The Safety Initiative was started by Gene Benson in 2004. He was moved to begin the project after five of his friends were involved in five serious aircraft crashes over a five-year period. All were experience, highly qualified, and responsible pilots. Four of them died in the crashes and one was left with life-changing injuries. Four of the five pilots earned their living by flying. The fifth pilot had a different profession but was a flight instructor giving dual instruction at the time of the crash.

Those tragedies made Gene realize that accidents happen even to good, conscientious pilots, not just to poorly trained, reckless, or careless pilots. Gene decided to explore aviation safety in more depth so that he could perhaps learn some lessons that could be used to help prevent accidents.

The Safety Initiative ran for 14 years as part of Gene's personal website, genebenson.com. In 2018, it had outgrown its home on Gene's site and earned its own site, taking the name "Vectors for Safety" after the title of the original newsletter that Gene produced beginning in 2004.

Vectors for Safety is dedicated to helping general aviation pilots be better and safer through the production and distribution of safety information via a wide range of media. Our goal is to deliver accurate, appropriate, understandable material to general aviation pilots of all experience levels.

Like in any safety work, we can never know the accident we might have prevented or life we might have saved. But we have spread a safety message to many pilots throughout the world.

As of early January of 2022, we have conducted more than 200 live safety presentations in nine states and we have produced and conducted more than 420 live webinars. We rotate our online courses of which we have featured more than 60. Presently, there are 7 active courses online. We have produced more than 40 videos of which 28 are presently available. Our total video views exceed 370,000. To date, Safety Initiative events, presentations, and activities have been responsible for the issuance of more than 29,000 FAA Wings credits.

These accomplishments could not have been possible without the generous donation of time, treasure, and talent from our sponsors, donors, and volunteers. Beginning January 2022, Avemco Insurance became the exclusive sponsor of Vectors for Safety, enabling us to move forward with additional quality content.

The pandemic of 2020-2021, and now into 2022, brought our live, onsite presentations to a pause. To make up for that, we increased the frequency of our webinars and written material. We have also been doing research on improved ways to present safety material, with a heavy emphasis on virtual learning. We look forward to resuming live, onsite presentations in the near very future.

Want to be part of the Safety Initiative? Want to volunteer your knowledge and talents? Let's start a conversation. Just send an email to gene@genebenson.com and tell us about yourself or your company and how you would like to participate.