Nulca, the leader in the accreditation of underground utility locating training, has announced its commitment to answering the call of the Common Ground Alliance (CGA) in its annual DIRT Report, released September 21, 2023, for “unprecedented collaboration…, with each stakeholder group taking ownership and committing to necessary improvements…if we are to meet the goal of reducing damages by 50% over the next five years.”
PCCA values its partnership with Nulca and fully supports its training efforts. PCCA holds an annual Excavation Safety Summit with Nulca and CGA, and we have made great strides with contractors and locators working on damage prevention issues together.
Nulca’s Locator Training Standards and Practices are cited by CGA’s Best Practices, the definitive guide for underground safety and damage prevention, as “representing an accepted model within the locate industry.” Nulca provides its 150-plus member companies with independent reviews of their training materials, processes, and programs. This review is performed by NSF International Strategic Registrations, a global leader in management systems certification, to ensure compliance with Nulca’s Competency Standard for Underground Utility Locating Training. Additionally, Nulca represents utility locate professionals through its many roles in industry associations and organizations and provides its members with access to its national legislative monitoring program, insurance programs, and product discounts.
“Nulca has set the standard for underground utility locating training and practices for nearly three decades,” Nulca President Mike Marrero said. “As the national leader in locator training accreditation, we have an important role to play in helping the damage prevention industry meet CGA’s challenge of reducing damages to underground utilities by 50% over the next five years, a time of historic infrastructure investment and deployment. In collaboration with the CGA, state 811 organizations, excavators, and operators, Nulca is actively engaged in advancing locator quality and training to meet the next-level challenges the industry faces. We look forward to announcing our exciting path forward in early 2024.”
About Nulca
Nulca, which was formed in 1994 to advance locating throughout North America, publishes a Competency Standard for training utility locators, now in its fifth revision. Nulca provides an accreditation program for ensuring that locator training materials, processes, and programs comply with Nulca’s standards. This accreditation program is administered via an independent review by NSF International Strategic Registrations, a global leader in management systems certification. Learn more at Nulca.org.