Michael Martin
Associate Director, Aviation Management
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The genesis of today’s Aviation Management Directorate (AMD) goes back more than 30 years. It was originally established in 1973 by Secretarial Order as the Office of Aircraft Services. The mission was to “…raise the safety standards, increase the efficiency, and promote the economical operation of aircraft activities in the Department of the Interior.” This action was in response to the Department’s poor aircraft safety record, and it established centralized department-level policy and oversight with decentralized use of aircraft at the field level.
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AMD functions in two distinctly different roles: 1) safety-related aviation policy and oversight, and 2) aviation customer service activities. Although these roles tend to conflict and are difficult to balance, when done successfully, the result embeds departmental aviation safety standards in field operations. This effort has had a very positive impact on Interior’s aircraft accident prevention effort.
Interior’s overall aircraft accident rate has been reduced by more than half since the establishment of a centralized aviation management structure.
AMD has been active in other areas. It met competitive sourcing goals, expanded and modernized our use of information technology, made significant progress in offering on-line aviation safety training, acquired new customers, provided aviation expertise to numerous customers, provided flight coordination support of interdepartmental cabinet-level travelers, and implemented activity based costing.
The Office of Aircraft Services was organizationally placed under the National Business Center in October 2001. The administrative functions were moved to other areas of NBC and the office was renamed the Aviation Management Directorate during the NBC reorganization of October 2003.
We look forward to future challenges as we continue to "…raise the safety standards, increase the efficiency, and promote the economical operation of aircraft activities in the Department of the Interior."
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