A Tale of Three – the Rebranding Journey

By Mike Sullivan, President, Utility Safety Partners 

Today, we operate as Utility Safety Partners but how did we get it here? Why did we change our name and what is that we do differently today than we did before?

Changing the name and rebranding a longstanding service isn’t an easy task and two years after the big change, Albertans still refer to us as Alberta One-Call, Alberta First Call and one of my favourites, “Alberta One” (or maybe it's “Alberta 1”?), which doesn’t make much sense to me.

Alberta One-Call was incorporated in 1982 and began operations in 1984. It very quickly became recognized and accepted as the focal point of the damage prevention process in Alberta. During the ensuing 37 years, Alberta One-Call successfully fostered a co-operative approach among all stakeholders for the prevention of damage to buried facilities. This work was also supported by the focused efforts of the Alberta Common Ground Alliance.

The Alberta Common Ground Alliance (ABCGA), formerly the Alberta Damage Prevention Council (ADPC), was a non-profit society of stakeholders in the damage prevention process. Membership in the ABCGA was open to any individual, corporation, association or committee with an interest in the prevention of damage to buried facilities.

The ABCGA was dedicated to the minimizing of damages caused to buried facilities from unauthorized contacts and to the promotion of safe working environments for all agencies involved in development and construction.

The Joint Utility Safety Team (JUST) was a partnership between Alberta electric utilities with contributions from local municipalities, which collaborated to create the successful Where’s the Line? campaign to address the frequency of power line contacts across the province.

Following recommendations to the ABCGA and Alberta One-Call Boards of Directors, the ABCGA, JUST and Alberta One-Call unified into a single damage prevention organization Jan. 1, 2021.

To learn more visit “Who we are Today.”