Program opens to offer Airmen safer work environment

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class William O'Brien
  • 95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  The Air Force Flight Test Center safety office will hold a Volunteer Protection Program training course in the Base Theater Aug. 10, 11 and 12.

Base leadership chose to implement OSHA's VPP to increase awareness of potential mishaps and to educate Airmen on how to identify potential hazards in the workplace.

"We want to make everyone a safety officer," said Col. Mike McKenna, AFFTC Safety officer. "Who better than the people who work there every day to identify a workplace's potential risk and the solutions we can use to eliminate or mitigate that risk."

In preparation for the program and to help base personnel to better understand it, an OSHA team will hold briefings in the base theater Aug. 10 at 8 a.m. for senior leadership, commanders and union stewards, followed by briefings at 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. for all base personnel. Additional briefings open to all base personnel will be held Aug. 11 at 8 a.m. and Aug. 12 at 3 p.m.

"We're bringing an OSHA team in to help us implement this new VPP program," said Colonel McKenna. "Starting with senior leadership and then with everyone else we want to educate people on what everyone needs to do to change the culture in our work environment. So everyone recognizes that one mishap is too many and have everyone take responsibility for their own safety and the safety of those around them."

Colonel McKenna said the briefings are optional but all of Team Edwards is welcome.

"We welcome any and everyone to attend the briefings," said Colonel McKenna. "The first one will be a leadership briefing, but we've tried to hold enough to give everyone an opportunity to go to one. We're even going to hold one at 5 p.m. to accommodate swing shift workers."

The four key elements of the program are management/leadership commitment and employee involvement, work site analysis, hazard prevention and control and safety and health training.

"In order for VPP to succeed, you need a partnership between management, the workforce and OSHA," said the Colonel. "You need to have management buy into the program, from the front line supervisors all the way up to the AFFTC commander."

Once management and leadership have identified VPP as a priority, the next step is getting the workforce involved in the program.

"The key to this being successful is getting the employees involved. They combat these risks everyday so getting them involved is the critical component to this program."

In order for the workforce to identify these risks and find ways to address the risks, they must know what they're looking for, that's the intention of the briefings.

"Having personnel identify the hazards themselves, they can then report these hazards to the specialized agencies and they can employ the programs and processes to control them or eliminating them."

The objective of the program is to reduce mishaps across the DoD by 75 percent, said Vince Duny, Air Force Flight Test Center chief of Ground Safety. 

Mr. Duny continued by saying he is confident that if base personnel take part in it, VPP can work.

"I'm for (VPP)," said Mr. Duny. "If personnel are willing to take it to heart and go with it, VPP will work."

It's been proven in industry, for the last 30 years," added Colonel McKenna. Organizations that had high mishap rates, absentee rates and workman's compensation and inefficient production lines that implemented this program saw those numbers reversed. Absenteeism went down, injuries went down, and they saw organizational proficiency go up."