Civilian wins Safety Career Professional of the Year Award

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Carolyn Viss
  • 7th Bomb Wing Public Affairs
Dyess’ ground safety manager won the Air Combat Command Safety Career Professional of the Year Award Dec. 7, 2005.

Retired Col. Jack Wylie, who has been the GSM at Dyess since December 2004 when he retired from his job as the 7th Bomb Wing inspector general, won the award for bringing the ground safety office up to an “excellent” ACC standard and re-establishing safety programs and a safety culture on Dyess.

“If it’s not designed to fly or explode, GSM is responsible for it,” Mr. Wylie said. “That includes traffic safety and most of the base risk management, outside of weapons and flight risk management.”

He said Dyess has a “fairly large” industrial complex with sheet metal, chemical shops and fuels.

“All of those things have risks associated with them,” he said. “That’s normal job risk. You’re exposed to hazards. The idea is essentially to analyze the hazards and processes in the job and figure out how to either completely eliminate the hazard, which is ideal, or to at least mitigate the problem.”

Between 2004 and 2005, when the safety office was working to bring up its ratings, Mr. Wylie and a team of five other qualified safety specialists -- Chuck Carson, Tech. Sgt. Greg Anderson, Tech. Sgt. Michael Hobbs, Tech. Sgt. Kevin Scott and Staff Sgt. Jerome Schrock -- systematically inspected every organization on base, “re-invigorated” the Unit
Safety Representative Program, and focused on making sure that mishaps on base were reported in order to identify the most hazardous areas on base and in Abilene.

It was the first time in four years that such a project had been completed.

Eight months after ACC inspected and reported 16 hazardous areas on base needing improvement, Mr. Wylie and his fellow safety specialists had resolved the issues and ACC cleared them from the discrepancies list, giving them “commendable” ratings.

“At first, the number of mishaps reported went way up due to the active effort on our part to find out about them,” Mr.Wylie said. “But overall, the numbers have remained pretty constant, and they’re not very high.”

According to the 12th Air Force Staff Assistance Visit report, “Mr. Wylie revamped or resuscitated every ground safety program in the wing.”

Thanks to Mr. Wylie and his team, the wing received this year’s National Safety Council Award of Merit for their excellent ground safety program.

Other programs he revitalized include the motorcycle safety program, which resulted in zero rider fatalities due to motorcycle incidents, and the new “zero-tolerance” seatbelt policy on base, stating anyone caught not wearing a seatbelt would have their driving privileges suspended for a year.

This award recognizes that Dyess has raised its standard for safety, and Mr. Wylie said he hopes that’s clear in the upcoming operational readiness inspection. They’re actually looking forward to having a full presence in the inspection, he said.

“To the best of my knowledge, we’re the first of our type to be in an ORI,” Mr.Wylie said. “I’m looking forward to having the IG see our role on base.”

Lt. Col. William Dries, 7th Bomb Wing chief of safety, spoke in glowing terms about the safety office and Mr.Wylie.

“Mr. Wylie and Lt. Col. John Touchton, previous chief of safety, led a team of Airmen and Department of the Air Force civilians to re-energize the safety culture here at Dyess,” Colonel Dries said.

“It was a true team effort, but (it) would not have succeeded without the boundless effort and inspiring leadership of Mr. Wylie. His drive, vision and dedication to the safety mission overcame previous years of neglect and put Team Dyess on a secure safety footing for years to come.”

Though there was no ceremony to give Mr. Wylie special attention for receiving the award, he was presented with a wing coin at wing stand-up and said he is glad to get it.

He is now being nominated for competition at the Air Force level.

“What the award does is recognize the work of everyone in that office,” he said. “We’re not stopping now that we have this accolade.”