (ASSE) Professional Development Conference (PDC) and Exposition, Safety 2009, which will be held June 28 – July 1, 2009, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, TX, according to an ASSE press release. The conference will feature more than 225 educational sessions, key speakers, safety issue roundtables, an executive summit and additional learning opportunities.

The sessions at Safety 2009 will include presentations on organization success, the latest safety methodologies and provide business examples and strategies aimed at increasing job safety that attendees can apply immediately in their workplace. Sessions, presented by experts in their field, will cover topics on construction, international safety and health, environment, fire protection, healthcare, industrial hygiene, safety management, manufacturing, mining, oil & gas, risk management and insurance, transportation, regulatory issues, technical and engineering standards, and a new track focusing on business skills.

Key speakers at Safety 2009 will include Fox News Business and Financial Journalist Stuart Varney and Former Yahoo! Chief Solutions Officer Tim Sanders. Varney will address the state of global business and the economy and Sanders will discuss the increasing concern about corporate social responsibility and green business practices. The conference will also include a panel discussion featuring occupational safety and health leaders invited from the new Administration.

Last year’s conference attendees included more than 4,000 occupational safety, health and environmental professionals and business representatives representing 36 countries.

ASSE is again expecting a large number of exhibitors for Safety 2009. A record for the number of exhibitors and space sold for the exposition was set last year at ASSE’s PDC in Las Vegas, with more than 60,000 square feet of exhibitor space sold, which out-spaced the previous record set at the 2007 Florida conference of 57,950 square feet sold. In addition, more than 400 organizations were represented at the exposition including Fortune 500 companies, federal agencies, non-profit organizations such as the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association, universities, colleges and more.

In addition, the ASSE Foundation will be host to a pre-conference golf outing with funds raised going to scholarship for students pursuing degrees in occupational safety and health along with research. The outing will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hill Country Golf Club in San Antonio.

For more information or to register for the conference, visitwww.safety2009.org