Excavation Safety Alliance (ESA) Podcast: Recent Episodes
Infrastructure Resources
The Excavation Safety Alliance Podcast invites leaders in damage prevention to sit down and tell stories, highlight new technology, and share their passion for safety.
Everyone’s goal is to avoid hitting a cable or a pipeline during excavation. Unfortunately, damages still occur for a wide variety of reasons. When there is a damage someone has to pay the repair and related costs. This can range from several thousand to seven figures. A thorough, timely investigation is the best way to defend yourself. Moderator: Jim Proszek, Attorney, Hall Estill
Moderator Ann Rushing, Education Manager, NC811 Panel Members Marty Mead, Director of Damage Prevention, CO811 Chris Stermer, WGI – FUCC Chair Becky Kinsey, Liaison Manager, Georgia 811
Hitting an electric cable when digging or working near overhead cables can be fatal. The big push to move electric cables underground along with increased spending on infrastructure highlight the need for a focus on safety and preventing damage. In addition, we will talk about damage prevention ideas when dealing with natural disasters and protecting wind energy lines. We will be looking for ideas on things that have worked in the past and ideas on how to improve safety in the future. Moderator Mike Sullivan, Utility Safety Partners Panelists Kelley Heinz, ComEd Glen "Cookie" Cook, Energy Queensland Cliff Meidl, Safety Speaker-Spokesperson Sher Kirk, Utility Safety Partners
Moderator: Ketha Molina, Texas811
Panel members:
- Whitney Larson, Safety and Health Specialist/ DEI Advocate, Minger Construction Co., Inc.
- Kristina Mahler, Director of Marketing, Greiner Construction & Executive Director, CREW Collaborative
- Alejandra Vera, Manager, INSET, Rocher Ingenieria S.A. DE C.V.
- Whitney Price, Special Projects Coordinator, Infrastructure Resources
- Denise Elliott, Business Development, 3M
- Jose Espino, Vice President of Operations, Colorado 811
- Kesley Tweed, Executive Director, PAPA
Every stakeholder group will be impacted by the construction projects included in the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Bill. This Town Hall will focus on the steps we can take to ensure we’re prepared for the significant projected increase in 811 ticket submission. Do you have the right number of people on staff? Do you have mature/established operational processes in place? Can your critical technology scale with the increases that are coming? Together, our goal is to ensure excavator safety and prevent an increase in damages. Moderator Jim Plasynski, KorTerra CRO, moderates a panel of industry stakeholders while bringing forward the thoughts and ideas from the Town Hall participants. Sharing ideas and early preparation are essential to meeting the demands of the Infrastructure Bill.
Ron Peterson, Executive Director of Nulca, talks about the top three issues that locate technicians face in the field.
Daniel Bigman, Founder of LearnGPR.com and Bigman Geophysical, discusses the benefits of using multi-frequency systems for your projects.
In 2018 Sher Kirk led a group of industry professionals to successfully align the business rules and ticket formats of the four western Canadian One-Call centres. Standardization is about creating a common language that reduces the risk of misinterpretation: best practices, industry standards, regulation, consistency, safety controls. These things give us ways of cleaning up potentially dangerous inconsistencies and finding more efficient, cost-effective ways to share information among stakeholders.
Daniel Bigman talks about a few things that GPR professionals can try to identify deeply buried pipes below the frostline boundary.
Ed Landgraf, Found of Coastal and Marine Operators, talks with Scott Landes about his article in dp-PRO magazine, Closing Gaps in Damage Prevention With New Best Practices and First-ever Online Training.
Lawyers Jim Proszek & Tony Jorgenson discuss the importance of collecting and preserving evidence when damages occur. Learn what is needed to support your case.
Scott Landes interviews Daniel Bigman (Bigman Geophysical and Learn GPR) to discuss points from his article in dp-PRO Magazine, titled 5 Uses of Ground Penetrating Radar for Civil Engineering and Damage Prevention.
Scott Landes and Ron Peterson talk about the important role locators play in damage prevention and the complexity of the job that locators have.
Hear Scott Landes, Michele Moe, Ron Peterson and Whitney Price discuss the history of LSAW (Locator Safety Appreciation Week) and how it came to be.
Attorneys Jim Proszek and Tony Jorgenson talk about what a legal locate request entails. Learn what you need to know about making and acting on a locate request and how to determine what the statute requirements are surrounding locate requests.
Attorneys Jim Proszek and Tony Jorgenson discuss the importance of preparing for depositions and give practical advice on how to testify during a deposition or trial so you can win your case.
Scott Landes, President of Infrastructure Resources (IR) tells how his company came to be and how it has grown into several different initiatives over the years, inlcuding the recently formed Excavation Safety Alliance.
PASA is working to transform the relationship between utility operators and the agricultural community, by working closely with the National Association of County Agricultural Agents to keep our buried infrastructure, our environment, and America’s farmers and ranchers safe with tools and resources designed to prevent damage to buried utilities through education and improved communication. Learn more about this program from Scott Landes, Chris Thome and Whitney Price.