Northern Nevada
Targeting & Celebrating Excavators
In 2024, the Northern Nevada Silver Shovel Committee began a unique effort to target and celebrate excavators practicing safe digging. Bimonthly, the committee identifies an outstanding contractor and acknowledges their outstanding safety practices with a banner to display at the company office and a BBQ lunch courtesy of the NRCGA.
Scroll down to learn about the companies identified and awarded for their outstanding performances.
The Silver Shovel Committee selected Titan Electrical Contracting as its first award recipient. Titan is a prominent electric, traffic signal and communications install contractor working throughout Northern Nevada.
The Reno Oddie Street Rehabilitation Project, which concluded the summer of 2024, was a two-year process involving Titan and several contractors. The Titan crew rose to the occasion every day in challenging conditions, protecting all underground facilities.
Going out of the way to make sure locate marks were maintained, working daily with utility locators, assuring standby inspectors were on site when working around high profile facilities were everyday practices for Titan.
Great job, Titan Electric!
Arguably, one could consider the risk level for damaging any utility to be very high for an excavator that performs the type of work Mears does day in day out. Their work scope and feet of ditch excavated exposes them to underground utilities all day, month, and year.
We feel Mears Pipeline damage metrics set them apart from the pack. From April 2023 to current in Northern Nevada, Mears reports:
- 255,262.05 man hours
- 228,245 feet of installed natural gas and electric underground
- 43.22 miles, all distribution (public streets, subdivisions, state highways)
- 2,537 protective meters installed (4 excavations for each, in the middle of many residential utilities at the structure)
- 73 employees
- Zero Damages
Hats off to this crew! Maybe Mears is breaking new ground. . . If we all tracked our metrics in this manner, it could be quite a motivator for our teams.
F&P Construction has been a prominent Northern Nevada “staple” for years, specializing in “moving mountains.” F&P takes on large commercial projects in Reno along with the massive data center/high tech development work taking place in the TRIC/USA Parkway area.
The F&P Safety group always hits the bar in areas of ticket management, high profile standby scheduling, communicating with all utility locators and training aspects of safe excavation around all utilities.
We had the opportunity to address F&P ownership, management, and their safety committee on December 18. It was clear they put a premium on safety, and very much appreciated an outside group such as the NRCGA recognizing their hard work and commitment.
As F&P crews are very spread out, their safety group the intent to present each crew the banner awarded yesterday, thanking all their employees for their commitment.
