Jeff Trowbridge (KS & MO Sales Manager) Training Short
- Oct 1, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 22
It was my pleasure to host our second annual Kansas State Locate Rodeo on September
11th, 2025 along with Kansas One Call. Arch York Sr. (Kansas One Call) and I have been helping
conduct events like this for the past 15 years across several states and truly it is one of my
favorite days of the entire work year. Underground utility locating is a very tough job where
an operator is attempting to find facilities made of various materials, installed all sorts of
ways, and taken from a 2D print and applied to an underground 3D world that they can’t see.
When you sign up to locate you are choosing a vocation that is critically important and
that you’ll never find easy. Therein lies the reward.
20 years into this business I still draw great satisfaction from
turning around for one last glance at my locate site and knowing I did the job right, and those that will work around my marks have the opportunity to get home safely. This is a job worth doing and a career worth having.
For the uninitiated the concepts of
electro-magnetic locating might seem intimidating,
mysterious, or just plain confusing to those outside the locate industry. This
is certainly not the case for the 50 registered competitors of the 2025
Kansas State Locate Rodeo. These intrepid men and women came together
September 11th to represent a myriad of companies from all
across this great state and to show their skills and they did not disappoint.
Concepts of Locating Underground Facilities
The operator who responds to your one-call ticket will survey the scene consulting all
prints, maps, measurements at their disposal before beginning the physical act of locating the
infrastructure at the site.
Once they have done that it is time to hit the field. What that technician is essentially
doing is building a circuit for current to flow on. This flowing current will generate a
biproduct
of electro-magnetic fields which are
what the technician will actually
detect.
So, the first step is one of the more
critical for a successful operation…placing your ground rod.
The ground rod that our negative lead coming from
the transmitter will ultimately be attached to is
where our circuit opens and closes.
Where it is placed and the amount of earth contact,
we achieve is crucial to a great outcome.
Once the negative lead is applied the operator takes their red lead and attaches is to the
target line via the access point they have selected. Whether that be a water meter,
fire hydrant, or even an in-line valve.
Now it’s time to turn on the transmitter. Then select the proper frequency and output for
your material and the way it was installed. Then we’ll do one more thing,
check your milliamps and voltage to get a profile of how your circuit is performing.
Always remember the receiver, wand, handheld thingy…is not your locator! The transmitter
is the work horse bringing your circuit to life. So don’t be in a hurry to grab that show pony of a receiver
and start swinging.
Great locators understand their circuit and how it is performing via
the transmitter and until
they are satisfied with their milliamps and voltage, they are not
ready to cowboy up.
Once the operator is satisfied with their
transmitter’s performance now it is time to
“Skin that smoke wagon and see what happens” …For those of you that know your Tombstone
quotes…and for anyone that doesn’t, well you’ve got homework to do.
With the receiver the operator sweeps to find the position of the
current and the electro magnetic that is clinging to the conduct they
desire to find.
Once they have found a response they like they will gain down and fine tune their
machine to garner greater accuracy. Once satisfied that they have found top dead center
after consulting their receiver milliamps and the depth reading, they begin to walk the
line and dot it out as they move away from their transmitter. Once they have reached the
opposite end, they follow the line back confirming their previous tone and change the
dots into lines and apply flags where needed.
Those items listed above are the essential tenements of a great locate.
Improper locates can result in loss of service, damage to property, personal injury, or even
death. Damage to underground infrastructure results in societal costs of more than $30
Billion dollars annually per the 2024 CGA DIRT REPORT. The majority of damages however
are not due to improper locates. The two largest contributing factors for infrastructure
damage are damage to a facility by an excavator for a line that was marked accurately.
This is due to poor excavation habits that include, but are not limited to,
failure to pothole and expose a marked line, failure to adhere to the two-foot tolerance zone of a marked facility. Etc. the other largest
contributing factor to damaging facilities, believe it or not, is that the excavating party
never called in a one-call ticket in the first place. This is usually due to a subpar understanding
of one call law. These offenders typically believe they didn’t need to call in a ticket for the following
reasons. They thought they had an exception that they simply never had. They thought they
weren’t digging deep enough. They thought only professional excavators needed to call
one-call. THEY BELIEVED THEY KNEW WHERE ALL THE LINES WERE ON THEIR PROPERTY.
If a damage does occur, no matter how great or small you believe that
damage to be it is time then to call in a dig-up ticket via Kansas One Call and report it.
Facility owners would rather wrap their pipe
andprotect their cathodic in the case of gas or to
repair that broken tracer wire now while it is open
and exposed rather than learn it occurred the
hard way down the road when it caused injury to another.
If you believe you have struck,
scuffed, harmed a gas facility in
any way you must make three calls…1.) Call the Gas Company Directly, 2.) Call 911 and get
first responders enroute, 3.) Call Kansas One Call and report
the damage for a dig-up.
If a facility owner does not mark a known facility, please call the facility owner directly
and/or reach out to Kansas One Call for assistance.
Kansas One Call
Arch York Sr. (Damage Prevention Manager – Kansas City)913-219-4174
Keely Hosmann (Damage Prevention Manager – Wichita)316-243-8502
There are a multitube of reasons that damage to underground facilities occurs
beyond a mis-locate by a technician. Of the more than half a million damages in
the United States and Canada annually only about 17,000 are due to locator error.
There can be other issues with locates such as insufficient maps, measurements, etc.
which can grow the number from the locate side of the house but honestly when a
properly trained locator applies their craft, they are very
good at what they do. Such is the case of excavators and facility owners as well.
So, it is incumbent upon all members of the underground community to work together to
reduce the potential risk involved when both marking and working around underground
lines.
The fine folks who just competed in the 2nd Annual Kansas State Locate Rodeo held in
McPherson, KS understand those risks and work diligently every day to ensure they
accurately mark underground lines to protect vital infrastructure as well as those that
work with and live around them.
Thank You for reading this article if you or your team would benefit from in person
training, “I’m your huckleberry”, please feel free to reach out to me to schedule a session at
your site today.
Jeff Trowbridge
Subsurface Solutions
Area Manager
913-275-9589
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