More than 1,500 Naval Air Technical Training Center (NATTC) Sailors and Marines attended a safety standdown, May 25, in the Charles Taylor Hangar onboard Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola.

The two-hour presentation was designed to remind the largely junior enlisted attendees of various safety considerations at the onset of what the Department of Defense (DoD) has termed the "101 Critical Days of Summer," a Naval Safety Center-sponsored campaign beginning Memorial Day weekend and continuing through Labor Day.

Service members and their families historically participate in numerous recreational activities during Memorial Day weekend and throughout the summer, prompting a DoD-wide effort to mitigate the risk of injury by educating personnel and reinforcing methods of avoiding potential mishaps with the "101 Critical Days of Summer" program.

"We have a significant number of junior Sailors going through our schools, and reminding them of some of the steps they can take to ensure they're back in class after a long weekend is a responsibility of the entire NATTC staff," said NATTC Commanding Officer Capt. Maxine Goodridge. "The safety of the young men and women learning the skills they will employ in the fleet is not just within the walls of our schoolhouses. Ensuring they are aware of recreational and everyday risks and hazards is part of what we strive to impress on all those who serve."

Highlighting the safety standdown was a nearly hour-long interactive presentation from Street Smart, Stay Alive From Education (S.A.F.E.). The program centered around distracted driving, seatbelt use and driving under the influence. The S.A.F.E. Street Smart presentation is interactively designed to assist Sailors and Marines in making smart choices concerning driving safety. Program facilitators demonstrated the consequences of making bad driving choices from their firsthand observations.

The two-hour program also included presentations from Escambia County Sherriff's Office representatives discussing traffic safety and motorcycle guidelines and a beach and water safety brief from Santa Rosa Island Authority personnel.

NATTC Executive Officer Cmdr. Scott Sherman added that throughout the series of presentations, a common theme of looking out for one another was something the command strove to impress on the largely 18 to 20-year-old audience.

"One of the other important aspects of this safety standdown is making sure these young men and women take care of each other," he said. "In everything we teach here, we stress the importance and value of teamwork, and reiterating the idea of taking care of each other both on and off duty is something these Sailors and Marines can take with them when they transfer to duty stations around the world."

For more than 70 years, with the last two decades at NAS Pensacola, the Naval Air Technical Training Center has been providing training and increasing readiness within the Naval Aviation Enterprise (NAE). The facility graduates approximately 15,000 Navy, Marine Corps and international students annually and is the largest training facility in the Navy post Recruit Training Command.

NATTC is part of the Center for Naval Aviation Technical Training (CNATT), which provides single site management for Navy and Marine Corps aviation technical training.

CNATT is the technical training agent for the NAE, an organization designed to advance and sustain naval aviation warfighting capabilities at an affordable cost under the Naval Education and Training Command.

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