Textron, Raytheon, DRS earn industry safety awards

Textron Inc. won two categories of the 2009 AIA Worker Safety Award, and DRS Technologies and Raytheon Company also took honors in the fourth annual installment of the awards, which were announced on November 5.

Textron's Bell Helicopter, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, and Cessna Aircraft of Wichita, Kan., were awarded the AIA Worker Safety Award in the Aircraft Manufacturing category. Textron Systems Corporation, headquartered in Wilmington, Mass., won the same award in the Aerospace Components categories.

Raytheon of Waltham, Mass., took the award for the second consecutive year for the final category, Missile and Space Vehicles.

The three category awards are based on low workplace injury and illness rates as well as positive safety program elements for each company's U.S. operations.

DRS Technologies, based in Parsippany, N.J., won the award for the most progress in worker safety from 2007 to 2008. The company showed the greatest reduction in incident rates and lost workday rates.

AIA president and CEO Marion Blakey said the companies set the bar for excellence in aerospace industry safety. She also complimented AIA's Environmental, Safety & Health Committee for sponsoring the awards, which received a record number of submissions this year.

"These awards are an important tool to share best practices and recognize excellence," Blakey said during a ceremony recognizing the winners during the fall meeting of the ES&H Committee in Arlington, Va. "We should be proud of these companies and their track record on worker safety."

Founded in 1919, the Aerospace Industries Association represents the nation's leading manufacturers and suppliers of civil, military, and business aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial systems, space systems, aircraft engines, materiel, and related components, equipment services, and information technology.