Highlights:  August 12, 2020

• Chair’s Report: Dave Hunstad welcomed the Board and noted his appreciation to everyone for making time to attend the Board meeting. He expressed hope we would be meeting again in person soon.
• Legislative Report: Dean Parker gave a brief legislative report summarizing legislative activity of the previous session.
• Board Discussion: Reports from the Field The Board continued to engage in a wide discussion of experiences from the field. Phil Lesnar noted that he believed there were still apparently not enough locators.
• Chief Operations Officer Report: Barbara Cederberg reviewed 2020 ticket volumes. Through July tickets are up over 11% versus the same time in 2019. Increases have varied widely month to month and even included one month where ticket numbers decreased (May).
• Board discussion: Additional metrics: Keith Novy led a discussion concerning the role that GSOC might play in providing additional metric information for stakeholders.
• Open Forum: Guest Hawthorn Bjorback addressed the Board. He noted his family’s long history in Minnesota’s utility locate industry and voiced his concern that safety in the underground damage prevention industry may be eroding as a whole.
• MnOPS Update: Mike Mendiola indicated the 216D Stakeholder meetings were in process and a number of subgroup meetings were held the previous week. Further discussion will take place concerning proposed changes this Fall.
• OCC Report: Kimberly Boyd advised the work from home initiative continues at the notification center and has been a great success. Currently, 56 CSRs are working from home with 17 well-spaced in the office for a total of 73.
• Outreach and PR Report: Olivia Jensen advised the Board that more outreach on radio is being provided this year due to the cancellation of so many events, including Farm Fest and the State Fair. The 811 Run itself was cancelled.
• Finance Committee Report: Tom Hoffman advised the Board that the Finance Committee has not met over the summer due to the pandemic. However, the audit of the 2019 financial statements has been successfully completed.