An official website of the United States government
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

HQ AFSOC wins two safety awards

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Melanie Holochwost
  • Air Force Special Operations Command Public Affairs
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. --  Two Air Force Special Operations Command directorates recently won
Air Force-level safety awards.

The Cyber and C4 directorate won the Air Force Chief of Safety Cyber Safety award for the first time. The safety office won the Major General Benjamin D. Foulois Memorial award for the sixth time.

The Cyber Safety award recognizes the major command with the most effective cyber resource management concepts, applications and successes.

“I was excited when I found out we won the award, but I was not at all surprised,” said Chief Master Sgt. Kerry Henderson, AFSOC Cyber and

C4 directorate senior enlisted leader. “It is a direct result of proactive safety measures taken by our entire team.”

According to the award citation, the directorate executed over $33 million in projects, delivering information technology services to special operators worldwide at a $1 million savings. They also identified key vulnerabilities in two CV-22 Osprey systems and scrapped a non-compliant $160 thousand software modification.

“This is a huge accomplishment for us,” Henderson said. “I knew the groundbreaking work we were doing to protect our command and control networks from unauthorized intrusion and to safely house communications equipment aboard SOF aircraft would be hard to beat. This was a total team effort, and I’m just so proud of our team.”

As for the safety office, the Foulois award recognizes the most exemplary flight safety record for all Air Force major commands.

According to the award package, AFSOC flew 110,000 hours with high mishap potential, including several no-fail, President-directed SOF missions against the Islamic State, without a single Class-A mishap. In fact, AFSOC has gone three years without a Class-A mishap while running the highest operations tempo in the Air Force.

Col. William Wolfe, AFSOC safety director, had nothing but accolades for his team.

“Our shop did outstanding again, earning the Foulois award for an unpresented third year in a row,” Wolfe said. “We take great pride in this fact, and know that our collective efforts were instrumental to AFSOC garnering this very prestigious award.”