Ep. 81 - Digging Blind: The 811 Truth No One Tells You with Khrysanne Kerr

This episode was filmed live at Con Expo in Las Vegas! Join us for this special episode with Khrysanne Kerr!

A locate mark that’s a few feet off can wreck a schedule. A utility strike can change a life. That’s why we sat down with Khrysanne Kerr from the Common Ground Alliance, one of the leaders behind the nationwide 811 Call Before You Dig campaign, to talk through what’s actually happening inside the locate system and what contractors can do to make it work better.

We get into the real numbers that most people never think about: at any given time there can be more than one million active 811 locate requests across the country, but the locating workforce doesn’t magically scale with your deadline. Khrysanne explains why ticket volume keeps rising as more infrastructure goes underground and funding expands projects, and we share the simplest way to reduce waste: only request locates for the work you’re truly ready to dig. If you’ve ever wondered why marks show up late, incomplete, or rushed, this part connects the dots.

From there we go practical. We talk about white lining with white paint or flags, why professional locators overwhelmingly say it’s the biggest damage prevention lever, and how it protects both the locator and the excavator through clearer communication and better documentation. Khrysanne also points you to free online excavation training from the Common Ground Alliance with 30+ modules in English and Spanish, built for crews who need training that fits real job-site life. We wrap with the hard truth about mis-marks, aging records, and why better mapping, GIS data, and new technology (from drones to smarter excavation equipment) will shape the future of underground utility locating and excavator safety.

If you get value from this, subscribe to the show, share it with your crew, and leave a review so more contractors find the info that keeps people safe.

Transcript

Welcome, Sponsor, And 811 Guest

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hey guys, welcome to the Blue Collar Business Podcast where we discuss the realest, rawest, most relevant stories and strategies behind building every corner of a blue-collar business. I'm your host, Cy Kirby, and I want to help you what it took me, trial and error, and a whole lot of money to learn. The information that no one in this industry is willing to share. Whether you're under that shade tree or have your hard hat on, let's expand your toolbox. Guys, welcome back to another episode of the Blue Collar Business Podcast, brought to you and sponsored today by Patered Support. Those guys, Ben Bruni and his team over there. As you guys know, I've personally used them at SciCon and our estimating team. They are top-notch when it comes to any type of takeoff that you need for a specific project or multiple projects, whatever you may need there. Get over with patered support.com and get with Ben and tell them we sent you from the show. I'm so excited to bring you guys the guests that we're we're bringing to you this week. These are brands that have already reached out with us, trying to build partnership that's also trying to bring awareness back to you guys through the podcast, through the media in general. But today is a really special. Um, every single person listening to this that is ever called a locate in, it this is a special podcast for you guys. We are sitting here today with Chris Anchorer from Grandcom uh Ground Cover Common Ground Alliance. My gosh, it's been a day already, okay? But uh as commonly known as 811 in all 50 states, this lady right here is special to the 811 campaign. She actually helped build it. And uh that's unbelievable changing American history. It's things that we use every single day. But to have a contractor sitting here at this show talking to the national head of whatever particular department in A11 is is pretty insane. And I cannot thank you enough for your time.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

It's a privilege to be here and be sharing the message and thank you for giving us a platform to do that.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Well, honestly, that's what A11 needs. I mean, uh, as at the you guys have your several other platforms, there's no doubt about it. But the more awareness we can bring for not just citizens that are affected by hits and damages, contractors that are hits, hits and damages, but also just like efficiencies. We were talking about just briefly earlier, is that the efficiencies that we need as contractors, but you guys also need from the business angle side. And it's very hard to, hey, I want it my way, hey, I want it my way. I want that extra day to mark your locator or whatever it may be, and I want to start as soon as 48 hours is up. But I was talking to Chris Sand already just a little bit and and and talking about maybe some of the efficiencies and what could be coming in 811. Obviously, there's nothing you need to say specifically, but I would love for the channel to hear because I know a lot of these guys are sitting there, would they all have several questions to ask you behind this lens, I promise you. But I would love to hear some of the things that 811 is working on and focusing on to bring back for the contractors just like myself.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Certainly.

Why Locates Get Delayed

SPEAKER_01 3:25

And you know, as as you're driving to the job site today and thinking to yourself, I just need my locates marked accurately and on time. And why is it a challenge? Um, I think we fail to realize that at any given time there are more than one million active locate requests nationwide.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Wow, that's an incredible statistic.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

It is. And, you know, more and more infrastructure's going underground, more and more infrastructure funding's coming out for you know rural America. Amen. And the underground's getting more and more crowded, and business is getting bigger and bigger. So, how do we take a fairly stagnant and stable workforce, but with this ever evolving and escalating amount of ticket volume? So, what we're we're trying to really uh preach is to only call in the tickets you're going to be working on. You know, don't call in a month-long's worth of tickets or a 30-mile project when you know you physically can't get to it. Give the locators a chance to actually respond to the work you're working on and not create that waste in the system. It's it becomes an ever-evolving hamster wheel. I'm just gonna call in my whole project for the month instead of what we're working on this

Ticket Discipline And White Paint

SPEAKER_01 4:40

week. So we we look to that, and and actually in some states, it's um it's a law, but we do recommend putting white paint or white flags down in the area you're gonna locate. You know, we're sitting here inside this Las Vegas convention center, and it probably covers a couple square miles. And what if you're just gonna put a flagpole in right here? Think about the increase in efficiency if that locator coming on site knew exactly where you were going to be digging instead of walking this entire property.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

And not only that, wasting his time and your time.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Um, I gotta give a big shout out. Uh, 811, their their training. Uh, we we had, unfortunately, we had a hit. Uh, we've only hit two gas lines in 10 years. That's it. Uh I was pretty proud of myself. And this one was deliberately, or proud of the team, I shouldn't say myself, but um, this one was deliberately our fault. There's a YouTube video about it. Um, we made broad big awareness on it. This was a mistake, but we're underground contractors. Things are going to happen. You've just got to do your due diligence, train, train, train to ensure that it doesn't happen. But when it did, we got turned into the public safety commission, and here come 811 with a free class. And as of yesterday, started off our week this week. We had training um once a month. We do breakfast for all our crews in the shot. It's a culture thing. We talk about housekeeping issues, things that are coming up. But we also brought in uh Mike Gowan uh with 811 directly. Man is a treasure trove worth of information. Yeah. And he was a contractor himself 20 something years ago and knew exactly how to come across to my guys. Not only he shoot he showed me something within the 811 Arkansas website that I didn't even know that was there for me. And it is the basically documentation process after they clear a ticket out. It it basically has a receipt, I guess you would say, uh, on the on the website. And that blew my mind. I'm like, what do you mean? When did this happen? Kind of you know, cocky and smart, smart aleck, he's like 2023. And I'm like, what has nobody told me about this? Why haven't I seen a short video about this? This is crazy. And so I know you were you were just telling me a little bit about some of the newer training that you guys have, totally free. I'd love to hear some about that.

Free Online Excavation Training

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Sure. And you know, you're talking about Arkansas One Call. Each state has a local call center. Um, for those of you who haven't called in a locate ticket, 811 works just like 911. So, you know, where you're geolocated, it's going to go to that particular state. And they are a tremendous resource of providing on-site training or working with regional partnerships or local utility coordinating committee meetings where they meet on a monthly or quarterly basis. That um, if you're having an issue or having a suggestion, uh it's a great resource to uh to look on their website and find out where the action is. Um, but we're here at Con Expo uh promoting our free, my favorite four-letter words, free uh online excavation training. And it's about 30 different modules. It's in English and in Spanish. Hey, and you can do it at your own time. You got a rain out, you got foul weather, you know, you've got a um uh a gap in the action. You know, you can train at your own pace. Uh, it's a great resource at commongroundalliance.com that is available for anyone listening to this podcast to go and take at no charge. So, you know, it's all of our goals, no matter where we are in this industry, is to make sure crews go home safely every night. And I don't think you can be over-trained. You everybody can learn something new every day. So uh even if you've been doing it for 50 years and you wrote the book on training, you wrote the book on underground construction, um, there's new technologies and new approaches happening every day. And we would just encourage you to take that resource and that education at your leisure.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

I am for sure going to be checking it out myself, sharing it with our team. We we try to do some type of actual safety topic during that breakfast once a month, but they do toolbox talks weekly, month uh daily, um, near miss reports. Safety is everything. We family, our first core core value is family first, second is safety drives excellence. And like safety first, no matter what. If you're thinking with a safe mind, entering, especially as an underground utility guy, it's everything that we do essentially is unsafe, it seems like. And so if you don't train, uh great point, you can't be too trained, you can't. There's always something to learn. And the guy that uh that's on your site that knows everything, he's the guy that's gonna get somebody hurt real quick. And but no, 33 modules, I can actually get that into my team's hands, drop an email. Hey, look, let me know when you've gone through a couple of these modules. Let me know. I want uh, if you don't mind, hey Ishmael, let's bring your I want you to bring kind of a book report of what you learned that module because we'll share that stuff. It's it's one thing to um have to retain the knowledge, but then to actually have to teach the knowledge, it's a different level of learning. That's what I have experienced in my own ways, but also with my team. So I'm really excited to see that and and maybe we can um get that put down in our descriptions or not, because I'd love to drive awareness for you out.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Yeah, and there's actually some really good statistics about how um people retain online training more than actual in-person or classroom. And and you know, if if you're a tree trimmer and you're, you know, grinding stumps and pulling roots out, and you know, if you're a landscaper, it's meant for everybody that is going to break the surface of the earth. And you may not have a big training department, you may not have a risk management team. This is here for you. It was designed with that thought process that we're not only going to talk about awareness, it's that awareness and use part. 811 only works if you do, you're giving those utilities a chance to go out and mark those utility lines so that you can dig safely around them and your crews go home safe every night.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

100%. And you know, you you mentioned white paint earlier. And I think this is such it's not a revolutionary thing, but I know there's a lot of you guys out there because I'm guilty of it too. For years, I was like, man, you can figure it out. You know, you're gonna make me call in another locate, anyways. And it was just this battle of back and forth. But at the same time, if you don't go give that gentleman a white paint around that flagpole, he's gonna be driving around here. You're gonna get an incomplete ticket, you're not gonna get a you're setting yourself up to fail. Run out there. You should have already looked at the job. That's that's here nor there. Throw white paint around something. What if it's gonna be 2,500 feet, which is max on a ticket, I believe. Yep. Start from there, throw a couple of white paints, arrows, make it actual so this guy can go out there, read the earth and um the paint on the earth, and go, oh, this is what they're meaning. I better catch that extra service line that's running back to the house, or oh, you know what? This pedestal runs through here. It's not on the maps, but I know it's things like that that they can already help you guys turn around and go, uh, or it would have been vice versa. You'd have been sitting there, well, why didn't he mark that? Go into the house. Well, you didn't put a white box. It's a team effort.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

You know, 99% of the locators we surveyed said if we had white paint as a law, that would be the number one way to reduce damages. And do you know to get 99% of people to agree on something? Like if I told you right now I'm giving away free Miller Light tonight, half of this room would be on my case because it wasn't Bud Light. That's right. You can't get people to agree, but the professional locators in our industry agree that's the number one thing we can do to reduce damages and help them in their role.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

No, I agree. Yeah. I think I not only for the locators, but for the contractors. Exactly. Too, because that's only going to set them up.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Well, and it's documentation too. You know, you woke up this morning and brushed your teeth, but if you didn't document it, it never happened.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

It's not about work you can do, it's about work you can document you've done. Well put. I say it. I think the podcast gets really tired of me telling them that, but that's in the project management side, that's in the accounting side, that's in the estimating side. That goes for the locates as well. So we've made a much more conscious effort uh from our project manager to hey, if we're gonna dig in this area, if we're gonna dig up that hydrant or if we're gonna dig up this meter, are we extending 500 feet? Okay, well then draw an arrow and show where you're gonna end so we have a good eye understanding for that locator to show up and be successful so we can be successful.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Sure. And you're memorializing the documentation. You know, in this era of everything's wireless, of you know, water just magically comes out of the faucet. You know, trying to educate the next generation of diggers that there are pipes and cables that feed this into our house, into our schools, into our hospitals, into our airports. And it's our obligation as an industry to keep that infrastructure protected.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Nobody wants to deal with uh an existing hit. I know everybody listening has seen a water main break when you're traveling or trying to get through town, and oh, there's these linemen set up or uh working on an underground transformer, or it could be a cable crew shooting a bore, or there's always inconveniences with construction. But when these guys, it's very I should say common, no pun intended here, but it is a common understanding across all contractors that essentially we don't want to hit nothing. We really don't want to hit anything.

Fixing Mismarks With Better Maps

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Now, the the one major thing that I know a lot of these guys are like, oh, what about inconsistencies? It's always mismarked, it's always and is there is there, um, in my opinion, I think there should be some type of universal mapping that everybody can see just like a GIS within. I understand there's different states laws. That's just kind of in a dream hypothetical scope. Like, hey, if we have transmission infrastructure, why is there not a GIS map to show us this? If we have this unbelievable critical infrastructure, and I hope by doing things like this, we can bring awareness on that and and move the needle a little bit, like you guys already are. But what are some of the things that you see could be changing in A11 coming down? Not just A11, but for contractors as well, around locates, hit lines, how can we be better and how we can improve efficiencies on miss marks? Oh, well, it was three feet off. I know you're the lady to ask.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

And, you know, that's a great question. And it's it's a pain point we have daily, you know, as an industry. Um, you know, we like take a look at our roles of our 15 stakeholders. We can all do better. You know, when we talk to the utilities, um, access to that information, make sure your locating company or your employee locators have the most up-to-date and accurate maps, the as built of documentation of how often are you submitting your changes to the one call center? Um, what is your damage per thousand based on the number of mapping records that you've submitted to a one-call center? Where do you fit in? Um, better contracts for the locating of fair and balanced, of making sure that the locators can accurately and effectively mark the workload that they have. These are great questions. And we're seeing so much more in that mapping area. You know, here at Con Expo, there's a couple of our members on the show floor where, you know, there's intelligent excavators that they're gonna stop before they hit a pipe or cable before they take that extra scoop of dirt. You know, the technology's here. And, you know, it's it's trying to make everybody safer. Um, but those are great questions. And the mapping issue and providing access to that information is a big push nationally.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah, we've got to do something better.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

We just I, you know, even my little local market, we have two larger towns that have great GIS. We have one smaller town that she would be like, You have GIS. Like, that doesn't even make sense to why you would have GIS. And then you go down just past those two bigger towns to another bigger town, they ain't even thought about it. They don't even think about it. They've got that, you know, guy that's been there for 25.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Then when Earl retired, so did the legacy of knowledge. You know, where's your water line? I don't know. We got to go call Earl.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

It's uh it's hard to do if you haven't documented it.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Exactly. We find that a lot. Like even up in areas of Ohio and Cleveland, they have wooden water mains that are a hundred years old. I mean, some of this infrastructure is so outdated and the record keeping isn't there. So uh as an industry, we're trying to do better. Um, we recommend anybody out there to follow our best practices. It's from boardroom to courtroom. It's the industry Bible if you're involved in underground construction. And it's free online at common groundalliance.com, but it gives you a couple resources and guidelines and lanes to stay in to do your job safely and effectively.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Send them boys at Ladies Home every single day, being safe as possible. But no, I agree. I think, you know, just talking about the Con Expo floor, we just walked very quickly through. But with this drone capability that we have now, I think truly mapping is going to start actually becoming more and more and more of a thing. But we need to get entities willing to go, hey, I'll share your stuff on my stuff and I'll share your stuff on my and back and forth, but there's no willingness. No, this is mine. I paid for it. Like I get that, I truly do. But if I'm out there trying to navigate a sewer main between nine different utilities, like we just did over there in Periods, man, it'd been so nice to know about four of them that weren't even there, you know, that weren't even marked, I should say. Um, it's here nor there, they were just dead and old utilities. But if we had a map showing the active existing utilities, I'm not talking about everything in the ground, it's gonna be really hard. But man, it there should be some way that we I know there's ways in the water and shore world, we do it all the time, but can't there be a way that we can figure out from pedestal to pedestal and with the existing maps? And man, there's a lot of smart people out there. There's gotta be a way we can improve our mapping. And obviously, there's several of them on the show floor, but I do. I believe I I am huge hopeful um for what's coming and what can happen.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Agreed. And you you talked about drones, and and I think, you know, I looked at vegetation management companies years ago when they were driving the pipeline. Well, they would fly a plane first, then it was driving, then it was unmanned autonomous, now it's drones. I mean, by the time we catch up to the next latest and greatest technology, we're on to the next one. It's insane. Um, and you know, when we have talk about being able to locate plastic pipe, about being able to understand isn't abandoned or ribb line, you know, is it just old copper that they're never going to pull out of the ground? We just don't use phone lines anymore. So where you stand is where you sit.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

That's funny. I love that. I like that one. That one that one I'll use. You know, we were all telling ourselves again, this is on the channel.

What You Find Underground

SPEAKER_00 20:12

We had I never crossed the liquid petroleum line with one of our utilities. Exactly. Your face tells it all, like, God, you know, 900 psi steel line that said northwest Arkansas, all of its fuel from Kansas City. It was a big boy. Yeah. Um, so we went through the proper steps. Obviously, uh not nothing happened, but when we started to dig on this, this is what's crazy. There was an old two-inch line that runs right along the sidewalk there. And we took about three scoops outside of our dig area following the steps of the liquid petroleum representative that was there, telling us every move to make. And we uncovered a two-inch, I don't know how else to describe it, but a um a bore rod that they would, you know, connect on and pull a utility through. It was still duct taped to the two-inch water line that they just left it in the ground right above the liquid petroleum line. And I think I'm thinking it's a bent or it's attached to this line some way, somehow. It freaked us out. And then the water department came out there, cut the duct tape off, pulled that boar rod out of there. Anyways, it was uh pretty, pretty, pretty crazy. But yeah, you never know what you're gonna find underground. Like, set yourself up the best way possible. But when you do find those oddball stuff, with having that gentleman there from the liquid petroleum department, obviously you wouldn't be digging it without a representative. Go through those steps, please. But he was more worried than all of us. He was like, We just I'm sorry, guys, we're gonna have to shut you down until I know what that is. Well, I'm glad he did. It's my guys that are standing there. If something scratches and or we poke a hole in it and fire, and oh God, that's my worst nightmare. It is my literal worst nightmare. So sorry for getting off a little bit in the weeds there, but. But I did want to share that. Um 811 is just like 911. You said that earlier. And and and that's pretty cool that you were the lady.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Well, it was a privilege to build this campaign, but I'm telling you, the biggest privilege was in 10 years we reduced damages to the nation's infrastructure by 50%. And I'm going to tell you, Saya phone number in and of itself doesn't do that, but the attention, it galvanized the industry. It made us relevant. It was a new go-to-market strategy with the media. And it was easy. Yep. There was no more 10 different 800 numbers because I work in 10 different states and cross state lines. You know, it uh it really did revolutionize call before you dig and the low-hanging fruit's gone. You know, there's still several hundred thousand utility damages every year. We're the keeper of the largest database. And, you know, if it was easy, we would have done it by now. But by working together, by having these hard conversations, by people owning up to their obligation within the damage prevention process, we're gonna get there.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Yes, ma'am. I agree. I completely agree. It's because of you sitting here with a contractor, ditch digger like myself, hearing me out, talking about the same points that we face every single day, hearing your angle of it, hearing my angle of it. I truly hope I uh shed a little light on for you guys to shake. Thank you, is what I'm trying to say. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your willingness to bring awareness. Obviously, you're very passionate about our industry, and I can't thank you for enough for that. But being willing to sit here and have these conversations, this is what it's going to take for us to keep those maps that I was just talking about. It's a bunch of people sitting in a room. Uh, half the side of the room says we don't need them, half the side needs uh says we absolutely have to have them. And how do we get to that common ground, I should say?

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Exactly. When when we know better, we do better.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

I love that. Well, seriously, can't thank you enough for your time. I hope you have a blast here at Con Expo.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Same, same. If for those listening, if you don't get a chance, it's every three years in Vegas, and then uh every two years, the uh utility expos in Louisville. If you're on that side of the globe listening to us, uh another big, big event, like uh this is 38 miles, I think, if you walk the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

It's exhausting to think about.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

But uh I tried to prepare well as much as possible.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yeah, yeah. That's uh, but um everybody that's listening to this, uh just go out there, use the system, document what you do, and uh take care and get home to your family safe.

Links, Best Practices, And Closing

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yes, ma'am. Where can we um give us some websites and some links if you wouldn't mind?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Sure. We're the national we're the common ground alliance.com, um call 811.com and callbeforeyoudig.com and contact 811beforeyoudig.com and uh we've got a um interactive map of the entire country. If you need to get in touch with your local 811 center, there's a direct link there. We have their laws, we have their ticket policies. Um, but be active, be engaged, and be your own best advocate in this industry.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yes, it's important. I completely agree, guys. Con Expo 2026, what a way to kick it off. Talking about bringing awareness to what we all are affected by. If you cut just a blade of the earth and you're digging in into the earth at all, you've got to deal with A11 and you've got to ensure that your existing, if you're building a fence, it's that, I mean, you're sticking a post in the ground. Telling you guys, A11, get your existing utilities marked. But to kick off the show with a little bit of safety, a little bit of awareness, I really appreciate your time. And I am truly looking forward to heading over into the West Hall and spending a little bit of time in there. So, guys, uh till next time, you guys be safe out there. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to give it a like, share it with the fellas, check out our website to send us any questions and comments about your experience in the blue collar business. Who do you want to hear from? Send them our way, and we'll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Till next time, guys.