Team Edwards participates in VPP, aims to attain Star status

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Julius Delos Reyes
  • 95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
Team Edwards hosted an Air Force assessment team for the Voluntary Protection Program from July 23 through 27. 

The program was developed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to promote effective worksite-based safety and health. 

Recently, the Air Force and the Department of Defense adopted VPP to help drive down mishap rates, said Lt. Col. Wade Weisman, chief of occupational health and force health protection at the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health. 

He said industries and commercial companies have been partnering with OSHA to be part of VPP for the last 25 years. In 2006, the Air Force implemented this program with nine installations, mostly from Air Force Materiel Command. 

"This year, we are doing an additional nine installations," Colonel Weisman said. 

As part of its commitment to safety, Edwards is taking part in this program. 

"The VPP team is here to get a sense of Team Edwards' safety culture," said Col. Mike McKenna, Air Force Flight Test Center chief of safety. 

In order to do that, the VPP team performed three functions. 

They spent a day looking at the base's paperwork including documentation, organizations' operating instructions, Air Force Instructions and safety program management documents. 

"They also looked at numerous worksites around the base," Colonel McKenna said. 

The VPP talked to people to get a sense of safety operations that the base is doing, he said. 

"They are not here to point out compliance items," Colonel McKenna said. "They want to see personnel in their working environment." 

They also talked to the people and conducted interviews to learn more about how the base does its business. 

"The VPP team doesn't tell the base how to do their business," he said. "It is up to the base to decide how they fill that gap."

The VPP team concluded their visit with a "gap analysis," which shows where Edwards is and where it needs to be. 

"Edwards needs to be an OSHA VPP Star Site," Colonel McKenna said. 

Among the 7 million companies and organizations subscribing to VPP, only about 1,700 received Star status. 

"These organizations are the best of the best," Colonel McKenna said. "These are organizations that have the safest working environment." 

Earning Star status is a long process, he said. It can take up to two years depending on the base's "gap score." 

Edwards and the Air Force itself already have programs promoting a safe and healthy environment, but VPP is a step up from the programs Edwards has in place, Colonel McKenna said. 

"There is no silver bullet in VPP," he said. "There is nothing new that is coming out here that we will implement." 

However, Colonel McKenna said Team Edwards is voluntarily committing to a safer working environment day-in and day-out. Doing this involves individual responsibility and commitment. 

"Ultimately, what we are trying to do is make Edwards a safer working environment," he said.