Minneapolis, MN – January 29, 2010 – KorTerra partnered with Gopher State One Call to organize and host the GSOC 2010 Member Summit on January 20 at the Gopher State One Call facility.  Nearly 180 attendees from 130 organizations gathered to collaborate on industry issues, share ideas and promote excavation safety.

Attendees had several educational and roundtable sessions to choose to participate in, including:

  • Gopher State One Call Update and Upcoming Initiatives
  • KorWeb Ticket Management Software Demonstration
  • ITIC Training
  • Utility Coordinating Committee (UCC) Website Review
  • Gopher State One Call Tours
  • KorTerra Software Review and Roundtable Discussion

The sessions were created to promote damage prevention and excavation safety in an interactive format.  Many personal best practice stories were shared by attendees along with a great dialogue of questions and answers during sessions.  Not only did the session presenters provide information, they were enlightened with the real-life experience volunteered by attendees.  Numerous positive situations and successes were shared during the sessions about the value of using KorWeb to manage locate tickets in their organization.  Gopher State One Call provides KorWeb ticket management software to all call center members as a free member benefit.  Many positive comments were also made about the ITIC training, Gopher State One Call activity update sessions and the overall summit itself. 

Here are a few of the insights shared by attendees about the overall conference:

“The GSOC Summit was an excellent opportunity to get an overview of the KorWeb product, helping us to determine if is a good fit for our locators, and I enjoyed the chance to network with the others from the locating industry.” Kris Tande, CenterPoint Energy.

“I was impressed by GSOC's innovation and broad efforts in improving communication with the ultimate goal of keeping the public and our infrastructure safe.  Thank you for your service!” Denine Leroux, Rhino Marking and Protection Systems.

“This was the first summit that I personally have attended and was very impressed.  I will for sure be making it to every Summit that will be held from here on out.  Thank you for putting this together!” Conrad Bombardier, Charter Communications.

Chris Stendal, president of KorTerra, also weighed in on the event.  “The Gopher State One Call Member Summit was a great opportunity for KorTerra to connect with the utilities and locators that use our software on a daily basis.  KorTerra appreciates the enthusiasm Gopher State One Call instills within their organization to serve their members, and we highly value our partnership with GSOC.”

Both KorTerra and Gopher State One Call view the summit as a huge success.  Minnesota’s One Call Center takes a very dedicated and proactive approach to assisting its members, including their Board of Directors, and is always striving to provide new services, technology and information that will help them succeed in their excavation and damage prevention ventures.  The goals of continuing to reach out to the member community were solidly achieved through this event.