Fairfax, VA –The Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) Association has announced that it is hosting a Winter Forum, January 31 – February 2, 2023 at the Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor (Greater Tampa), FL.
SUE is a professional service that combines, civil engineering, geophysics and surveying. It utilizes several technologies, including vacuum excavation, ground penetrating radar, surface geophysics, and others. Since the early 1990s, SUE has become a valuable and widely-used pre-design process that enables engineering judgment, designating, locating, surveying of positioning, data management, and conflict analysis as a deliverable to help minimize or eliminate many of the utility problems typically encountered on infrastructure projects. SUE applies ASCE 38 standards of care to avoid many utility relocations before construction and many unexpected underground utility encounters during construction, thereby eliminating many costly, time-consuming project delays.
“The Winter Forum is a conference focusing on the latest in policy, standard guidelines, technology, practice issues, and markets. An outstanding line up of presenters will inform and educate on a variety of timely topics that will enhance the knowledge of SUE practitioners with actionable information and intelligence that can be applied in their business or organization,” said Andrew Sylvest, Director of Utilities at Lamb-Star Engineering, Golden, Colorado, President of the SUE Association.
Presentations include:
Ryan Bean, PE, ROW/Utility Department Manager, Kiewit will discuss utility issues and design build procurements. Ryan will share his experience with the good, bad, and unknown utility information provided during design build pursuits. He will discuss how important it is for early partnering with utility owners, enhancing utility information, partnering with potential SUE firms, utility relocations, how to deal with 3D information, one call mark, and the importance of great utility coordinators.
Kirk Hoosac, RLA, KCI Technologies, will examine how landscape and utilities share the always crowded right of way, giving a perspective from a registered landscape architect on local signature projects that are currently being designed and how his team handles identifying, confirming, and resolving the right of way and existing utility infrastructure puzzle.
Santosh Saride, PE, Prism Technologies, will present the latest in Gyroscopic Mapping Technology. To prevent accidents from happening, it is crucial to get better underground utility mapping solutions that can give accurate maps to rely on. Prism Technology provides better underground mapping, with technology and tools that are not limited by ground conditions, duct material type or satellite connections. Their technology provides; accurate mapping of underground assets for verification and future reference and a revised set of as-built drawings to be recorded and submitted by the contractor upon completion of a construction project.
Jim Anspach, PG, will update on professional certification efforts in development for multiple utility related professional disciplines from a field designator to office utility technician and utility coordination, sharing a summary of the current status and the future of these positions.
Nick Zembillas, SUE, LLC, has been involved in efforts to strengthen SUE requirements under Pennsylvania state law. He will provide an update on a proposal to further the application of SUE in Pennsylvania that could be a model for use in other states.
Matt Wolfe, Impulse Radar, will lead a discussion on the technology behind the PinPointR ground penetrating radar (GPR), the Raptor GPR array, and Condor software.
Dan Colby, UMS, will present a case study on a comprehensive SUE effort under way in New York City.
Linda Foster, PLS, GISP, will discuss how data collected through SUE field activities can be integrated into a geographic information system (GIS) for future utilization, reference, and application.
Barb Ryan, Executive Director of the World Geospatial Industry Council (WGIC) will report on how Underground Digital Twins are being implemented in projects in the U.S. and abroad.
A SUE Roundtable, moderated by SUE Association Executive Director John Palatiello will lead an interactive session in which the audience explores hot topics affecting what members of the SUE profession can do to improve the SUE process, how the SUE community of consultants and agencies can collectively implement changes to ensure that SUE investigations and deliverables are being performed by reputable and legitimate subsurface utility engineering providers, technology and workforce balance and challenges, and how the community can continue to provide quality SUE investigations.
About SUE
The SUE Association is a 501(c)(6) trade association of firms involved in providing SUE services, as well as firms engaged in the manufacturing and/or supplying of subsurface utility engineering equipment, supplies, hardware, software or services that support SUE service providers, as well as government agencies, universities and other institutions of higher learning, non-profit organizations, and other entities not engaged in but with an interest in subsurface utility engineering. For information on the SUE Association, as well as additional conference information, registration, and hotel reservations, visit www.sueassociation.
