New OSHA Appointees Announced

The Department of Labor recently announced the appointments of Amanda Wood Laihow as the deputy assistant secretary for OSHA and Michael Asplen as OSHA’s senior policy advisor.

In 2019, President Trump appointed Wood Laihow to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, the federal agency that decides contests of citations or penalties resulting from OSHA inspections. She served on the commission from 2020 through 2023. Previously, she was chief counsel to the Review Commission chair, director of labor and employment policy for the National Association of Manufacturers, deputy general counsel on the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and assistant general counsel at the U.S. General Services Administration.

Asplen served as chief counsel to Wood Laihow when she was on the Review Commission. He was previously a counsel at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, manager of Littler Mendelson’s Workplace Policy Institute, and was a policy associate at the National Association of Manufacturers.

More information about Wood Laihow is available from the OSHA website.