APRIL 2, 2024 – The Air Force Safety Center released a new strategic plan outlining new goals and focus areas to align with Department of the Air Force priorities.
The DAF Safety Strategic Plan establishes the requirements for the enterprise to achieve its vision in support of national and department-level guidance. The plan will be used to identify resource requirements, prioritize activities, align manpower, and provide the insights necessary for safety professionals to make decisions at their level as appropriate.
The new mission statement, “Increase combat power through Risk Management, Training, and Analysis,” highlights the need to exploit the latest technology tools and professional expertise to analyze mishaps and operational trends, building support for risk-informed decisions at all levels of leadership. While the new vision, an operational force maximizing readiness in any environment, acknowledges the DAF is foremost an operational force responsible for defending the homeland and national interests against adversaries.
“As safety leaders, it’s our job to ensure the safety enterprise is trained, agile, and ready to integrate new Air Force operational concepts to deter, and if needed defeat, great power competitors,” said Maj. Gen. Sean Choquette, DAF chief of safety and AFSC commander. “Safety’s job is to prepare our forces with the resources and skills to make risk-informed decisions at home or in combat.”
The strategic plan outlines six goals safety will prioritize going into the future:
- Fully Integrate Risk Management into All Training and Operations – ensure safety principles and risk management are infused into all facets of planning, preparation, execution, and assessment.
- Integrate Risk Management into Agile Combat Operations – develop and deploy the tools and training needed to help make informed risk decisions in ACE and future operating concepts.
- Evolve Support to the Space Enterprise – develop and implement plans, policies, and engagements to evolve support to the growing space enterprise
- Strengthen Nuclear Surety – continue ensuring nuclear safety and surety as well as weapons mishap prevention, explosive safety risk management, and system safety and design certification is robust, comprehensive, and responsive.
- Optimize Analytical Ecosystem and Data Fabric – employ emerging and innovative technology tools to provide predictive, and eventually prescriptive, analytical products to drive risk-informed decisions to operational commands across the DAF.
- Evolve and Modernize the Safety Workforce – evolve DAF Safety University, creating courses that touch on Air Force and Space Force safety, and employ modern training methods and tools.
The strategic plan also described risk management and the role it plays in the safety enterprise.
While there are inherent risks in all the DAF does, DAF safety incorporates policy development, systems acquisitions and testing, operational procedures, and data analysis to manage that risk and to support Airmen and Guardians. Risk management is not evaluating risk and deciding whether or not to take action. Combat requires action. Risk management entails utilizing an assessment and decision process to determine how to best mitigate risk in execution of the mission.
As part of the commitment to follow through, the DAF safety enterprise will be engaged and involved in both the execution and oversight of this strategy. To succeed, the strategic plan must be executed, tracked, assessed, adjusted and evaluated. This iterative process will drive information and analysis upwards to ensure tactical execution achieves planned strategic outcomes.
Choquette also described safety’s importance and why these focus areas are important.
“Safety is an operational imperative,” Choquette said. “Our work directly impacts Airmen and Guardians every single day. Ultimately, our safety mission relies upon the disciplined approach of individual Airmen and Guardians – they are the key component in our enterprise.”
By Public Affairs
Headquarters Air Force Safety Center Public Affairs