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Three people were killed in Dallas on May 28, 2026. An 811 locate ticket had been filed. Some lines were marked. The gas line that mattered was not.

That's the gap this industry has to confront.

Mike Sullivan sits down with Brigham McCown, Naval aviator, federal pipeline regulator, pipeline CEO, and founder of the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii), to trace the original eight-step vision behind 811, a vision that stalled at step three.

McCown argues the industry must move from a notification culture to a knowledge culture, and ultimately toward predictive safety, and that overly prescriptive legislation may be one of the things slowing that shift.

The conversation also covers the data security tensions around utility mapping, why online locate requests produce dramatically fewer damages than phone-based ones, and how Alberta's Alternate Locate Provider program achieved what a rigid legislative framework likely would have prevented.

Listen for:

5:21 Why did Naval Aviation pioneer the safety culture that every high-risk industry now tries to copy?

13:18 What was the original eight-step vision for 811 — and why did progress stall at step three?

17:01 Could the legislation meant to protect damage prevention actually be slowing it down?

31:45 Does calling 811 by phone produce more damages than submitting a locate request online?

34:12 What does it mean to move from a "call before you dig" culture to a "know before you dig" culture?

Connect with Guest:Brigham McCown, Chairman and CEO | Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure

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