CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. –
Senior leadership from the 437th and 315th Airlift Wings as well as the American Federation of Government Employees local 1869 signed the Voluntary Protection Program Proclamation here Oct. 2, marking the beginning of a safer and healthier Team Charleston.
"The VPP is an Occupational Safety and Health Administration program that recognizes organizations with superior performance in safety and health management," said Maj. Evan East, 437 AW VPP manager.
The goal of VPP is for Airmen to identify safety hazards in work centers and correct them so they can take ownership in the safety and health program and prevent mishaps before they occur.
"Under the VPP principles, we will operate under a performance-based system where we meet and exceed the minimum standards and actively look for ways to continuously improve our safety and health management," said Major East.
While the main focus of the OSHA VPP initiative is to bring mishap levels down in the Air Force, team members are hoping it will spill into the off-duty time of Air Force members, which, in some ways, is similar to the wingman concept.
VPP will ask Team Charleston to revisit and think about how we currently do business, said Col. John Wood, 437 AW commander.
"We are going to sign this [proclamation] today and start working on it," he said.
Col. Steven Chapman, 315 AW commander echoed Col. Wood's sentiments.
"I think this is a step in the right direction."
The OSHA-developed program empowers everyone in an organization to improve their local safety program through the participation-based program designed to create safer and healthier work environments.
The main elements of VPP include management leadership and employee involvement, work site analysis, hazard prevention and control and safety and health training. Categorized under the four main elements are 32 additional sub-elements, such as VPP commitment, pre-use analysis and hazard elimination or control.
The initiative to implement the OSHA VPP started in 2005 with the Defense Department's Defense Safety Oversight Council wanting to decrease mishaps by 75 percent by the end of fiscal 2008. To reach this goal, the Department of Defense adopted the OSHA VPP.
To see how best this program could be implemented, the Air Staff, along with DOD officials conducted the initial assessments on multiple bases throughout the Air Force. Air Mobility Command was the first command to send out its own teams to examine the safety and health programs of bases to determine what it would take to meet OSHA VPP requirements.
During the AMC assessment team visit in April 2008, the team looked at safety practices already in place at various locations across Charleston AFB, such as medical, maintenance and civil engineering facilities, to see what needed to be changed or added. After the assessment, the team released a gap analysis to show where the base stood with safety requirements, and where Charleston AFB needed to be to meet the OSHA VPP standards and what needed to be done to meet them.
As of Sept. 3, the 437th Logistics Readiness Squadron was the first organization on base to embrace VPP.
"I am excited to participate in Team Charleston as we reach for world-class performance in this basic part of our jobs," said Major East. "The lead squadrons and ultimately the entire installation will reap the benefits of this safety recognition program through a safer and healthier work environment. This culture change reaches all the way to each home. As members become attuned to heightened safety awareness at work, they transport that same awareness to their homes, where families are waiting with open arms to welcome the healthy whole person that went to work, back home safely in the same condition."
Tech. Sgt. Jennifer Arredondo and Staff Sgt. Daniel Bowles, 437th Airlift Wing Public Affairs also contributed to this article.