MARINE CORPS LOGISTICS BASE BARSTOW, Calif. -- April 19 marked the 10-year anniversary of when Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, Calif., received official notification that the base was approved as a Voluntary Protection Program Star Site.
“VPP Star status is the highest accomplishment that comes from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration,” said Sara Montez-Diaz, safety and occupational health specialist and alternate VPP coordinator. “To become a Star site it is showing the recognition for employers and employees who demonstrate exemplary achievement in the prevention and control of occupational safety and health hazards. It is based around the development, implementation and continuous improvement of their safety and health management system.”
The notification that MCLB Barstow earned Star status came from OSHA, which operates the VPP program. The award came after a rigorous process of necessary change with regard to base safety.
“In 2002, the base was recognized as having one of the worst ‘lost production day rates’ and highest ‘injury rates’ throughout the Department of Defense,” said Ray Aguilar, Base Safety manager, and VPP lead agent. “The base command staff and leadership committed to making a change with this performance record and focused its attention on improving our safety efforts.”
From 2002 through 2005, the base made tremendous improvements in its safety efforts and reduced its injury rates from 9.21 to 3.2 per year, Aguilar explained.
“At this point, we began to struggle to reduce rates further,” Aguilar said. “I had experience with VPP at a previous job and convinced the leadership that VPP was the next step to assist us in reducing our injury rates even further.”
The process began with Aguilar attending a VPP conference, then receiving the base commanding officer’s approval, at that time. They then rallied base leadership’s commitment to move forward with the program in November 2005.
“We secured union commitment and established the VPP committees in Jan 2006,” Aguilar said.
The committee leaders conducted a formal VPP kick-off event with several VIP's to include the Assistant Sectary of the Navy for Installations and Environment, the Hon. B.J. Penn, and the
commanding general of Marine Corps Installations West, Maj. General Lehnert, in attendance in March 2006.”
Aguilar served as the first VPP Special Government Employee for the base. Now there are 13 SGEs: Ray Aguilar, Ruby Adams, Reah Andrews, Danielle Heinze, Brian Korves, Sara Montez-Diaz, Dave Romero, Isaac Padilla, Michael Reyes, Ray Stockman, Danny Strand, Joann Williams, and Latham Woods.
“Since becoming a VPP Star Site, MCLB Barstow has trained and certified 20 SGEs, who have engaged in the following: conducted 48 VPP onsite assessments, three of which were overseas; provided 18 SGEs in support of DoD pre-audit assessments; conducted over 70 VPP assistance visits and mentoring sessions; hosted nine site visits from aspiring VPP sites; provided 11 VPP briefings to senior officials and VIPs,” Aguilar said.
The VPP program changes the safety culture of an organization and empowers all of its personnel to look out for the safety of themselves and their team members, explained Aguilar. It helps to make an organization more efficient and productive and increases employee morale by instilling a personal sense of ownership in safety and communications. Evidence of this is in the numbers. The current injury rate for the base is now down to just one per year.
“We use the Continued Process Improvement guidelines within our VPP methods,” Aguilar said. “In doing so, the future plan is the expansion of VPP across the DoD.”
This base is recognized as a VPP leader within DoD and the goal is to make the VPP program even greater over the next ten years.
“We are proud of our VPP program,” Diaz said. “We’re even more proud that we can that say our employees own this and will continue to make progress in order to maintain VPP Star status for the next 10, 15, 20 years!”
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