Fourteenth Annual Event Being Held In October In Dallas

CHC Helicopter, along with long-standing Summit sponsor and supporter Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company, have selected the winners of two grants for aviation students to attend the 14th CHC Safety & Quality Summit this October in Dallas.

Each year, CHC Helicopter, with support from Dr. Scott Shappell and Dr. Doug Wiegmann of HFACS Inc. provide aviation students with the opportunity to submit application essays for consideration for the Peter Gardiner Grant, named in honor of Peter Gardiner, an early supporter of the CHC Safety & Quality Summit.

Interested student applicants were asked to submit a 500-word essay tied to this year’s Summit theme: “Building Safety at Every Level: Does this start at the top or with front line employees?”

The winner for this year’s Peter Gardiner Grant is Lucca Carrasco Filippo, an Aeronautical Sciences student from Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, studying at Unisul. In his application, Lucca stressed the importance of maintaining a just safety culture in an organization to help facilitate understanding behind human errors and accidents, noting that it takes a commitment from leadership to foster an environment where front line employees and management both can see human error as learning opportunities that can drive organizational growth and safety improvement.

For the second year in a row, Sikorsky has offered a similar opportunity for aviation students to be considered for the Sikorsky Safety Scholarship. Like the Peter Gardiner Grant, the Sikorsky Safety Scholarship provides the winning aviation student full transport, accommodation and entry to the Safety & Quality Summit as a full delegate.

The winner for this year’s Sikorsky Safety Scholarship is Adam Tetzlaff. Adam is pursuing a degree in Aviation Technology at Seneca College near Toronto. In Adam’s submission, he discusses the importance of an organization having a robust safety management system, explaining that management buy-in to a strong safety culture is essential to establishing a mutual trust between organizational leadership and lower level employees, ultimately leading to a mutual investment in continued safety.

“Sikorsky is proud to congratulate Adam and award this scholarship, particularly during this industry-leading summit devoted entirely to safety and quality,” said Sikorsky’s Vice President for Quality and Aviation Safety, Jeff Hanke. “This conference brings together some of the top aviation leaders to provide innovative, problem-solving solutions for all aspects of safer rotorcraft operations, and at Sikorsky we have no higher priority than safety.”

“We’re always looking for ways to strengthen our industry’s focus on safety, and that includes ensuring that the next generation of aviation professionals are well-equipped to enter the aviation field with safety at the forefront,” said Duncan Trapp, CHC’s Vice President of Safety & Quality. “We very much appreciate Sikorsky’s continued support, and we look forward to giving both Lucca and Adam an excellent opportunity to gain some real-world exposure to the aviation industry.”

(Source: CHC Helicopter news release)

FMI: www.chcsafetyqualitysummit.com