The USS Midway operated for 47 years. It was in service in the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm before it was decommissioned and docked in San Diego, California, where it has become one of the city’s most popular museums—and for good reason.
I was lucky enough to tour the ship on a recent vacation, and I cannot describe the sheer scale of everything from the anchor rodes that weigh more than me to the stand mixer that is taller than me.
Aircraft carriers are floating cities at sea. The USS Midway had a crew of around 4,500 people. It blew my mind to learn how every inch of the ship was used for storage and how supplies were restocked every few days, a process that took several men several hours.
The roped off areas and signs guided me through the tourable portions of the museum ship. After several hours of walking up and down narrow stairways and around hallways, I couldn’t at any given time tell if I was above or below the water or if I was closer to the bow or the stern.
I asked one yellow cap volunteer how an officer learned how to navigate the entire ship. He said that men learned where the important places were, such as the mess hall, barbershop and hospital, but that they mostly navigated a small sphere involving their station and bunk.
I began to understand how for the officers, their individual goal was to learn how to best serve the community and broader mission. Sometimes, that means learning a specialized skill like navigation. Other times, it means responding to an all-hands-on-deck call like in the event of a fire.
The USS Midway had fire hoses and extinguishers along the many hallways. There were multiple closets full of firefighting protective gear. Looking at them, I was reminded of something Ben Andrew, Ed.D, MBA, CSP, and chief of occupational health and safety at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center, told me about his years of service in the U.S. Navy aboard a nuclear aircraft carrier.
“In the military, you can be a cook, you can be an administrator, a barber, whatever. You are the fire department. If you have a fire on a Navy vessel, you're talking about the possible sinking of a ship,” he said.
The museum ship had a space below deck devoted to the fires aboard all aircraft carriers. Shortly before USSMidway was decommissioned in 1990, there were two onboard explosions that led to a fire that burned for more than 10 hours. Beyond material damage to the ship’s hull, three men died and several were injured.
It was a sobering reminder of operating with ever-present risks and about the importance of community.
I hear many safety professionals say they feel alone or isolated in their organizations. They may be the only safety professional at their organization. Even if they aren’t, they lament there aren’t enough hours in the day for all they want to do to keep workers safe. They are regarded as a thorn in the sides of workers, operations, executives, etc. They feel like Sisyphus, waging an uphill battle every single day.
Loneliness and isolation are powerful emotions. They can cause us to feel hopeless or have a distorted sense reality, which is why it’s so vital for safety professionals to find and take refuge in one another. Who better to understand what you’re going through than someone experiencing the exact same thing? Who better to hear from than someone who who was once in the trenches alongside you, or in trenches very similar to yours, and has achieved success?
There are no silver bullets or easy fixes to the challenges that plague safety professionals. Even if there were, I’m convinced that solutions don’t come from looking at problems in isolation or in a vacuum. True progress can only happen when we all come together, pull up a chair and roll up our sleeves.
To that end, I encourage you to attend our annual Safety Leadership Conference where, over the course of three days, you can rub elbows with America’s Safest Companies of 2025 and other leading companies to learn how we, collectively, can make workplaces safer for everyone.
