Hot Careers in Safety Science

by Kay Semion

After a small aircraft crash took the life of her fiancé, Joan Gregoire vowed to learn firsthand about accident investigations to save the lives of others. Today, she investigates helicopter accidents all over North and Central America for Turbomeca, a leading manufacturer of gas turbine turbo shaft engines for helicopters.

Casey Kinocz, a pilot and an emergency medical technician, decided to combine his two life interests as a career. Today, he is manager of operations specializing in safety issues for the General Aviation Manufacturers Association in Washington, D.C.

Both chose Embry-Riddle to prepare for their jobs in aviation safety. Gregoire earned her master’s degree in safety science at the university’s Prescott, Ariz., campus in May, while Kinocz earned his bachelor’s degree in safety science at the Daytona Beach, Fla., campus in December.

Safety science is a growing career field, and the opportunities are almost limitless. Options include being an air-accident investigator like Gregoire, a safety engineer, an aerospace safety manager, a safety design specialist, an environmental or occupational safety specialist, an industrial hygienist, an ergonomic expert, or a trainer/policy-maker like Kinocz.

Gregoire was an information technology engineer when she decided to make her career change in 2004. After looking at graduate programs throughout the United States, she says she chose Embry-Riddle because it offers the most comprehensive training.

A major attraction: the Prescott campus’ hands-on accident investigation laboratory – a jewel of Embry-Riddle’s safety science programs.

“It’s a one-of-a-kind operation,” says William Waldock, professor of safety science who oversees the lab. “We reconstruct actual airline accidents as close to the real thing as possible.”

“Bill Waldock would get the wreckage of an aircraft that was involved in a real accident,” Gregoire says. “He’d give us a brief summary of the circumstances – the weather, the people on board – and we’d go out and interview fake witnesses. Sometimes he would set a fire, and we had to determine if it started in-flight or on the ground.”

Those fires were set “with local fire and environmental permits, of course,” Waldock emphasizes.

The lab is part of Robertson Aviation Safety Center in Prescott. The study curriculum there is unique because it combines occupation safety with safety science, says Gary Northam, who chairs the Prescott campus’s safety programs. The center trains 30 to 40 students a year, and every graduate is employed, according to Northam and Waldock.

A key advantage, says Maxwell Fogleman, associate professor of safety science in Prescott, is the curriculum’s built-in cross-training, which graduates can use in many employment fields.

The breadth of study is also available in Embry-Riddle’s undergraduate programs -- a major and a minor at Daytona Beach and a minor in safety science at Prescott.

For Gregoire, originally from Orinda, Calif., the hands-on investigative training was critical. She wanted to know how to ask questions, whom to approach, how to work with authorities, how to take photos, and particularly how to use the information to prevent accidents.

A long-time pilot, she began work with Turbomeca near Dallas, Texas, in 2006 while she continued work on her master’s thesis on “Wildlife aviation strike hazards in desert environments.”

Most recently, Gregoire spent six days on the scene with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigating a deadly helicopter accident in Maryland’s Prince George County, near Washington, D.C. Four people were killed and a fifth injured after a state police helicopter crashed at night in a dense fog. The police helicopter had been summoned to an automobile crash to transport two teenage girls to a hospital. The crash occurred on the way to the hospital, killing one of the teenagers, the pilot and two medical emergency workers.

As with other investigations, Gregoire’s job in Maryland was to gather technical evidence that will be used by the NTSB in its final report. In all cases, she will work with federal authorities to issue bulletins that could improve safety procedures and technical applications with the aim of saving lives.

Kinocz, whose hometown is Lower Burell, Penn., is working with leading aviation experts at the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) to help improve air safety, efficiency and security throughout the world. His work affects many safety areas since GAMA’s international membership includes aircraft manufacturers, operators of aircraft fleets, and firms that train pilots and maintenance crews.

Kinocz serves on GAMA’s safety affairs and training committee and its accident investigation subcommittee. Through the subcommittee, he works with Congress to seek adequate funding so there are enough federal investigators to do thorough probes.

One of Kinocz’s areas of safety training deals with automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast, known as ADS-B, a new technology that reduces the risks of mid-air collisions. ADS-B uses satellite signals to identify an aircraft’s position throughout a flight and displays that information, plus terrain and weather updates, to airborne pilots and ground controllers. (Embry-Riddle won the 2007 Collier Award from the National Aeronautical Association for pioneering the use of ADS-B in its training fleets since 2003.)

This fall, Kinocz managed GAMA’s 13th annual General Aviation Air Safety Investigator’s Advanced Technical Workshop in Wichita, Kan. The workshop advances safer flying environments by fostering discussion of best safety practices and solutions to problems, such as aging aircraft.

As in other Embry-Riddle programs, students majoring in safety science learn from universally respected professors who can help them gain invaluable research and practical experience, such as in Prescott’s accident investigation lab, and land jobs. Gregoire, for example, completed a four-month internship in 2005 at the NTSB, where she investigated accidents. Kinocz won a summer internship in 2007 with Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, Penn. There he shadowed professionals in airport safety, management, security, and air-traffic management, his minor.

For those, like Gregoire and Kinocz, who are motivated to make the world a safer place to travel, work, and live, studying safety science at Embry-Riddle is a no-brainer. To keep a state-of-the-art curriculum, the university works closely with safety professionals in private industries, government agencies and the military. Students clearly benefit and they have the satisfaction of helping to improve the overall safety in aviation, aerospace and many other occupational fields.

BS degree: http://www.erau.edu/db/degrees/bs_safety_science/index.html
Daniel.cutrer@erau.edu
MS degree: http://www.erau.edu/omni/pr/academicorgs/prssd/index.html
Gary.northam@erau.edu