Gold Shovel Standard, a nonprofit association created to provide a first-of-its-kind excavation safety program, today announced that Allen S Gray has joined the Gold Shovel Standard Board of Directors.
Mr. Gray currently serves as NC/SC Government Relations, Utility Division Director for Carolinas AGC (CAGC), which is a construction trade association made up of contractors and construction-related firms that perform work in North Carolina and South Carolina. CAGC is a chapter of the AGC of America (AGC) and the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA).
Allen was part of the Common Ground Study initiated by the USDOT / PHMSA at the instruction of Congress, is a charter member of the Common Ground Alliance, former charter member of the CGA Board of Directors, former charter co-chair of the CGA Best Practices Committee and current co-chair of the CGA Stakeholder Advocacy Committee, as well as co-editor of the CGA Best Practices.
To achieve its goal of dramatically reducing damages to buried infrastructure from excavation, the Gold Shovel Standard certifies an excavator’s policies and procedures against a set of procedures designed to protect underground facilities, known as the Gold Shovel Standard. The association also plans to publish a rating, known as an EICO™ score, which is to be a fair and transparent measure of an excavator’s caution around buried infrastructure.
“As an organization, we are happy to welcome Allen to the leadership of Gold Shovel Standard. There are few people in the country who have been closer to the challenges of preventing damages to buried infrastructure than Allen. His ability to represent the interests of contractors on the Board of Directors, as we work to build a fair and balanced program will be exceedingly valuable to the program” commented Joe Woomer, Director at Dominion Resources and member of the Gold Shovel Standard Board of Directors. Woomer continued, “to dramatically reduce the frequency with which infrastructure is damaged, requires leaders with knowledge and experience; Allen’s addition goes a long way towards driving the program to that end.”
Allen Gray commented, “I am excited about the promise of the Gold Shovel Standard and look forward to working with fellow Board members in fulfilling that promise. We have an experienced, knowledgeable group of individuals with expertise in all aspects of the one-call process at the table representing the major stakeholders in underground utility safety and damage prevention. I welcome the opportunity and privilege of being a part of the team.”
About Gold Shovel Standard – Gold Shovel Standard is a nonprofit association created for the purpose of expanding the Gold Shovel Standard program, to create a North American scale program, driven by industry and underpinned by data technology, to unify excavation safety under a single broadly meaningful professional brand, that dramatically reduces damages over the next decade. Through peer-to-peer collaboration, and by monitoring the performance of excavators across networks and geographies, Gold Shovel Standard is creating the infrastructure to measure how carefully excavation companies operate on a North American scale.
