Protecting the health and safety of his Air Force brethren for 22 years made Duane Roe the ideal contender for his role at the FAA.

Roe is an Occupational Safety and Health Specialist at the Aeronautical Center where he performs water testing and monitors other aspects of safety and industrial hygiene to ensure that MMAC employees are safe.

He came to the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in 2016 after more than two decades as an Air Force Bioenvironmental Engineering Specialist. In his military role, he did the typical things that occupational health professionals do – but Roe did it in a war zone.

He followed a family military tradition: both his father and uncle served in Vietnam and his grandfather served in the Navy. Roe’s military service took him from his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri to Iraq and Afghanistan, where he monitored water quality on bases to ensure the safety of service members, contractors, and local residents.

"We only drank bottled water, but we used local water sources for everything else," said Roe. "People may not think about it, but water can really mean the difference between winning and losing, especially if your force is sick due to water-borne illnesses."

Roe also assisted Bedouin farmers in Iraq when their children got sick with stomach cramps.

"The locals were very concerned, and I knew I had to find out why these kids were getting sick," said Roe. "I went out to their location and saw that they had a single well where they were drawing all their water from, for both themselves and their animals… doing what animals do… their waste trickled down to the well and contaminated it. We helped them to understand why this contamination was happening, got them to move the livestock away from the well, and in short order, those water problems went away."

Roe’s responsibilities also required him to inspect flight lines and fuel trucks to make sure everything was operating safely.

"Several times, I encountered colleagues doing the wrong things because they didn’t use or didn’t have the right equipment," said Roe. "It was my job to correct and educate them so they could safely continue to perform the mission."

Roe retired from the Air Force in December 2014, settled in the Oklahoma City area, and began teaching classes at the University of Texas in Arlington. Those classes focused on stormwater and industrial hygiene, two areas that are often discrete disciplines.

"I was lucky that I had my feet on both sides of occupational health and safety: physical and environmental safety," said Roe. "These are usually two different worlds. One focuses on making sure you aren’t injured at work – like a slip or fall, the other looks at the workplace environment holistically. One is black and white; the other is detective work."

He joined the FAA in 2016 after his teaching stint in Texas and made it his mission to improve the Aeronautical Center’s workspace.

"I started as a program analyst but knew my skills were going to allow me to move through the ranks at the FAA," said Roe. "My first job was to identify hazards associated with painting and sanding parts. I also assisted them with mitigating the hazards through proper personal protective equipment and implementing other workplace improvements such as standard operating procedures."

In the short time he’s been with the MMAC, Roe has already won three Designated Agency Safety and Health Official (DASHO) Awards. These awards recognize an employee’s contributions to advancing a culture of workplace safety and personal accountability at the FAA.

Roe’s first DASHO award came in 2021 for being part of a team that designed a program which allowed 238 employees to receive the required training necessary to perform their critical duties during the global health crisis. The team modified the course on CPR to allow certain portions to be completed virtually. More importantly, they modified the in-person portion of the training to maximize employee safety.

His second and third DASHO awards came this year for two very different, but equally important activities.

Roe was part of the MMAC Industrial Hygiene Team that received an Advancing a Safety Culture DASHO Safety Champion award by going above and beyond the call of duty to proactively identify, monitor, and address industrial hygiene hazards at the Center. The team’s efforts resulted in safer processes and procedures when soldering activities are being conducted.

Roe received a Policies & Procedures DASHO award for taking the initiative to improve the drinking water program at the MMAC and address water quality sampling. His methods of water sampling, testing, flushing, analysis, and remediation allowed the Center to save an estimated $1 million on a sampling study across campus. This award is perhaps the most special to Roe.

"MMAC gets it’s water from Oklahoma City, and FAA had identified buildings where we were going to have water tested based on an existing order that addresses water sampling in leased facilities," said Roe. "I researched the process and found out that if you get water from a public source, you don’t need to sample it. But we still felt it made sense to give our employees peace of mind about water quality. We do both bacterial and heavy metal sampling regularly, and it’s reassuring to our employees that our drinking water is very safe. It’s great that we have so much cooperation from the unions and the safety committee on campus."

As a career airman with three children – one of whom is a freshman in college – Roe is happy to be at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center and settled down with his family after several tours overseas.

"Even when I started my career with the military at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, I knew I wanted to come back to this area after serving," said Roe. "I met my wife while at my first duty station, and then promptly got sent to serve in Korea. I had several hitches around the world, but always came back to Oklahoma."

Roe feels his military service prepared him well for his work at the Aeronautical Center. It gave him the discipline and motivation to run and manage programs that protect our employees.

"I really like this job at the FAA. I’m not behind a desk all day," said Roe. "I learned what everyone did on Center, the organizations’ missions and helped them to be safe and maintain a proper, healthy environment. What I do is not saving their lives right now, but it is definitely saving them in the future."

Roe summed up his time serving his country in both the military and the federal government: "I think all people should experience some kind of service for their government or country because it provides a certain perspective that you can’t get unless you do it."