The board is also considering changing the billing method to an allocation methodology. The board heard comments from members at the special meeting and Annette Reburn, Executive Director of Alabama 811 discussed their experience when converting to the allocation method. More discussion on this topic is planned and several members have offered their rate experts to help determine the allocation method that would be most equitable and fair as we move forward on this task.

The new NM811 building nears completion; 95% of the work has been done. The building is scheduled to be done the end of September and the call center staff is planning to move into the building over the Columbus Day holiday October 10, 2011, assuming the testing and vetting of all the new equipment is completed and no significant issues arise. You will want to mark your calendars as the NM811 staff has tentatively scheduled an “open house” of the new facility for Friday December 16, 2011, from 9am-3pm.

“We’re in an area that has many oil and gas companies,” said Daniel Engert, Northwest Area Manager for New Mexico Gas Company. “So we look for every opportunity to reach out to the public and take advantage of all the talent we have in our group.”

Engert is part of a sub-committee tasked with identifying opportunities to take the partnership’s safety message to audiences not previously reached. According to Engert, informing children about the dangers of above- and below-ground facilities is a national trend.

New Mexico Gas Company is an active member of the Four Corners Damage Prevention Group and Engert has taken on a leadership role in getting the message delivered to audiences of all age groups and responsibilities.

“We conduct about 14 safety conferences a year in the region,” said Engert. “And we invite excavators and emergency responders as well as others from the community to discuss issues concerning pipeline safety.” According to Engert, the annual conference in Farmington has approximately 300 attendees.

The elementary school program was added to the group’s schedule last year and 17 of the 26 Four Corners pipeline member companies participate in the new program.

“It definitely adds to our work load,” said Engert. “But we have several volunteers that are willing to provide their time to the students. So we are able to spread the load.” Engert believes that the investment of time will have huge benefits in the future. He also believes the message is more effective because the pipeline employees that present the safety information live and work in the communities where the students reside.
The Four Corners Damage Prevention Group knows their safety message can be more effectively delivered by the partnership rather than as individual companies. That’s one reason the Four Corners Damage Prevention Group took on the work.

“One of the difficulties of informing school children about well-sites and pipeline safety is getting in front of them,” Engert said. “It’s just not possible for every company that has facilities in the community to present a safety message to every school.” The Four Corners’ safety message is presented one time and the member companies share in the program and the cost.

The Four Corners group also developed a partnership with the “Hard Hat Harry” educational safety program created by Christy Grossheim of Treetop Promotions. “They have an excellent program about the dangers of oil field facilities,” said Engert. “We take Hard Hat Harry with us and he helps us present our 811 ‘Call Before You Dig’ message. The kids love him.”

The Four Corners partnership began scheduling time with school systems about two months ahead of the presentations. Engert said the partnership identified approximately 50 schools it wanted to visit. “We just assumed that all of them would be real eager to say yes to our request,” he said. “But we had about a 50-percent rejection rate.”

According to Engert, some of the larger school systems couldn’t honor the request because of a lack of time for the program. “We also learned that sometimes we weren’t talking to the right person.” Engert said the best opportunities came from smaller school systems and contacts with local superintendents or principals.
It was a good first year for the program. More than 20 schools said yes to the Four Corners’ request and the “Stay Away – Stay Alive” and “Call 811 Before You Dig” messages that were presented to the region’s most precious possession.

Engert said the group is working on a more helpful system for measuring the effectiveness of their program. “We’ve talked about developing a few written questions for the students and asking the teachers to compile the results and enter them into an on-line database,” he said. “We plan to offer a $25 gift card for each room that participates.”

“We hope to see the program continue to grow,” said Engert. “And we’re planning to have a great program next year. We are also excited about the possibilities of taking our safety message to high school students and maybe involving a high school television class in the production of the safety message.”
Working with elementary students was also educational for the Four Corners Damage Prevention Group. “We learned that the kids are quick to rat out their parents,” Engert said. “They didn’t hesitate to tell us that daddy put in a sprinkler system or did some other work and didn’t call 811. We’re pretty sure they’ll remind daddy to call next time.”

Recently, there has been quite a bit of discussion and confusion regarding jurisdictional facilities within the State of New Mexico. The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission Pipeline Safety Bureau (PSB) is responsible for ensuring intrastate natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines are operated and maintained in compliance with state and federal regulations. The key word is INSTRASTATE. If you own and/or operate a pipeline that is installed within and does not cross the state boundary, then I encourage you to contact the PSB office and we will discuss the possibility of meeting one of the following categories of definition:
Natural gas storage:

a) pipelines to and from natural gas storage facilities are regulated as transmission lines;
b) except for transmission lines and pipe-or-bottle-type holders, natural gas storage facilities are currently not regulated under Part 192; and
c) transmission lines are considered storage facilities.
Regulated natural gas pipelines include:
a) Gathering lines in Class 2, 3 and/or 4 locations;
b) Transmission lines in all class locations; and
c) Distribution lines, including LPG systems serving 10 or more service
lines, or those in which a portion of the system is located in a public place.
Hazardous liquid storage:
a) breakout tanks are regulated under Part 195
b) storage caverns are jurisdictional but currently not regulated under Part 195
Regulated hazardous liquid pipelines include:
a) Any pipeline that transports a highly volatile liquid (HVL), such
as propane or natural gas liquids;
b) Transportation through any
pipeline, other than a gathering
line, that has a maximum
operating pressure (MOP) greater
than 20% of the specified
minimum yield strength;
c) Any pipeline segment that
crosses a waterway currently used
for commercial navigation;
d) Transportation of petroleum in
any of the following onshore
gathering lines:
1. A pipeline located in a non-rural area;
2. Low stress gathering lines of 6” or more in diameter that
are within ¼ mile of an
unusually sensitive area
e) Any pipeline that transports a
hazardous liquid or carbon dioxide
through a low-stress pipeline
or segment of pipeline that 1) is in
a non-rural area or 2) meets the
criteria defined in § 195.12 (a)
f) For purposes of the reporting
requirements in subpart B, a rural
low-stress pipeline of any
diameter

Feel free to email me at jasonn.montoya@state.nm.us or call me at (505) 476-0253 if you would like further clarification.

You are four independent companies: (1) the one call system, (2) locator, (3) excavator, and (4) utility. So are you a team or not? Regardless of how you answer that question, participants at a recent focus group at the TX811 Summit advanced the notion that the stakeholders could do a lot more to help each other be successful. One participant went so far as to say, “We do a good job at beating on each other.”

There are a lot of differences between the stakeholders. As independent companies, you have different owners and each of you has your own goals along your journey to be financially successful. What you do is different. You’ve got issues within your company that the other entities are not aware of and you might argue don’t need to be aware of. You’ve got your set of personnel issues and struggle to maximize the use of resources.

Let’s address another question — what do you have in common? You want to be profitable, you provide a livelihood to employees and their families, you have common people issues, etc. More specifically, you interact in the same industry. The question is do these commonalities make you a team?
Before answering that question, let’s list the basic characteristics of a team.

1. Members have a common vision and goal.
2. Each member knows their roles and responsibilities to achieve.
3. Each member proactively meets/exceeds the expectations of other team members.
4. Each member gives and receives feedback.
5. There is an accountability system to keep members working to achieve a common goal.

Let’s consider the impact of a common vision and goal. Having worked within organizations as a consultant the past 20 + years, I know that having a common vision and goal are critical for members within a team or departments within the same company to feel as one team. A vision and goal provide direction so employees know where you are going and what is to be achieved. They provide employees a purpose and give meaning to their work. People like feeling like an integral part of something larger than themselves. Consequently, your employees will be more loyal, have a higher morale, and will be more productive when they feel as though everyone in your company is striving to achieve the same vision and common goals.

In your case, you are independent companies working together under the umbrella of damage prevention. You may not have sat around a conference table to define your common vision and goal, but it seems logical to assume that you should have a common vision to prevent damages. Could we be so bold as to say that the glue that binds you independent stakeholders together is the goal to prevent damages? If so, it would seem logical that each of you is a member of an overall damage prevention team.

If you agree, that sets the stage for you to help each other succeed rather than each of you going off in different directions with little regard for other stakeholders. Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason report the same in their recent book, Boundary Spanning Leadership (2011). Common sense dictates that we ought to help each other to be successful. Would you agree?

Let’s look at this issue from another perspective. As I’ve said, WHAT each of you does is different. Consequently HOW you do what you do is different. If I were to ask you “WHY” you do what you do, you may respond to “make a profit.” In reality, though, profit is a by-product of successfully completing your job responsibilities so that the excavator works safely. The logical conclusion is that the common WHY among you independent companies is to prevent damages by helping people work safely.

I’m out of space so the next time we’ll continue our discussion of being members of a damage prevention team.

Freddy almost snorted a mouthful of soda pop out of his nose. “Nobody’s that old,” he said, laughing and coughing at the same time.
“Looky here, boy, you better act like you’ve got some sense if you expect me to bail you out of a jam again,” I smiled while chiding him a bit.

The truth is that Freddy is a fine young man. And our little community is fortunate to have him taking care of our water system. He is about the fourth or fifth operator the board hired since I retired right after the big blizzard of ’82. And, sooner or later, they’d all come around to see me about a line that couldn’t be found for whatever reason, or some other equally perplexing system problem.

“So I’m still waiting for an answer,” he said. “When you were my age why didn’t you put a tracer wire with the PVC pipe so folks following you could find it? Or did you think you were just going to always be here?”

I’ll admit the practice of putting in plastic pipe without any means of identifying it was a poor practice. However, it was a common practice back in my day. But with the technology available today, the idea of burying any underground facility without the slightest consideration of “how am I going to find this next year” baffles even old folks like me.

I would have gladly helped him, as I’d helped him and others in the past without the promise of a round of golf the following day. He was an avid golfer, and we had simply learned to enjoy one another’s company. He’d tease me about being old and I’d revel in his youth and inexperience.
“I’ll follow you over to Blue Bayou Road and show you where the line is,” I told Freddy.

“Nah, just ride with me and I’ll bring you back to your rocking chair,” he chuckled. And so off we went to find a line that I well remembered putting in over 40 years ago.

We got out of the truck and I reached in the bed and pulled out my witching rods. “Oh, good grief, let me hide. I don’t want anybody to pass by and think that I believe in this voodoo locating,” Freddy said with a wide smile.

Actually, I already knew where the line was, but I also knew that pulling out the witching rods drove him crazy. I called that a “two for one” kind of deal. And that was worth the trip.

He dropped me off at the mailbox and said, “I’ll pick you up in the morning, if you aren’t too worn out from holding those magic wands for the past hour.” And off he went before I could reply with another “when I was your age” story.

Sure enough the next day, Freddy was there right on schedule. We looked forward to a pleasant day. It was a perfect day and I played at my usual leisurely pace. I never was able to hit a ball very far anyway. He consistently outdrove me fifty yards, and he liked it. He really ragged me on the front nine about slowing him down with all those short drives. “We need to speed it up a bit or we’ll have to come back tomorrow to finish,” he said.

I teed up on the tenth hole and drove the ball predictably down the middle, but not very far. As if to pick up the pace, Freddy teed up quickly and drove the ball almost out of sight. He took off walking briskly toward his ball and said over his shoulder, “Take the cart, hit your ball and you can join me at the dogleg.”
After hitting my second shot, I drove to where Freddy’s ball had landed. I stopped the cart behind my young friend and sat there as I watched him deal with the frustration of hitting a great long drive that ended up looking like a very tough second shot. There was a large pine tree right in front of his ball, directly between his ball and the green. After sitting there several minutes and watching him debate how best to hit the shot, I finally said, “You know, when I was your age I’d hit the ball right over that tree.”

With that challenge placed before him, my young friend swung hard and hit the ball right smack into the top of the tree trunk, where it thudded back on the ground not a foot from where it had originally been and not more than five feet from my second shot.
He didn’t move. I didn’t utter a sound. I broke the silence with one more comment, “Of course, when I was your age that pine tree was only 3 feet tall.”
Fore!

ZING! That’s my byword for success. I shouted it at the top of my lungs as I entered the front door of our home. The family gathered around as I, giddy with excitement and grinning from ear to ear, announced that I had actually won the sales contest for a trip to Bermuda. It was the result of closing a deal that no one anticipated I could pull off.

The sunshine on my face created a warm feeling that was enhanced by the cool breeze and smell of the salt air from the ocean. The water, the bluest blue I had ever seen, stood out dramatically against the white sandy beach in front of me. There were pink houses and palm trees. It was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. It was our first day and I was standing in front of the hotel soaking up the beauty surrounding me.

A gentleman and his wife standing next to me engaged me in conversation; her comment heightened the surreal feeling. “How long have you been here?” I asked. They responded that they had been there for a week and were on their way to the airport that morning to go home. “Don’t do what we did,” his wife admonished. Eager to learn what to avoid, I inquired what they had done. “We loved this so much that we spent the entire day yesterday bemoaning the fact that we had to go home today. This morning, we realized that what we had done was lose the enjoyment of the day because of our attitude. We should have just enjoyed the day,” she said. I promised myself that we would enjoy every day we had there to the fullest.

That was 35 years ago but their regret showed so dramatically that I continue to live by their advice today. They reminded me of how often we waste our lives with “What if’s” and “If only’s.” How tragic that we put off living with phrases that start when we are children: “When I grow up,” “When I turn 21,” “When I get married,” “When the kids leave home” –– “When I retire.” We dream as if there were some magical rose garden in our future instead of enjoying the present. In the process, we miss it all and life is gone.

Soon after, I read an article that along with this incident helped me to live more fully. The sentence that stood out to me was: Every day is a new life to a wise man. Life is about our ability to live in the present, recognizing we can’t change the past and can only deal with the future in the future. What we have is today. We each have only so much psychic energy. When we spend it on things we can do nothing about, we then have none left for the important things. I was taught if something is worth worrying about then it’s worth doing something about. If we’re not willing or able to do something about it, we should spend our energy elsewhere.

How do you implement being in the moment? Whether at work or play, it’s not about physically showing up and having our minds elsewhere. It’s about taking control of our thoughts and focusing on where we are, what we’re doing, NOW. Giving NOW our full attention and doing it to the fullest. That’s how winners get the most out of life.
That creates zing in your life.

It was six men of Indostan to learning much inclined, who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind), and that each by observation might satisfy his mind

The first approached the elephant, and happening to fall against his broad and sturdy side, at once began to bawl: “God bless me! But the elephant is very like a wall!”
The second, feeling of the tusk, cried, “Ho! What have we here so very round and smooth and sharp? To me ‘tis mighty clear this wonder of an elephant is very like a spear!”

The third approached the animal, and happening to take the squirming trunk within his hands, thus boldly up and spake: “I see,” quoth he, “the elephant is very like a snake!”

The fourth reached out an eager hand, and felt about the knee. “What most this wondrous beast is like is mighty plain,” quoth he; “‘tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree!”

The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, said: “E’en the blindest man can tell what this resembles most; deny the fact who can? This marvel of an elephant is very like a fan!”

The sixth no sooner had begun about the beast to grope, than, seizing on the swinging tail that fell within his scope, “I see,” quoth he, “the elephant is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan disputed loud and long, each in his own opinion exceeding stiff and strong, though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

Admittedly there is more than one moral to this story. But one obvious lesson for us to learn is that it is not enough to gather knowledge. It is equally important to learn to share and pool our knowledge.

Instead of fighting among ourselves, it is time to put our experiences and observations together in the best interest of keeping our families and communities safer. That likely means we must exhibit the willingness to sit down at the table of understanding with the intent of seeing the entire truth.

How was it possible that these six blind men could be so right and yet be so completely wrong? Because they would not consider one another’s perspectives, they settled for being half-right. Such half-knowledge is not just useless, but also dangerous.

From another great writer, we are reminded that none of us are so blind as those of us who will not see.
Won’t you at least consider the possibility that there is another part to the elephant?

I was at the Kendall Inn in Borne, Texas, having a drink with a business associate. A certain gentleman, we’ll call him John, is a stable fixture at the bar. He’s a local rancher who lost his wife to cancer a few years ago and the bar is his social outlet. He told us that one day he was not at the bar by his designated time of 3:30. He became very emotional when telling us that hotel employees called his home and cell phone to make certain that he was okay. With tears in his eyes, he ended the conversation saying, “These people really care about me,” and promptly left to smoke his cigarette. The magic of caring.

During Oprah Winfrey’s last show, she spoke about people she had interviewed throughout her career who had taught her the importance of the answers to the following four questions:
1. Do you see me?
2. Do you hear me?
3. Do you understand what I am saying?
4. Does what I say matter to you?
Lawson Magruder, a retired 3 Star General, tells the story about the “little green book.” At the beginning of his career, the Platoon Sergeant asked him if he was coachable. He then handed Lawson a “little green book” and instructed him to get to know his men. The Sergeant coached him to interview each member of his platoon and to fill his “little green book” with information about his people. Lawson did that during his tours in Vietnam, Somalia and other assignments. Can you imagine the number of little green notebooks he filled during his thirty-two years in the military? The magic of caring.

Now contrast what you’ve read thus far with another true story. I observed an employee talking to his supervisor about the need to be with his father who was having heart surgery later that day. After the employee left, I asked the supervisor why he never used the employee’s name. He said, “Because I don’t know it.” My question to him was, “How long has the employee worked for you?” He responded, “About six months.” I was shocked and dismayed that this supervisor did not take the time to even to know his workers’ names. His last question was, “Do you expect me to know the names of the 100 employees under my supervision?” As the comedian Jeff Foxworthy so proudly states, “Sometimes people have STUPID written on their forehead.” The employee turnover rate for that work unit approached 200%. I wonder why?

The connection between damage prevention and caring for your employees should be obvious. Most managers think that money, employee benefits and job security are the factors that motivate their employees. Numerous studies have shown them to be wrong. Employees of all ages want to be valued. They want to know that their manager cares about them as an individual instead of just another member of the team. It is hard to understand why managers continue to think they need to throw money at employees to motivate them when they need to be “caring” for their employees, which costs nothing but time. Perhaps they don’t know any better or they’re just too lazy to do what needs done. Again borrowing Jeff Foxworthy’s terminology, would you agree that the most stupid thing any of us can do is to continue doing something that we know is not right?

Let’s look at working safely. I could list numerous studies completed in a variety of industries, including my own in the construction industry, which show employees work more safely when they feel that their manager cares about them as an individual.

Showing people you care is easy. Consider the fact that your most valuable asset is right before your very eyes. Take the time to get to know your people. Interview your people and use the “little green book.” Learn about your people, their goals, family and hobbies. Show that you care about their job performance. Empower them with challenging and meaningful work. Provide daily recognition for a job well done and coaching when their performance calls for improvement. Author Terry Paulson offered an intriguing option in his book Optimistic Advantage. He discussed the CEO who met weekly with each direct report to have them answer the question – “What did you do right this week?”

Readers, I am asking you to recognize the magic when you consistently show people that you care! Cut the above paragraph from this article and post it where you will see it every day to serve as a reminder. Remember the words of Theodore Roosevelt, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”