Ground Safety Officer

[Sly1978]

Here's a question for the more senior individuals out there: I just checked in with my XO today and was told that I am now the squadron's Ground Safety Officer. This position has been vacant for quite a while so there's really no one to give me a passdown. What does the GSO do, exactly? I'm sure each community differs slightly and as the XO said, my first priority is to get my quals (PQM, H2P, SWTP LVL 2, etc.), but it would be nice to know what's going to be expected of me (in general). I understand that GSO is kind of a convenient corner where they can stick nuggets and forget about them, but I'd like to be able to make the most of it. Any suggestions?

 

[BigIron]

So make the most of it. Sounds like you are going to be running a lot of safety stand downs. It's basically an assistant to the Aviation Safety Officer. It's one of those jobs that you can probably disappear if you want, but you can also do good things for the squadron. Give presentations when necessary and get into it. Some AW guys here will say just study and hang out. I would do that too, but in addition to making a job out of it.

You are most likely being "screened" for jobs down the road, so be visible, and do productive things for the squadron. With the ways things are now with department head screens, it is important you break out in your first sea tour. That starts early.

 

[Schnugg]

Get in touch with the Naval Safety Center...at the least peruse their web site. If something bad happens (unsafe and injury) around the squadron, they'll be looking for you with questions like, "Why didn't your squadron comply with NAVOSH Inst. #$#$%?"

Shouldn't be too hard to get a program up and running. Look at other squadrons, get the gouge, use it to get up and on your feet so to speak. Then put your spin on it.

 

[bert]

Take what Big Iron said to heart, you would be amazed at how quickly the front office will decide if you are a player or not. The first thing you want to do is sit down with your DH and find out what he wants - your first OIC will have the most influence on how you do, but you can bet your first DH will give him the gouge on you.

One of the next things you ought to do (after reading relevant instructions) is get in touch with your base's safety guys and find out when your next inspection will be (be it NAVOSH, facilities, or other). Also, go to your fellow JO's holding down that job in other squadrons and steal (errrr, 'benchmark') their good ideas. You should have plenty of time to build up a program while busting through your quals.

 

[EvilGN]

My first job was as NAVOSH which then turned into NAVOSH/GSO on split site deployment. I was lucky enough to go to the 2 week Marine Corps GSO school to learn a whole lot of nothing. Plus a week at NAVOSH school, again boring boring...

anyway, the biggest spotlight duty was organizing and running the Safety Standarounds. Next was tracking/investigating any and all ground mishaps, be it towvehicles, duty vans, POV's and general stupidity (falling off ladders at home, getting drunk and ________)
another high vis item are the inspections, OSHA, EPA, etc, having all your ducks in a row is good there....it makes the skipper look good

but do not let any of the above hinder your quals

 

[Mumbles]

Sly...I was GSO at my old command for awhile and pretty much ran the quarterly safety stand arounds. Lots of resources out there. Check out the safety center website for any possible powerpoint slideshow you could imagine...(i.e. motorcycle safety...that was big in my squadron, to BBQ safety during the summer...(no shit, we almost had a sailor blow himself up and another almost turn into the human torch while trying to deep fry a turkey.) Make your presence known out on the hanger deck and make sure you wear your white turtleneck!! Also for filler material at the safety SS's...you can always throw in some cool flying vids from patrick'saviation.com!

 

[lowflier03]

I have a Billet description sheet floating around on my work computer from when I was GSO. Let me know if you would like me to email it to you. As everyone has said so far, your job is to assist the SO. Ask him what he expects of you. Safety standdowns should be your job to organize and run. Get familiar with safetycenter.navy.mil Subscribe to the Friday Funnies via email and when you get them in, email them out to the squadron, or at least to the Khaki. Register for an account with WESS. Put together a binder of all the hazreps and mishap reports that come out through WESS and message traffic for the pilots and pass along maintenance related ones to maintenance control. Update the pilot safety read board.... etc etc. You could do all of this or none of this, it all depends on how proactive you are. And definately do not let your quals slide. Your front office will be using this as a gauge to see how motivated you are.