Sometimes, you just need to call in some extra hands. In the fall of 2022, SC Aviation, a private jet charter and aircraft management company with 20 aircraft operating out of the Chicago/Milwaukee/Minneapolis region, achieved its goal of becoming ISBAO Stage 3 certified in addition to its Wyvern Wingman status and Argus rating. Focusing on continuous improvement and building the momentum in 2023, the Director of Safety, Maggie Rice, knew she had to come up with a strategy to maintain their progress while she took maternity leave in the spring of 2023. She turned to Polaris Aero’s Safety Services department for insight. What came from this was a collaborative effort between Maggie and Kellie Roby, CAM, VP of Safety Services at Polaris Aero to provide hands-on Safety Manager coverage for all things safety while Maggie welcomed her new twins into the world. 

“Using Kellie to cover our safety program while I was out, was quickly seen as a fantastic solution for us. Not only did Kellie have the requisite SMS Manager experience, she would also be providing that effort in VOCUS to help continue the cultural adoption and utilization progress we had started,” said Rice.

“We created the Safety Services department at Polaris Aero because we recognize that our clients using the VOCUS Safety Intelligence platform often times are full time pilots and/or have their hands full with ‘today’s activities’ and can use some expert help to support their initiatives,” said Roby. In this case, Maggie Rice literally had her hands full growing her family, and SC Aviation wanted to maintain their safety focus and give Maggie some peace of mind while she was on leave. 

“It just made so much sense for our team,” said Rice. 

Kellie’s ‘Interim Safety Officer’ responsibilities included Safety Report handling, ASAP handling including facilitating the ERC process, weekly Director meetings, monthly Accountable Executive meetings, a quarterly Safety Promotion Newsletter and Safety Committee meeting, CASS triaging, and Incident Report Documentation. Maggie and Kellie put together a plan to introduce Kellie to the SC Aviation Safety Program and structure the tasking before Maggie went out on leave. 

“The planning we did with Kellie is now a perfect template for us, providing resilience to our safety program for any future coverage we need,” said Rice. 

When Maggie returned, there was a one-month handover period that helped get her back up to speed with what had transpired during her leave and to transition open items back into Maggie’s control. 

“Our group really enjoyed having Kellie as a temporary part of our team and we also came to realize that having a 3rd party involved provided us unique input to our processes. Having Kellie’s insight raised our awareness to underutilized best practices and gave us helpful tips to best utilize Vocus moving forward,” said Rice. 

“Kellie’s independent perspectives, recommendations, and handling of her responsibilities, also helped to solidify the buy-in for our team toward our Safety Program,” said Rice. 

SC Aviation was successful in continuing its positive momentum and has learned from this experience that Polaris Aero offers more than just great safety software.

 “Our organization really felt that Kellie stepping in was extremely seamless,” said Corey Ruffolo, Director of Sales and Marketing at SC Aviation. 

“For our customers, we were also able to continue to project the strength of our safety program even though our Director was out on leave,” said Ruffolo. 

ABOUT SC AVIATION 

SC Aviation, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Colony Brands, Inc.  Colony Brands has maintained a flight department since 1946. SC Aviation, Inc. offers a full range of private aviation solutions including private jet charter, aircraft management, and aircraft maintenance. For more information about SC Aviation, Inc. please visit www.scaviation.net or call 1-866-290-9999.