Wright-Patterson AFB Contractor Safety.
If you're bidding or starting construction work at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and your contract carries EM 385-1-1, the safety requirements start well before your crew does. We're a construction safety consulting firm based in Dayton, just down the road, and we help contractors get their people and paperwork ready.
What EM 385-1-1 Asks For Up Front
Read your contract's safety section first: it tells you whether EM 385-1-1 applies and which edition. Contractors comply with the version in effect on the date of solicitation (preamble, paragraph 5.b(1)). When the 2024 manual applies, several things have to be accepted by the Contracting Officer or COR before work begins:
- The Accident Prevention Plan, developed by a Competent Person on the mandatory ENG Form 6293 worksheet; no contract work begins without an accepted APP (paragraph 2-7.b)
- The SSHO's designation on the mandatory ENG Form 6282, signed by your Corporate Safety Official and the SSHO (paragraph 2-8.b(1))
- The plans and other safety submittals the manual requires for your scope, submitted as part of the APP (paragraph 2-7.a)
- An accepted AHA, with its Risk Assessment Code, before each activity that requires one (paragraph 2-6.c(1))
The First Weeks of the Job
Once work starts, a designated Level 1 SSHO has to be at the site of work whenever work is performed, unless your contract modifies that requirement (paragraphs 2-8.b(2) and 2-8.b(3)). The SSHO and your Quality Control staff inspect the site at least daily and keep a written log (paragraph 2-5.b(1)), and a safety bulletin board goes up within seven calendar days of the start of contract work (paragraph 2-8.f(2)).
Competent persons for the work in your scope, such as fall protection, scaffolding, and excavation, are designated in writing, and every worker gets site safety orientation before starting (paragraphs 2-6.d(4)(g), 2-3.a(6), and 2-4.b(8)).
Ready Before Day One
Here's how we can help a contractor going into federal work, at Wright-Patterson or anywhere else EM 385-1-1 applies. We place SSHOs and put together the resumes, training records, and certs the designation needs. We read your Accident Prevention Plan and AHAs before they're submitted. And we teach the in-person competent person and operator classes your crew may need, at your site or another predetermined location.
Optimum Safety is led by Kali Irvin, CSP, CHST (both through BCSP), currently an SSHO on a federal construction project under EM 385-1-1. Our EM 385-1-1 resources answer common contractor questions straight from the 2024 manual, starting with what changed in 2024.
Base access and installation rules come from the base and your contract, not from us; ask your Contracting Officer about them early, because they can affect when your people can start.
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Starting Work at Wright-Patterson?
Send us the safety section of your contract and your start date, and we'll help you plan what has to be in place before day one.