From left to right: MSgt Micheal Dyke, Flight Safety NCO; Mr. Ethan Cavenaugh, USDA Wildlife; MSgt Brandon Bowen, Flight Safety NCO; Mr. Richard Galley, Flight Safety Manager; Maj Kelli Gallagher, Chief of Safety; Mr. Ray Shupe, Occupational/Weapons Safety Manager; TSgt Jacob Soukey, Occupational Safety NCO; and TSgt Kenneth Oliver, Occupational Safety NCO.

AMC Safety Outstanding Achievement Award, Category IV, 43rd Air Mobility Operations Group Safety Office, Pope Army Airfield, NC

By STAFF WRITER

The 43rd Air Mobility Operations Group Safety Office (43 AMOG/SE) at Pope Army Airfield, NC, with Col Allen C. Morris, Jr., at the helm, is this year’s winner of the Air Mobility Command Safety Outstanding Achievement Award, Category IV. The group’s commitment to safety has set the bar high for safety offices in the military.

Among its many accomplishments, the 43 AMOG licensed twelve weapons facilities, including accounts for warfighting partners, on Pope. The group managed ten explosives site plans, providing critical capability for the launch of the Immediate Response force. The result? No explosives mishaps in fifteen years! The group conducted ten annual unit inspections, forty-one no-notice spot inspections on seventy-four facilities, and twenty-four safety program management assessments. The twenty-three program deficiencies and six facility hazards that the group discovered led to the preservation of $3.9 million in critical assets.

The 43 AMOG supplied risk oversight for AMC’s first multinational Battalion Mass Tactical Week, featuring two brigade combat teams, Canadian and United Arab Emirates Air Forces, and three major commands. The event built coalition partnerships and enhanced the participating forces’ capabilities and lethality. The 43 AMOG also provided safety oversight for six no-notice presidential missions, loading and launching 163 real-world missions to four areas of responsibility and executing sixteen joint forcible entry readiness exercises, two Joint Readiness Training Center insertions, and two Wing certifications.

Task Force Gryphon safely deployed the 108 Air Defense Artillery Brigade in response to the Israel-Hamas crisis, launching seventy-eight aircraft, processing nine hundred joint forces, and loading six million pounds of cargo.

In managing the Bird/Wildlife Aviation Strike Hazard program, the 43 AMOG reduced strikes by twenty-six percent in fiscal year 2024 and seventy-two percent during the past five years. The group also oversaw safety integration into AMC’s only joint-accredited exercise, STORM FLAG, integrating Air Force mobility, international partners, and joint forces to execute 259 airlift and airdrop missions and combat-certify 7,326 troops.

To increase safe motorcycling, the 43 AMOG conducted eight Motorcycle Safety Foundation-certified courses, training fifty-seven personnel. The group managed and provided follow-on ancillary training to seventy-three riders across four commands—with zero mishaps.