What happens when a command brings safety to the forefront of all employees with personal involvement by senior leadership, proactive Occupational Safety and Health programs and an analytical approach to addressing mishaps, trends and causes?
A decrease of fifty-five percent across- the- board in mishaps is the end result, producing a command environment that won the FY04 SECNAV Safety Award and CNO Safety Award, both for the third time in four years and the inaugural FY04 Department of Navy (DON) Excellence Award for Safety.
Ms. Connie DeWitte, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Safety), presented the SECNAV Safety Award on 19 May during a ceremony at the depot on behalf of the Secretary of the Navy.
“ Your laudable successes are being recognized by DON’s top leaders. Your accomplishments prove how a strong command-wide focus on safety can reduce mishaps and greatly enhance overall mission effectiveness, operational readiness and the quality of life for all personnel,” said Secretary DeWitte.
“ All personnel at NAVAIR Depot Jacksonville, military and civilian, have played a crucial role in this command’s achievement of the high safety standards recognized by this award. Employees here take their responsibility for safety very seriously, and the evidence is in the statistics.”
The mishap statistics for the Navy and Marine Corps team in 2004 were staggering with 231 lives lost and one billion in lost equipment to preventable mishaps. This unacceptable figure has prompted Secretary Rumsfeld to challenge the Department of Defense to achieve a fifty percent reduction in across –the-board mishaps.
Even the loss of one shipmate is one too many. This is the driving factor for NAVAIR Depot Jacksonville’s Occupational Safety and Health manager, Chris Williamson.
“ I am extremely proud to work with a team whose sole purpose is to save lives and improve the employee’s quality of life by implementing rigorous safety programs.”
In all there are 27 individual safety programs and sub-programs to manage including medical surveillance, hearing and respiratory protection , and ergonomics (including 122 project proposals, and more than 200 orders for ergonomics items). Additionally, the Safety team inspected all fifty-two depot buildings during scheduled and unscheduled inspections.
The Aviation program has flown approximately 28,000 hours over the command’s 38 years of service without a Class A or B mishap. This is a direct result of the relentless work efforts of every artisan and flight crew.
Over FY04, depot personnel have had zero military off-duty/recreational mishaps, and over the past five years, zero government vehicle mishaps and have reduced total time lost case rates by fifty-five percent. For an industrial based command, a reduction of fifty-five percent is extremely difficult to accomplish especially with the unforgiving dangerous aspects of aviation maintenance work on aircraft, engines and components.
“ The depot will strive for safety and continuous improvement in all aspects of the work to support NAVAIR Depot, Jacksonville’s ultimate commitment, the Warfighter.” replied Capt. David Beck, Depot commanding officer.
“ I would personally like to thank each and every employee for their dedication to the depot’s mission, taking care of each one of their teammates, and making this command one the Navy’s most productive and safest.”