NASA Safety Center (NSC) Director Alan Phillips has led the NSC since its inception in 2006. In this role, he oversees the center’s efforts to enable more effective and efficient Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) support for NASA's portfolio of programs and projects.

“The NSC was put in place to be an assist arm to SMA at all of the centers,” explained Phillips. “Being a Headquarters-level organization, we can solve a problem one time and centers won’t have to recreate the solution 10 times individually.”

When Phillips joined the NSC, he was building it; there were no processes, infrastructure or even people.

“One thing that excited me about this opportunity was to put all those things in place and start an organization from scratch,” said Phillips. “I had full license, with some input from my boss, to create an organization with the people most interested in being a part of it.”

The Success of the NSC’s Offices

Phillips likens his leadership style to an aphorism he once read on a fortune cookie. It said, “Managing is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things.”

“I’m just at the helm of the ship, making sure we’re working on important tasks that add value and are needed by center SMA staffs, and that we’re being open to feedback and opportunities to improve,” Phillips said.

From the helm, Phillips leads the NSC’s four offices —Technical Excellence Office (TEO), Knowledge Management Systems Office (KMSO), Audits and Assessments Office (AAO), and Mishap Investigation Support Office (MISO) — each of which has made significant achievements over the last nine years.

“I’m most proud of the four offices,” said Phillips. “We have a strong leadership and management team and employees, and they continue to surprise me with their enthusiasm and superlative performance.”

Phillips considers the SMA Technical Excellence Program (STEP) a shining star, pointing out that most schools do not offer degrees or even coursework in the SMA disciplines. For this reason, the formal training STEP provides is important and will continue to be important as NASA brings in new talent.

“It’s top-notch training and a quality program for SMA professionals,” said Phillips.

Phillips also praised his team for the variety of SMA awareness materials they’ve produced and disseminated to NASA’s centers and facilities.  

Over the last nine years, the NSC’s final reports on audit findings have become a useful tool to help centers correct the findings in a timely manner. In addition, the NSC’s audit team now includes data analysts who identify systemic issues and collaborate with the agency’s working groups to affect policy change.

According to Phillips, one of the NSC’s other major accomplishments was the newly developed NASA Mishap Information System for capturing mishap data.

Finally, Phillips identified the progress with a large backload of old, open mishap reports as an impressive feat. With the NSC’s help, the centers have made significant progress in closing investigations and implementing corrective actions efficiently.

“I’ve yet to give the team a challenge that they haven’t only met, but exceeded in expectations,” said Phillips.

Goals

In 2015, Phillips looks forward to introducing an SMA cohort program in support of STEP. The program is meant to help Level 2 participants qualify at that level more quickly than they could have managed on their own by setting aside a portion of time in each participant’s schedule to complete the coursework and by providing opportunities to get the necessary experience, like on-the-job training. The NSC will be announcing the details of the program later this year.

Phillips also counts the Chief SMA Officer (CSO) summit as a major goal for the year. The summit will be a two- to three-day meeting where CSOs from around the agency gather to review the roles and responsibilities of the position, and also to network and get to know their counterparts at other centers.

Beyond the calendar year, Phillips simply wants to continue building and strengthening the NSC’s relationships with the centers.

“We need to continue to understand and swiftly meet center needs,” said Phillips. “We want to focus on how to be a part of centers’ extended staff, and not just a part of Headquarters.”

He also sees succession management as essential to the continued success of NASA’s SMA community, as a large portion of the employees will be eligible to retire in coming years. Phillips believes that through development and rotational opportunities to hone skillsets and learn a variety of roles, the NSC can ensure what he calls “good bench strength” for the future.