Lines in the Sky: The Overhead Risk You’re Overlooking

What if the next big thing in utility safety isn’t underground—but overhead? 

Mike Sullivan sits down with Nathan Coutu from ATCO Electric to spotlight the groundbreaking "Lookup and Live" application, a collaborative initiative aimed at reducing overhead power line contacts. 

Nathan shares how this Alberta-wide, GIS-based mobile and web app helps users visualize and safely navigate around energized overhead lines—especially crucial for agricultural, construction, and utility workers. 

Drawing inspiration from similar successes in Australia and Saskatchewan, he reveals the collaborative journey of Alberta utilities working together for public safety, the staggering contact statistics that prompted action, and the powerful simplicity of a solution that could save lives. 

If you’ve ever thought "I knew the power line was there—I just didn’t see it this time," this episode could be a game-changer.

Listen For:

3:48 The Birth of “Lookup and Live” in Alberta

5:16 From “Where’s the Line” to a Province-Wide Collaboration

7:22 The Overhead Threat You Keep Ignoring

16:51 50% Fewer Incidents: What Australia Taught Us

24:52 The Push for Simplicity and Adoption

27:20 Breaking Through Data Sharing Barriers

Connect with guest Nathan Coutu

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Got an episode idea? info@utilitysafety.ca 

Chapters

• 3:48 The Birth of “Lookup and Live” in Alberta
• 5:16 From “Where’s the Line” to a Province-Wide Collaboration
• 7:22 The Overhead Threat You Keep Ignoring
• 16:51 50% Fewer Incidents: What Australia Taught Us
• 24:52 The Push for Simplicity and Adoption
• 27:20 Breaking Through Data Sharing Barriers

Transcript

Announcer (00:02):

You are listening to the Safety Moment Podcast by Utility Safety Partners. Safety is always a good conversation and it's a click away. Here's your host, Mike Sullivan.

Mike Sullivan (00:16):

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Safety Moment podcast. My guest today is Mr. Nathan Coutu. He is with ATCO Electric, and we're going to be talking about a new application that we have been working on and Nathan has been leading called The Lookup and Live Application. It allows people and helps people work their plan relative to working near overhead power lines. You can use the application to see where you are in relation to overhead power lines and how to work your project accordingly and safely. So without any further ado, let's get right into it. Nathan, thank you for joining me on the Safety Moment podcast. And we've been talking about doing this for a while and you've been working on the lookup and live application for quite a while. Before we get into that, maybe just introduce yourself and tell us what you do at ATCO Electric.

Nathan Coutu (01:05):

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Mike, and I've been looking forward to this and connecting with you on the Lookup and live app. So my name is Nathan Coutu. I'm the operations manager for Acco Electric up in Fort McMurray, Alberta. I've been with ACO for 16 years in a variety of roles, moved around the province of Alberta, seen a lot of different country up here, and currently as operations manager, I look after about 40 distribution employees up here in Fort McMurray that helped keep the lights on and do a variety of things from maintenance construction to troubleshooting, even emergency maintenance that we cover on a daily basis.

Mike Sullivan (01:40):

So you're up in Fort McMurray now, but were you an actual born and raised Albertan?

Nathan Coutu (01:46):

Yeah, I sure am. I grew up in the small town of two Hills, Alberta, just north of Ville where the big Easter egg is. Whenever I say that, everybody knows where Ville is, so it's easy to pinpoint. But yeah, I grew up a small town kid on a farm for most of my life before we moved out to an acreage and then moved on to start my career with Acco. It took two years of schooling at Nate Northern Alberta Institute of Technology where I took communications engineering technology focused a lot of my time and effort into microwave radios and fiber optics. And that's actually how I got my start at aco. They had an indigenous students awareness program that I applied on and was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to work a summer at Acco and fell in love working at the company.

Mike Sullivan (02:35):

Well, it's a great company to work for. I think. I haven't met a bad apple there and not that you would probably meet any in the industry these days. I think the bad apples are weeded out a long time, long before they ever get to germinate anywhere else. But no, I've got a lot of great contacts now at ATCO Electric, ATCO Gas, ATCO Gas and Pipelines as a member company. There's few that are as engaged as ATCO and this project that we've been working on collectively and you've been taking the lead on the lookup and live application is an example of that really. I mean you step up to the plate and ATCO is all over it. So before we even get into what the application is and what our hope is for it, it's important to recognize that what the leadership that ATCO and the leadership that you've taken on this, we wouldn't be doing this. We wouldn't be any closer as we are right now. If you hadn't jumped in, if Faco Electric hadn't tapped you on the shoulder, I think is probably what happened and we wouldn't be this far along at all. So thanks for that. It's been great.

Nathan Coutu (03:48):

Yeah, no, I appreciate it, Mike. It's been a fun journey. I think I took this role as operations manager in Fort McMurray back in May of 2024, and my director, har Ginger SoCal kind of tapped me on the shoulder to kick this off because I know you and him had seen something similar to the application in SaaS power or it was through Australia, through Glenn Cook. You kind of seen what they had been working on and bringing awareness to overhead power lines and thought it was a great idea. So he said, Hey Nate, this is something I want you to work on. And he gave me the concept and as I usually do, I don't need much before I dive in and figure things out on my own and start asking around and poke around on how to make something happened. So it was around July that I think me and you had connected Mike and started to talk about how do we bring this to fruition and actually pull off building an Alberta wide utility overhead line map or look up and live where we can share information with our customers to bring more awareness and safety to our customers across the province.

(04:56):

So when we connected and then where did we want to take this? And you provided some contacts at other utilities and I think by August we were up and running with biweekly meetings. That's right, yeah, biweekly meetings where we had probably the seven largest Alberta utilities all collaborating to bring this to life over the last, what, 10 months now. So it's been a lot of fun.

Mike Sullivan (05:16):

Well, it has been, and we go back to when Alberta one call, we went through a unification process with the Alberta Common Ground Alliance, and at the 11th hour, one of the board members said, well, what about the Where's the line campaign? Should we not include that? And we did. The board said, yep, good idea. Let's include that. And you might remember the joint utility safety team just it was called, and they were responsible for that. Where's the line campaign? A very successful campaign, but there was that duplicity that was happening between Alberta One Call click before you dig and where's a line which is above ground assets energy and utility assets. But the joint utility safety team, they discovered that most people going to their website were actually looking to put in a locate. So where is the line? It was a great tagline, but it wasn't directing people to the overhead assets.

(06:11):

So we combined our resources, we became one entity under Utility Safety Partners, but we really haven't done a lot, we've tried a few things to promote awareness for overhead power lines and overhead utilities. I mean, doesn't have to be energized. Power lines could be just as easily telecommunications, but to draw attention to those and to reduce, maybe eliminate contacts with overhead power lines. And it's interesting because we've been so hyper-focused as Alberta One call for the better part of 40 years on preventing damage to buried utilities through call before you did click, before you dig so much focus, so much emphasis and yet not really doing a hell of a lot comparatively to reduce contacts with overhead utilities and whether or not that was because, well, you look up and you can actually see them, they're there. I mean we're not hiding them beneath earth and everything else. And yet contacts still happen. And in fact, if I'm not mistaken, if you look at the data North America wide, I think there's more contacts with above ground utilities than there are with buried utilities. Is that possible?

Nathan Coutu (07:22):

Yeah, I think make a good point there, Mike. We can see it, but we've become so numb to it. They're just always there that we probably, they call it almost like paralysis, that we just kind of become comfortable around them and we don't react to them probably as soon as we should. And looking into the data when we dove into this for the lookup and live on our side or within Echo to see how many actual overhead line contacts were happening was staggering. And I think I did a recent interview up in Peace River around the lookup and live application actually. And we identified in that region alone in the Peace River region alone, we had 78 incidents in 2024. And on average we're seeing around a hundred contacts with our lines every year. So this actually means over the last 10 years we pulled some data and it actually looks like overhead line contacts are actually increasing. So it's almost timely and that we are bringing this lookup and live application to fruition among all the utilities in Alberta because if we're seeing that increase, it's only a matter of time before we see something devastating happen to one of our customers or even some of our employees. And it's

Mike Sullivan (08:38):

So avoidable. I mean it's 100% avoidable and yet these things still happen. So anything we can do individually, collectively to promote awareness and allow people to plan their work and work their plan so they avoid contacts is paramount. And that's exactly what we're doing. Before we get into the application itself though, is there a certain stakeholder group that is contacting overhead assets more than another? Is it the digging community? Is it the agricultural community? Is it ourselves, the actual utilities?

Nathan Coutu (09:12):

I'd have to look back into the data, Mike, but I think it's across the board and it probably goes with the seasons of what's happening in the industry and what's happening in the economy. I'd say even in the agricultural side of the business, early spring farmers are getting out into their fields or they're plowing their fields, they're trying to get the crops in, comes back to a little bit of Russian. And then even in the fall time, they're in harvest mode. They're trying to get all their crops off the field, they're working super late nights and in the middle of the night it's not easy to see an overhead power. Yeah, that's a good point. We see that. And even in the digging community, and I would say even in agriculture, like I said, we see power lines every day. We drive by them every day. There's power lines on farmer's land, they're like, oh yeah, I know it's there. And I'm sure we've both heard that line. I knew that power line was there,

(10:06):

I just didn't see it this time. And then that's what causes the incident. And when you're dealing with high voltage electricity, sometimes you're not going to get that second chance, right? So that's where it's very important that we continue to bring this awareness to our customers, whether it's in the commercial, industrial, or even agricultural sides of the business, everybody's susceptible to it and we have a lot going on in our lives every day outside of work, we're rushing kids to soccer or baseball or hockey or we all got a lot going on outside of life that we just have that awareness kind of drop off for a minute. And around overhead lines, it can be a devastating story unfortunately.

Mike Sullivan (10:48):

So you mentioned earlier Glenn Cook as he's affectionately known in the industry

(10:54):

And how I guess it all started is I met him, I was doing some work for the Canadian Common Ground Alliance and they sent me to an event that was happening was called Oceania Oceania, and it was a damage prevention symposium that was happening in Australia in Brisbane. And I had been asked by them to come and give a bunch of presentations from the federal perspective Canada. And so the CCGA, they expensed my trip out there and I hit the ground running. And the moment I got there, they had me doing all kinds of stuff, quite busy, but I met Glenn and he actually said, Hey, you're Mike Sullivan. I said, okay. But he said, we've kind of got to know each other. And he started telling me what he was up to and what he was doing working for Queensland Energy, and he explained this application that he basically created on his own and his own head, everything's there.

(11:56):

We just had to put it in people's hands. So that was my first exposure to look up and live. And then we clearly got to know each other after that a lot more. And I've had him on the podcast and he did mention that Sasc Power, they had created their own version of the lookup and live application based on what they did in Australia. And then I brought 'em to our event, our 40th anniversary safety conference a year ago February in Banff. And the objective again was to have him address our members and address the public that we're attending to try and influence change. And we have this joint responsibility now, not just for the assets below ground but above ground as well to promote awareness of them and how to work and live safely near them. And it just made all the sense in the world that we try and do this, and I think it was at that conference, finally the message stuck, and I know that Har gender so-called your director, he something stuck with him.

(13:06):

And from that moment forward, things started to move and then we got this committee and you were tapped on the shoulder to be a project manager. So it's interesting how small the world is, even though it's a massive planet, but how small the world is, we're all facing the same problems. And collectively, I've always been of the view that collectively there's nothing we can't solve individually. We have our limitations, but collectively there's nothing we can't solve. And here we are, we're getting ready to roll this out, but now it comes down to the application itself. So for those of out there who are not familiar with it, how does the application work? What does it

Nathan Coutu (13:48):

Do? So what the application aims to accomplish is really empower and bring awareness to overhead power lines to, I'd say our customers, but even internal employees or people across the province of Alberta will have the awareness or even the information in the palm of their hand. Like you said, Mike, we are hoping to provide our overhead line asset information into a GIS map, map it out, and then put that in an application, whether it's in the web or on your phone, so that people can look at it and say and make better informed safety decisions around overhead power lines. So they look at the application and say, oh wow, there's an overhead line there. Maybe I can take a different route. Or maybe there's another spot where I can cross into my field that I'm not actually going under an overhead power line. And you can start to empower people to make better decisions.

(14:41):

And really that's what we want to do. We want to give people the tools and resources to be successful when they're working around our assets because not everybody's a trained PLT where they can go and they understand electricity, but if we give them the information and at least give them some opportunity to connect with us as the utilities in the application itself, it has a comment box which will have different links to different safety programs to get in touch with each utility to request overhead line moves. We're empowering the people who can make better decisions by using this application. The whole premise is us interacting with our customers more to bring better awareness and hopefully keep everybody safe and make sure everybody goes home safely at the end of the day. That's the goal we all want, because if someone doesn't, then I don't think we've done our job. And that's where this app gets me really excited is that we're giving people the opportunity to look and make better decisions

Mike Sullivan (15:47):

Every year. For the past many, many years, Alberta One calling now Utility Safety Partners has had a golf tournament for its board members and committee staff members. That has been really just something internal that we've done. While we're changing that up this year in September, we will be hosting our very first utility Safety Partners golf tournament. There'll be a number of places available for golfers and it'll be a charity event. So any of the proceeds over and above our costs will be donated to a charity. More to come on this, but please watch our social media channels and utility safety partners website for information. We'll be looking for golfers very soon. We know that the application has been successful. I mean, we talked to Glen and the folks that are utilizing it in Australia now, he'll tell us, and maybe better coming from you by how much have they been able to reduce contacts with their overhead assets?

Nathan Coutu (16:51):

Yeah, I think the stat that stuck out the most for me, when we spoke to Glen when we were kicking things off, he said, what was it? They've seen it, I think it was 25%

Mike Sullivan (17:02):

Reduction

Nathan Coutu (17:02):

In overall context, but a 50% reduction in agricultural context since the launch of this and 50%, that's a staggering number.

(17:11):

So that's 50% less hits. That's people not putting themselves in harm's way. That's the utility as well. Not going out there and having to fix stuff and focusing on other problems that we might have in our system. So 50% reduction is something when you look at it, how can we not look into this? How can we not make an effort to deploy something like this that's going to make people safer and also help reduce our liability when we have people working around overhead lines because we want people to be safe, and we know that this is high voltage lines that are of course all around the prairies, but we want people to be as safe as possible around them.

Mike Sullivan (17:53):

Well, and that's staggering. Like I said, the staggering number 50%, and I don't think they just attribute it to the app. I mean obviously there's education, awareness of the app, how to use it. All these things are, they go hand in hand with launch of an application like this, but they also employ the use of what they call rotor markers. And we have the aerial markers here, but something different that I wasn't aware of, and I don't think I had ever seen them in Canada, but this is your area of expertise far better than I would know. The rotor markers that they were using, they actually move so with the wind or something like that, and they catch your eye. So if you're out for a walk or you're out doing whatever outside, you see a bird fly by, you look at it because it is movement and these markers do that. So is that something that we're looking at as well?

Nathan Coutu (18:40):

Yeah, that was a big piece that Glenn said along with rotor markers is what was a big contributor. And also, so what the rotor markers look like is they're a four pronged paddle, plastic paddle with reflectors on it. Two of the paddles are white, two are red, so it really pops like a bird diverter or something like that. And then it spins around. So as the wind is blowing, it's actually moving around in a circle to the wind and the sun's reflecting off it. So you kind of see this reflection, it's almost hard to miss. So we've been looking into them. We do put some of that stuff up currently, but what I thought it was quite interesting what they're doing in Australia as they're partnering with the public and saying, Hey, if you want these on your lines, we'll put them out there. Sounds like they have a little bit of a program that they put together where if someone reaches out and says, Hey, I want this in my farm yard, the utility come out, they'll install it, they'll charge a fee, the farm will pay a little bit of fee and kind of collaborate on that.

(19:41):

And I think that's a really powerful move because not only are we bringing the knowledge of where the lines are, we're also giving them kind of an alert mechanism that we can install. So if you forget, like I said, everybody gets busy and you're backing up your tractor, you're driving forward, and all of a sudden you see this reflection, you're probably going to hit the brakes and you're going to say, oh yeah, something is there. I better maybe don't go this way. Maybe the line's sagging a little bit more today. You can at least make a decision on how do you want to proceed. Right.

Mike Sullivan (20:11):

Well, not to mention the equipment that's being used, the agricultural equipment that's being used today is bigger, it's higher, and you grew up on a farm yourself. You probably see a big difference in the equipment used today compared to a newer kid.

Nathan Coutu (20:26):

Yeah, I think, what is the stat I heard? I think it's about 50% bigger. Don't quote me on that exactly, but it's grown exponentially compared to what it was. But the thing that hasn't changed is the size of our lines

Mike Sullivan (20:40):

Or the height, right?

Nathan Coutu (20:41):

Yeah. They haven't grown at the same pace as some of the agricultural equipment. So that's something to be really mindful that some of these combines, some tractors, they're massive now, but the line's still there. It's been there for 30 years and it hasn't changed.

Mike Sullivan (20:59):

Well, back in my days working for a pipeline company and even working for the regulator before that, dealing with landowners and the pipeline company that I worked for, its assets were predominantly in agricultural lands from Fort St. John all the way down to Chicago. But those dealing with the agricultural community there have heightened awareness of what's on the ground right down to a pipeline marker above ground of perce, whether it's a metering station or even a utility pole. And they will tell you, because I have this above ground of perce that's on the ground, I have to do so many extra turns with my combine or whatever. And it's a frustration obviously, but what that tells me is they're hyper-focused, really on the ground what's in front of them, and maybe they're not looking up. So the existence of the application coupled with the moving markers, roto markers or something else, I can't see where it won't diminish contacts with overhead assets and it needs to happen. We need to do something different. If everything we've been doing forever that the proverbial, how's it go expecting a different result and doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, it's not going to change

Nathan Coutu (22:28):

Until the definition of insanity. Right? Exactly. That's the definition of insanity.

Mike Sullivan (22:32):

And so here we are about to do something different. So what are we looking at now? I mean in terms of the launch, what do you think we're looking at now?

Nathan Coutu (22:42):

Yeah, just before I jump into that, I think one of the things that gets me really excited about the application as well is everybody I've talked to about this is a great idea, we should definitely be doing this. How do we get this in our people's hands right away? I presented at our health and safety working group a couple of weeks ago, and a couple of the people after were like, Hey, this is awesome. We need this for our rural farmers. They are going to love this, that they can now look at where our lines are, make better decisions. So to hear that kind of feedback and even from some of the utilities or res in Alberta who aren't participating yet, they're jumping up and saying, this is a great idea. I think we want be part of this. So to hear that little bit of momentum and excitement from people that are seeing what we've been developing is fantastic. Kind of gets me excited that we're doing something that is really important to people

Mike Sullivan (23:36):

And the stakeholders that are going to be interested in this. Like you said, the res, but Alberta municipalities, you name it, towns and villages, everybody should know about this, and that's going to be the next big job, is promoting awareness. And I know that we are going to launch soon, and then the education awareness will probably come in a bit of a second wave, and that's somewhat intentional because we want to do a soft launch and find out, oh, are there any bugs we weren't aware of after all the testing that has been done? And yes, I'm looking at you, Natasha Hunter, she's been amazing.

Nathan Coutu (24:10):

Yeah, she's been a key component to getting this to where we are today with organizing, developing, bringing things along, and even just taking the feedback and how we want it to be visually pleasing and to delivering on. Tasha has been fantastic to work with. Oh, and

Mike Sullivan (24:26):

I can't say enough good things about her. She just approaches everything the exact same way and the amount of diligence she has, and to her it's just all, oh, this is easy. Well, it's easy because you know what you're doing. Everybody is sounds like what you're doing, but she has a great job and I agree without her, I don't think we'd be this far along at all, but there are so many stakeholders out there that are going to be once they see this and the simplicity, because really it is simple to use, right?

Nathan Coutu (24:52):

Oh yeah. We wanted to make it as simple as use and make it so people can pick it up and dive right in and utilize it right away. You don't want to have to go through and do a bunch of training and try to figure out, it's like you look at it and you should understand, oh, this is all the overhead lines around me. And then you could probably look up and look around and be like, oh wow, they are actually here. Okay, awesome. It's pretty simple to use. I would say next steps on where this is going, Mike, we're meeting probably biweekly right now with all the participating utilities just buttoning up the last little bits on being able to, one, share the data, making sure everybody's got their information in the comment box so when customers and people are using it, the links are working, they're bringing them back to the utilities website for all the safety information, things like that, making sure the visuals are proper, making sure, what was the last one that we have all our logos updated, the fine little things.

(25:54):

One of the biggest challenges we did have throughout the project was really overcoming some of the data sharing barriers that utilities have in place. And rightfully so, cybersecurity is really important in the world right now. I mean, essentially you're one click away from letting a bad actor into your system. So utilities take their security quite serious and really going through that process and identifying, Hey, how can we do this safely? How do we share data effectively? What data should we be sharing so that one, we're not overloading the whole system with the amounts of data that utilities have on all their assets, and it streamlined and it for the customers, but also making it cost effective of like, Hey, we're sharing the right amount of information and the proper ones as utilities. So we are, like I said, going to be moving into a soft launch here fairly soon. I think to think in 10 months we've brought seven utilities together and have gotten close to actually launching an application when typically utilities move at a bit of a slower pace. I'd say we've done an exceptional job of getting everybody involved and getting things moving, and I don't think everybody's going to be able to share their data right off the bat, but I think there's about five of the seven utilities or four that are actually going to be able to share all their data right from the start.

Mike Sullivan (27:20):

Well, and again, it's a testament to you, Nathan. I wouldn't say you're a task master, but you're on top of this. You really have been on top of this and you've done a great job because in 10 months time, our jobs can change dramatically. Certain things come along and what we've been working on gets pushed to the back burner. We have our cyclical priorities as well that drive our roles, but you've been on top of this from day one, and you've done a great job managing the project. So I don't know what you're going to do with all this free time afterwards once it's done. You know

Nathan Coutu (27:58):

What? My director's already got me working on other stuff already too, Mike, so it just keeps coming. One thing I really enjoy bringing people together, trying to make a difference, especially when it comes to safety. I don't know if I mentioned it, but I had a friend when I was growing up, actually lost his dad to an overhead line contact. So I seen firsthand what that does to a family and a friend and what the lasting impacts have on our communities to that family, to everybody. It changes people's lives. So to work on something as important as this application that can make a difference and hopefully prevent that from ever happening, it's pretty easy to get excited and jazzed up to bring people together to deliver something like this.

Mike Sullivan (28:43):

Name that tune. One of the guys I graduated with in high school, he was a volunteer fireman not long after high school, and he was helping his neighbor who just happened to be one of our gym teachers from high school cut branches in a tree, and he was up in the tree and he had cut one branch. I guess it had been resting on a power line because where I grew up, that was skirts of Montreal. The utilities were all above ground and we heated with oil. A truck would come and fill your tank in your house. But yeah, the utilities were all above ground, and this branch landed on a power line and he grabbed it and the neighbor, the gym teachers, they called 9 1 1, and this guy who was in the tree, his pager in his house next door started going off and his mom came outside and started calling his name that his pager was going off, and it was because of him and he passed away and just a young kid with his whole life ahead of him.

(29:51):

And one of my friends who I grew up with was a volunteer fireman at the time as well, and he became a fireman. He just retired just recently. And we still talk about that day and what happened, and there's a very real situation of a young person situation with you, friend's father that didn't have to happen and had they just a simple thing as pruning a tree had they just looked, had they just had something like this to look and say, oh, let's remind ourselves that's not a bell telephone or Telus or Roger's cable. That's an electric power line just to remind themselves and it can happen so fast. So yes, definitely that's what we want to avoid, and it is totally avoidable the fact that we're able to do this with industry and with other stakeholders. It really is. The safety element is a shared responsibility. We say that it's kind of beaten to death, but it's so true. The agriculture community, whoever is working or living near these assets, they need to do their part too. They need to click before you dig, or they need to use a lookup and live application.

(31:04):

And like you said, making it as simple as possible to use, there's one less barrier.

Nathan Coutu (31:09):

Yeah, absolutely. People should be able to pick it up, look at it and interpret it and say, oh, I can utilize this.

Mike Sullivan (31:19):

It's intuitive.

Nathan Coutu (31:19):

And I give a lot of credit to Mike Klowski too, from ACO on the damage prevention side. He's been a big help on this initiative too, from the ACO perspective, but even he's been bouncing this off of a lot of commercial or industrial customers and they're getting excited about it because wow, if we knew this was out there, hey, we can make better decision. We can plan better. We can actually plan our work a little bit more effectively and hopefully we can reduce our contacts because at the end of the day, no one wants to overhead power lines. It's not good for business, it's not good for reputation, it's not good perception. And again, it's a safety concern because if someone gets hurt or someone gets killed, we want to avoid that at all costs because you can't put a price on someone's life. If we can save one person by deploying this application, I think we have done our job

Mike Sullivan (32:12):

And we will. I would look at 40 years of Alberta one call Utility safety partners. There's no question we've saved lives. We'll never know who that is. There's no question it's happened. Right,

Nathan Coutu (32:23):

Exactly. Yeah, we won't know because it would never have happened. That's right. Really that's what we wanted.

Mike Sullivan (32:28):

Yep. I totally agree. That's takeaway. Yep. So once this is available, where can the public get

Nathan Coutu (32:34):

It? I think right now we're going to be posting it on your website and Utility Safety partners and then really look at marketing it out a little bit more, looking at QR codes, a way to draw people in to get them a direct access to where to access the web version. We're going to just start with a web version and the trial period, and then hopefully long-term kind of move over to mobile applications as well. But then I think even participating utilities, looking at pointing like going to Echo's website, hopefully we'll have an easy direct link to utility Safety Partners that can bring you to this web application and mapping system that you can look at all these lines and make better decisions. Excellent.

Mike Sullivan (33:21):

Well, I'm so glad we finally got this off the ground when again, this journey in terms of what we possibly could do for me started in 2019 or 18, and it really started to have legs just maybe a year or two ago here in Alberta. Then once you got involved, it was happening, finally happening.

Nathan Coutu (33:47):

I appreciate it. It's been a fun journey, like you said, and learning lots, making new connections. I think that's exciting to meet people from other utilities and seeing how they're doing things, seeing how we can work together better to support our customers, especially on a safety initiative like this is super exciting. And yeah, it's just been a really fun opportunity and it's been a lot of fun to work on, Mike.

Mike Sullivan (34:10):

Well, at some point, maybe a year from now or a year after the launch, let's do this again and we will see where we are with the application, what's next for Nathan and ATCO Electric

Nathan Coutu (34:24):

Yeah, I'd like that. Mike, I really appreciate you having me on, and it's been a lot of fun working with you and your team, so appreciate your support and the support of all the other utilities who have been a big part in getting this application off the ground. And hopefully we'll have it launched here in the next, like I'd say, month or so, and we'll touch base again in a year and see where things go. Thanks for joining me, Nathan. Take care.

Mike Sullivan (34:47):

My pleasure, Mike. Thank you. Thanks so much to Nathan for joining us today, and that'll wrap things up on our podcast. I want to thank our producers stories and strategies, and I hope you choose to follow this podcast on any directory listing on, and please do leave us a rating and we always appreciate that You can follow us on X at Utility safety. We're also on Instagram and Facebook. If you'd like to send us a note, maybe you have an episode idea, email us at info@utilitysafety.ca and please put podcast in the subject header. I'm Mike Sullivan, I'm the president of Utility Safety Partners. Click to know, in this case, what's above and below. One click costs you nothing, not clicking. Well, that could cost you everything.