SOUTHEAST UNDERGROUND FACILITY PROTECTION COUNCIL

MEETING MINUTES

June 4, 1998

Chairman Danny Lee opened the meeting with introduction of our special guests; Dan Buol of Champion Productions, Carl Moering, Senior Director BellSouth Interconnect Operations, Mike McCrary Manager BellSouth Network Operations and Allen Russ Manager BellSouth Claims. We moved into self-introductions. See the attached list of attendees.

Minutes from the March 3, 1998 meeting were reviewed and accepted as written.

Dan Buol gave us a review of the upcoming Damage Prevention Convention. The target audience is Contractors, Utility Owners and One-Call professionals. Dan passed around a copy of the latest flyer, if anyone needs more copies, please contact Dan. This is expected to be an annual event with 1999 being held in L.A., 2000 being held in Orlando. Hotel information is supplied with sign up information. Send in the tear off card from the flyer for more information. Champion has had great success with trade show organization. Their Computer trade show had 40,000 attendees last year.

Claudette Campbell asked about the booth space being reserved for the show. She is suggesting four contiguous booth spaces shared by the SEUFPC, the NTDPC, and SOCS.Total cost for this plan is in the neighborhood of $7300.00. Claudette will be taking this to the NTDPC at their July meeting. There was general agreement that the SEUFPC would support this show.

George Glen asked if we could get a list by state of those registered for the show. Dan committed to getting a list, there are not any registrations at this time.

Action Items Review

Jeff Showers and Bill Turner gave an update on the trade shows that SEUFPC could/should support. Jeff reported that SEUFPC would do three shows in 1997. We already did the LICA Show, we agreed already to support the Damage Prevention Convention and Jeff suggested that we choose between the International Disaster recovery show September 13 - 16 in Orlando or the Green Industry Expo in November in Charlotte. Claudette pointed out that the International Disaster show was in conflict with APWA Congress, George pointed out that depending on the dates, the Green show might be in conflict with the SOCS meeting. Jeff has requested information on the Green Industry Expo and we will make a final determination on the September Conference call.

Sammy Johnson asked that the Committee review the National Rural Water Authority Association Conference in Mobile. It was thought that this was not the audience the SEUFPC wanted to see, as this group is more of a membership issue than a Damage Prevention issue. Bill suggested three shows for 1999, AGC National, New Orleans in March, the ICUEE, Louisville in September, and the International Concrete & Aggregates Show, Atlanta in January.

It was also asked that the NTDPC consider doing the NUCA show in Long Beach, CA.

Standard Handout committee showed a mark up of a color code card for the group. This generated a considerable amount of interaction among the group. Final outcome is that the front of the card should be changed by deleting the emergency number, adding the Dig Safely logo under the OCSI Symbol, and adding the SEUFPC web address under our shield. The back will look as follows:

REQUESTED INFORMATION

Prices with break points need to be sent to the One-Call Centers right away. It was agreed that they would purchase this version of the color code card rather than their own individual variations. Everyone agreed that place to call for prices is One-Call Advertising, contact Marge France 816-421-5337, she has the best prices for these and other than the SEUFPC Shield she has all the other art work.

SEUFPC asked that the NUCA show be covered by the NTDPC. Carl to keep this in front of the National group.

Claudette reported the Southern Builders show is going to be this week. BellSouth committed three employees to staff the booth Friday and one other SEUFPC person will help Friday and Saturday. She had really hoped to get more support from the group.

New members book has been resurrected by Claudette. It is now in the hands of Ron Horne to add the shield and some other data that Terry Zachman has. We should have a complete and new booklet at the next meeting.

Claudette gave a review of the DAMQAT council. They are kicking off a trial campaign in TN, GA, VA targeted at the contract excavator. She showed us the print copy for the campaign as well as the new video. She would like to get 50,000 ten-minute prepaid calling cards from the long distance carriers to support this effort. She will supply the artwork for the front of the cards and the back will be individual long distance company standards along with their "provided courtesy of " ad. The kick off for this will be June 16, 1998 at Piedmont Park. Specifics to be supplied. If the test campaign is successful, they will roll it out nationwide.

Call Center Review

Mississippi has been an in-house center since January 1, 1998 and is continuing work with P Squared on the new ticket-taking platform. Their call volume is up over 30% this year compared to 1997. This rapid growth is forcing them to accelerate their space requirements. Sammy reported hearing an item on CNN about a FEMA report that buried facilities recover faster after a natural disaster than do aerial facilities.

North Carolina cut over to OCARS PRO but had to cut back to plain ole OCARS. The current plan is to cut to OCARS PRO in stages beginning June 10. Their volume is up 12% this year.

Georgia is waiting for North Carolina to complete the cut to OCARS PRO so they can get started. GA UPC had a visit from Secretary Slater. The following day a tornado ripped off a portion of their roof and flooded the building with water and air conditioning gas. They remained in business due to their work at home CSRs. GA had a record-breaking day the day after Memorial Day they took 6742 tickets, and are experiencing a 12% growth. APWA has assigned an EMA specialist to OCSI.

Tennessee: Despite a very wet year, their volume is up 7%. They are currently in beta 2 testing of the P Squared product and hope to be on it fully by September. They are also taking 15 to 25 tickets per week via the Internet. They will not be introducing any legislative changes this year due to opposition to the suggested changes. The One Call of America consortium has succeed in combining their LD service and realizing a 25% to 30% saving on phone charges.

Alabama has added 12 new members this year, Tina Creel is working at getting membership up and has had good success with the rural water authorities. Alabama has increased calls by 14% this year and had a record day after Memorial Day with 1750 calls. They are working and succeeding at increasing the UCC activity and are working with the Alabama UCA.

New Business

George Glen asked about Spanish speaking videos. Danny Odell responded that Dee Rosco of AT&T does have some. To reach Dee, 801-943-7593 or email by clicking on his name above.

Federal Legislation has passed as part of the National Transportation Highway Bill. This means the other federal legislation will die. The money being made available has to be used to increase awareness and Damage Prevention. The Pipeline Safety money is also still currently available.

Current Action Items

Goals

Successes

Future Meetings

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This page was updated on Thursday, May 27, 1999

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