Health and Safety is one of those fields that you need to have a passion and desire for change. It doesn't happen overnight. It requires many skills to transmit the H&S intent of your organisation. Its certainly a field in which the rewards of knowing that you have done a job to the best of your abilities is indeed the reward itself.My current role offers many challenges and the variety is tremendous. The importance I believe is how H&S strategies are applied. We must constantly look at our organisational goals, why is H&S important? Is it a Social (legislative), Economic (financial impacts) and more important are we doing for Moral reasons....cause its about our people. The standard we walk past is the standard we accept. A profound statement that was transmitted by a senior leader of the Australian Defence Force and adopted by our own senior leadership to reflect H&S. What does the statement mean to me? If we continue to walk past and turn a blind eye to any situation and adopt a "its not my problem. someone else can deal with it" attitude, H&S will never change and people will continue to be hurt here in New Zealand.Recently I wrote and gifted a 'Whakatauki' (Maori Proverb) to Army."Ko te orange me te haumarutanga o o haumi he poutoko, ehara i te taunahua"."Let the health and safety of your mates be an ENABLER, not an OBSATCLE".So all my hard work in driving a safety culture within the organisation has come to fruition with being awarded the inaugural NZDF Civilian of the Year for 2016 for contributions to my work (which we all do on a daily basis) and 'outside the wire'. (you mil pers will understand that)A very simple campaign ' MATES FOR LIFE'. From recruitment to retirement...what will you say or do to keep a mate safe at work today. Concept around the person you join the army with as a basic recuit to that same person you might share a beer with at the RSA in years to come.