James Stottlemyer: Maintain the Highest Safety Standards
As Bristow lays the foundation for a bright future, the leadership team developed six Strategic Priorities to guide us on our journey. These Strategic Priorities provide a road map as we execute on our plans and pursue our goals. These priorities should help guide both our internal and external decisions and practices.
In this interview, Vice President Health, Safety and Environment James Stottlemyer discusses the strategic priority Maintain the Highest Safety Standards and how everyone can contribute to Bristow's future success.
What do we mean by "Highest Safety Standards"?
When we speak of "safety standards," we are defining the personal and organizational targets that we hold ourselves and each other accountable to. These targets frame our acceptable behaviors. Prior to the merger, both Bristow and Era held Safety as a corporate value with a defined commitment to Zero Accidents and Zero Harm to people. This defined commitment sets a clear expectation that as an organization our actions and decisions should reflect our commitment to Target Zero. Personally, we are all responsible for our choices and we support Target Zero through our deliberate safety actions: Pause and Reflect, Choose Safe Outcomes, Report and Share and Stop Work.
What does Bristow do well in regards to safety?
I consider our employees, and our Target Zero Safety Culture, our greatest strengths and what differentiates us when it comes to safety. We hire employees who are aligned with our company values, we train and equip these employees with the appropriate knowledge and experience to perform their tasks, and we hold ourselves and each other accountable for delivering on our Target Zero commitment each and every day. Although our combined organization has much to celebrate when it comes to safety success and achievements, we must remain vigilant and not take our safety success for granted.
What can employees do to help Bristow maintain the highest safety standards?
Our front-line workforce supports Target Zero through their deliberate safety actions – Pause and Reflect, Choose Safe Outcomes, Report and Share and Stop Work – and by living the company values. Our management team supports our front-line workforce by promoting a just culture, recognizing positive safety action and providing resources (financial and time) to ensure we have industry leading systems, safety training and policies.
What initiatives are coming up in safety that will ensure employees and customers stay safe?
As part of our integration efforts, we will be rolling out BeSAFE, our safety information system, across all the new AOCs. BeSAFE integrates safety management capabilities for aviation safety, investigative management and risk management into a centralized system. In addition, BeSAFE allows for mobile reporting using mobile devices and improves transparency to the actions that have been taken for each safety report.
For those AOCs currently using BeSAFE, this year we are excited to roll out Phase III that focuses on upgrading our existing risk module. While the upgrade encompasses multiple elements of risk management, I will highlight that Phase III will fortify links between individual safety reports and risk registers, enabling Bristow to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of our current safety controls.
Finally, this year we will be completing our second annual Bristow Safety Oversight Assessment Program (BSOAP), our industry leading safety effectiveness assessment, the outputs of which translate into global and AOC-specific safety improvement plans.
Our Target Zero safety actions form a continuous circle of recognizing hazards, making good decisions and sharing information with others so they can do the same. These simple actions when used across our workforce help us deliver on our commitment of Zero Accidents and Zero Harm to People.