Gopher State One Call presents In Memory of Geoff Zeiss: Minnesota Utilities Mapping Project: SUMSF 2023
The first livestream of SUMSF 2023, on May 16, 2023, was by the Keynote speaker, Gopher State One Call Chief of Operations Officer, Barb Cederberg. Her presentation, “In Memory of Geoff Zeiss: Minnesota Utilities Mapping Project (MN UMP). Gopher One is a notification center in Minnesota.
Cederberg said Geoff Zeiss was instrumental in the organization, gathering contacts, and progression of the MN UMP. She thanked Geoff for being a key contributor to the MN UMP, as he spread his influence as connector, guide, communicator, blogger (Between the Poles) and researcher.
MN UMP was founded in August 2020 as a collaborative effort between GSOC and the Minnesota Geospatial Advisory Council, with 35 varied stakeholders. Long-term expectations were high-quality GPS facility operators, maps of underground utilities, safer excavation, increased efficiency and reduction of costs, and maps can be viewed by designers, locations, excavators and facility operators.
A pilot system was compiled in 2022 and a go-forward plan was put in place. All needed funding was acquired just last month, so everything is good to go.
In the USA, there is the Common Ground Alliance (CGA). This group developed a Next Practices Initiative, as well the CGA did a case study on the MN UMP that was published on February 9, 2023. The study noted, “Bringing damage prevention mapping technology and accessibility to 811 system end users has the potential to reduce dig-ins and increase efficiency at every step of the safe excavation process.”
Cederberg then described the process of the MN UMP pilot and upcoming discussions.
What does the future hold? Plans include taking the pilot system to production level, improved map visualization, the development of capture information and GPS field data capability, and resources for engineering and planning.
A question and answer session followed the presentation. Watch the whole presentation to find out more.
