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Air Force Ground Safety releases history

  • Published
  • By Natalie Eslinger
  • Air Force Ground Safety
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Air Force Ground Safety has released the first volume of ground safety history. This volume chronicles ground safety from inception through 1959. Plans for the next volume, 1960-1979, will be followed by volumes which document ground safety history to the present.

"This is a living document," said Bill Parsons, Air Force chief of ground safety. "We will continue to update each volume as we gather information from all present and former ground safety professionals."

Parsons continued, "It is important that we remember and study the past as essential to know and understand our mission and who carries out that mission. As ground safety professionals, we share a characteristic based upon care and compassion for others. This fact, and the powerful history of ground safety efforts, has consistently led to reductions in injuries and saving lives. Our inherited position of relatively low numbers for on-duty fatalities and injuries is due to the hard work and dedication of safety professionals like Col. Will Tubbs (the father of Air Force Ground Safety) and a cast of thousands since Colonel Tubbs stood up the Ground Safety Division in December of 1943.

"When you know and understand the history of Air Force Ground Safety, you have an integral foundation to a good understanding of the condition of our Air Force Safety Management System. It allows our current safety professionals, commanders, and supervisors to build, and as may well be necessary, also to change, upon the knowledge of our solid foundation."

Anyone who would like to contribute to this or future volumes, may submit information to HQ AFSEC/SEG.