A typical day for a Dig Safe Ambassador starts the same as it does for most people, with a hot cup of coffee. After grabbing their PPE and doing a quick safety inspection of the truck, the Ambassadors hit the road – ready to spread awareness about working safely near buried and overhead utilities.

When employed by a company, it’s always relevant to step back, take a look around and ask yourself “Do I like working here?" Oftentimes, we take on jobs for various reasons that satisfy certain needs or desires, but don’t truly connect with ourselves as a person.

Recently I’ve had some feedback from Agents come across my proverbial desk, and their reasons for enjoying working here are, quite frankly, heartwarming and genuine. A company focused on Public Safety, education, awareness and outreach is, if nothing else, a pretty textbook example of one that is easy to love.

Kim’s 17-year-old son, Korsin, had been badly injured in a dirt bike accident and was being rushed to the hospital in Oyen, Alberta. After about an hour in Emergency in Oyen, the medical team identified a serious back injury and made the decision to air-transport Korsin to Calgary for specialized treatment.
Kim, who lived in Medicine Hat, raced to Calgary by car, and in fact, beat the helicopter to the hospital, anxious to see her son. It was there that Kim and Korsin learned that he had severed his spinal cord and would live the rest of his life as a paraplegic, paralyzed from the waist down.

We’ve now recorded 7 episodes and have two more lined up. I talk to my guests about a variety of things from our provincial damage prevention legislation efforts and overhead powerline safety to Official Keeper of the Cup, Jeff McWhinney bridging awareness by virtue of the Grey Cup; and the reach will only get broader as we continue along this journey.

The name “Alberta One-Call Corporation won’t be extinct”, says AOC President, Mike Sullivan. “It will remain the registered corporate name for a variety of reasons but mainly to protect it. We don’t want someone to swoop it up for their own purposes and capitalize on the equity that has been built over almost 40 years.” In that respect, AOC’s new name and brand will be a tradename. Think of Coca-Cola Corporation and all the brands like Fanta, 7up and Powerade that reside beneath it – the association between AOC and its new brand will be just like that.

When the pandemic hit Canada with a vengeance in March 2020, I closed the Alberta One-Call (AOC) office. Our operations, and our AOC family, couldn’t risk infection, but we were more prepared for an event like this than we knew. AOC’s Disaster Recovery Plan kicked into full gear March 15, 2020. While the majority of the operational transition was seamless, we had just started 3 weeks of training for our seasonal Damage Prevention Agents (DPA). Training was interrupted for 24hrs while our Contact Centre Manager readjusted and with hardly a hiccup, training resumed remotely with all new hires logging in from home.

Our mission is not only to promote damage prevention practices to protect buried facilities such as gas, power, telecommunication, and pipelines. It is also to help you avoid injury or damage to your equipment and protect the environment. Each year in Alberta, there are over 3,000 damage incidents with a societal cost of around $300 million.

The Training Standards Committee (TSC) consists of members from all different stakeholder groups–two of these groups include utility engineers and line locators. Both subsurface utility engineering (SUE) and utility locating practices may appear to be similar, but each serves a different purpose. In reality, both may use electro-magnetic (EM) locating equipment to identify the location of underground utilities, but the similarities generally end there. Here’s how each practice is different.

In this issue, we introduce you to ATCO – a founding AOC member. ATCO is a provider of essential services in diverse communities around the world. From reliable, sustainable energy for homes and businesses to innovative temporary and permanent structures and everything in between, ATCO builds communities, energizes industries and delivers customer-focused infrastructure solutions; and is an engaged community-minded steward for safety and the preservation of the environment.