John R. Puskar, P.E., is a nationally recognized expert in combustion safety, fuel systems engineering, and risk management, bringing more than four decades of frontline experience to the mission of the National Carbon Monoxide Awareness Association. His career has been dedicated to preventing fires, explosions, and toxic gas exposures across industrial, commercial, and residential environments—making him a critical voice in advancing CO safety nationwide.

John is a licensed professional engineer and an ASME and AEE Fellow with an extensive background investigating and mitigating catastrophic incidents involving carbon monoxide, natural gas, and combustion equipment failures. Over his career, he has led or contributed to root-cause investigations for more than 50 major explosions, fires, and CO events across the United States, working with manufacturers, utilities, municipalities, attorneys, insurers, and federal agencies to identify systemic hazards and implement corrective action programs.
He is the author of Fuel and Combustion Systems Safety: What You Don’t Know Can Kill You! (Wiley), now in its second printing and widely regarded as a foundational safety reference in the industry. John has written more than 100 technical articles and delivered over 100 conference presentations for organizations such as ASME, NFPA, OSHA, AEE, AIChE, and the Mary K. O’Connor Process Safety Symposium. His expertise has been recognized with numerous national awards, including the ASME Uzgiris-Barnett Medal for product safety and the AEE “Legend in Energy” award.

John’s professional experience includes founding and leading CEC Combustion Services, a global combustion safety company he built over 30 years and later sold to Honeywell, as well as serving as a senior energy systems engineer with BP/Standard Oil. He has been inside more than 400 industrial facilities in 20 countries, giving him a practical, real-world perspective on how CO hazards actually emerge and how they must be controlled.
He currently serves on multiple NFPA technical committees—including those responsible for fuel gas codes, boilers, industrial furnaces, LNG, wastewater facilities, and gas-piping purging practices—and the ASME CSD-1 Committee for boiler safety. His regulatory and technical committee work helps shape national safety standards that directly influence CO prevention across the built environment.

As an NCOAA board member, John applies his deep engineering background and industry experience to strengthen national prevention strategies, advance community-level CO safety initiatives, support grassroots training efforts, and guide technical accuracy across all educational materials. His commitment is grounded in a lifelong dedication to saving lives, reducing risk, and ensuring that no family or community experiences a preventable carbon monoxide tragedy.