By Marina Sanchez, NAVAIR Public Affairs Office

“A security clearance is crucial for any NAVAIR employee,” explains Deborah Lopitz, the NAWC AD Command Security Manager. “We have made calls, sent e-mails and numerous other attempts to get employees to respond; however, people aren’t responding.” Command security is taking control to ensure that new employees are not activated until they have gone through the proper check-in process.

“The problem is, people will check in, we’ll ask them for additional information, and then they don’t come back for as long as two years. We’ll find out later down the road that a person is an ineligible candidate for employment, but we have no way of tracking their activities,” commented Lopitz. To respond to this problem, command security has put a few new regulations in place.

Upon checking in, a new employee (civilian or military) must have their supervisor complete a security clearance form, available at Human Resources, the pass office and all other check-in sites. If security clearance is required, the individual will be given a temporary badge and will have five days to present all required information. If the information is not presented, the person will not receive a hard badge.

Employees who do not update their clearance information are subject to losing their access to classified information, which will affect their employment status. Most of these employees have been contacted; those who do not respond by July 31st could have their access revoked.

“Security’s goal is to protect our people and our information through successful and effective partnership,” said Deborah Lopitz, “in order to meet that goal, we really need to people to respond to this.”

For more information call Ted Adams, 301-757-2967.