REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. – Four years ago, Huntsville Center became the first U.S. Army Corps of Engineers organization to earn the Army’s prestigious Safety and Occupational Health Star (ASOH Star).
During the award celebration, Amy Borman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health, presented Huntsville Center’s commander with an Army SOH Star flag to fly at the Center’s headquarters.
The Army SOH Star is a recognition awarded to Army units that successfully implement and sustain the Army SOH Management System (ASOHMS), demonstrating world-class safety culture, effective risk management, and continuous improvement, marked by achieving specific performance milestones and a successful Department of the Army assessment.
The flag symbolizes the Center’s achievement as an enterprise leader in safety and occupational health efforts. However, to keep that flag fluttering on the flagpole at the Center’s headquarters, the Center’s employees at all levels must complete the required processes to ensure recertification.
In March, Jeremy McCranie, Huntsville Center Safety and Occupational Health manager, will present the journey on all the improvements from 2022 to the SOH advisory council. The presentation includes leadership, supervisors and employees. The Center’s Safety Office (SO) will submit the necessary documentation. McCranie said recertification is dependent on the entire Huntsville Center workforce.
“Safety takes full commitment,” he said.
To receive recertification, the Center’s Safety Office set goals to achieve specific performance milestones such as spot checks, conducting CPR training, instituting a Center-focused wellness program, and reaching out to CESOHMS safety champions around the Center to ensure safety remains a top value. McCranie said the ASOH Star is a substantial accomplishment spotlighting the Center’s development, implementation, and continuous improvement in its safety and occupational health programs throughout ever thing we do.
“Organizations achieving the Army SOH Star are recognized for the development, implementation and continuous improvement in the prevention and control of occupational safety and health hazards,” he said.
To maintain the ASOH Star certification, McCranie said Huntsville Center is meeting specific performance-based criteria and progressing through the ‘three stages of maturity’ requirements and six capability objectives.
The three maturity stages are documentation (establishing the policy and framework), implementation and execution (actively applying safety protocols in daily operations) and sustainment and continuous improvement (demonstrating a mature, self-correcting safety culture.)
The six capability objectives (CO) are: CO1: Leadership Engagement and Personnel/Soldier Readiness; CO2: Mishap, Incident, and Illness Reporting and Investigation; CO3: SOH Training and Promotion; CO4: Inspections and Assessments; CO5: Hazard Analysis and Countermeasure Development and CO6: Health Protection and Readiness.
Efforts to recertify for the ASOHM Star had the Center’s safety team create automated digital tools to collect data on the safety needs of employees and to identify and track hazards.
Alicia Hodge, Huntsville Center Safety and Occupational Health specialist, said a key component to recertify is focusing on educating the workforce through easily accessible information, quality on-site training and sharing best practices tools.
“We recruited Center supervisors and division and program chiefs as our ‘safety champions,’” Hodge said. “They are opening staff meetings with safety briefs, giving safety a ‘spotlight’ before getting on with business.” Hodge said that ‘safety first’ mindset is trickling down to employees.
“Proactive safety engagement earns buy-in from leaders to managers to employees—and it’s a measurable competitive advantage,” she said. “When safety becomes a daily habit, employees can focus on performance and collaboration.”
Under Army Directive 2024-09, all Army commands and organizations are required to adopt the ASOHMS framework by the end of calendar year 2030. Notable recent ASOHM Star recipients from USACE are Middle East District, New York District, Albuquerque District, Seattle District and Charleston District.
| Date Taken: | 02.02.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 02.03.2026 12:11 |
| Story ID: | 557360 |
| Location: | REDSTONE ARSENAL, ALABAMA, US |
| Web Views: | 7 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Huntsville Center readies for Safety Star recertification, by William Farrow, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
