General Roggero assumes AF safety chief duties

  • Published
  • By Terry Walker
  • 377th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, New Mexico --  Maj. Gen. Frederick F. Roggero assumed the duties as the Air Force Chief of Safety, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, and commander, Air Force Safety Center, in ceremonies Jan. 13, at the Air Force Safety Center here. 

The ceremony was conducted by Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, Air Force chief of staff.
General Roggero replaces Maj. Gen. Wendell L. Griffin who retired at the beginning of the month. 

General Roggero said in a later interview, "We definitely have a great heritage of excellence in aviation and ground safety and we're going to continue that throughout my tenure." 

The general said he has three priorities he is working on immediately: "The first one involves nuclear surety. Nuclear surety is the key to the Air Force nuclear enterprise and safety is in charge of the policy and programs for nuclear surety. Safe, secure and reliable nuclear weapons are absolutely essential to our nation's nuclear deterrent. The policy and guidance put out by safety has to be perfect, and that's our number one priority -- to make sure that we've got it right. 

"Our second priority," General Roggero continued, "is to take a look across the Air Force and to save Airmen's lives. I'm very concerned about our accident rate with automobiles off duty. Our accident rate continues to go up. About one Airman is killed every week off duty in a car accident. That's what we need to attack. We need everybody's help, particularly commander's help, to attack that issue. 

"Our third priority," he said, "is to take a look at our unmanned aerial vehicle systems. We need to enhance our combat capability in that area and have a mishap prevention program that identifies the risks and prevents those mishaps." 

The general continued, "If they do happen, we need to have a very swift and accurate investigation process so that we can get in, find the root causes, and get those assets back into the fight as soon as possible. 

Speaking on unmanned aircraft systems, General Roggero said, "In addition to the unmanned aircraft systems combat capability; we need to ensure for the next 5 to 10 years that we can prepare to operate those in any type of nextgen airspace structure that might be created around the United States, so that we can mix our UAVs and UASs safely with commercial air traffic." 

The general said his goals as chief of Air Force safety are pretty simple: "To save Airmen's lives and to preserve the combat capability of the U.S. Air Force. That's my goal number one. 

"My larger vision as the chief of safety," he said, "is that we need to create a global benchmark safety program. Not only measuring ourselves against other services, but against industry and international services as well. We want to be the best in this business in the world." 

Talking about the Air Force's flying safety program, the new chief of safety said, "Fiscal 2008 was a tough year for the Air Force. We lost 13 Airmen in aviation accidents. We lost one in each of our bombers: the B-52, the B-2 and the B-1. So far, in Fiscal 2009, our rate is good." 

What is helping, he said, is "the commanders have taken a strong interest and they understand that safety is not a program: Safety is an attitude. Safety takes leadership. You need to be along the sidelines exhorting your team and sparking them on in order to get a safety culture throughout the Air Force. 

"That's what we need our commanders to do," he continued. "We're going to take last year's results and we're going to make them even better this year." 

When discussing human factors as contributors to safety, General Roggero said, "Human factors, we've found, actually contribute to many of the accidents we see both on the ground and in the air. So, last year General Griffin stood up a Human Factors Division within Air Force Safety here. He put in aerospace medicine, physiologists: completely different types of talent to help us look and address human factors. We want to find out if we can be predictive and look ahead for a commander and tell that commander where the risk with his Airmen might be. 

"We've developed some great tools for commanders in that respect," he continued, "I look forward to getting out and advertising those tools and looking at the data we collect from them. I think that's going to help out the Air Force significantly." 

General Roggero would have commanders remember that "safety is an attitude. It is a leadership issue. It is not a program. We need the commanders to be out there on the front lines, and not just the commanders, we need the supervisors at every level to be out there emphasizing safety. It's their responsibility and it's my responsibility to preserve Airmen's lives. We all need to do that. We all need to work together, understanding that this is not a program; it's about saving Airmen's lives. Remember one thing: safety is no accident." 

To Team Kirtland the general said, "Being here with Team Kirtland is terrific. They are second to none in hosting the safety center. They look after the safety center and it's greatly appreciated by us."