Travis Mackie, Accountant - Utility Safety Partners
Utility Safety Partners (USP), a leading advocate for underground infrastructure safety and damage prevention in Canada, has announced plans to hire a dedicated Executive Director to lead the organization’s ambitious Damage Prevention Professional (DPP) initiative.
The new Executive Director will be responsible for overseeing the development and implementation of a comprehensive curriculum and certification program aimed at formally recognizing damage prevention as a professional discipline. This initiative represents a major step forward in the evolution of the industry and reinforces USP’s commitment to enhancing public safety, environmental protection, and infrastructure integrity across the country.
Responding to a National Need
“Damage prevention is a vital, yet under-recognized profession,” says Mike Sullivan, President of Utility Safety Partners. “While millions of Canadians rely on safe excavation and buried infrastructure every day, there’s currently no standardized training or credentialing for the professionals who help protect those systems. That’s what this program is designed to change.”
The Executive Director will collaborate with a broad coalition of stakeholders including utility operators, regulators, educators, First Nations, contractors, and safety organizations to shape the Damage Prevention Professional designation. The role will involve everything from curriculum design and credential standards to academic partnerships and national outreach.
Building the Framework for a Professional Designation
This initiative will begin with development of a Standardized Competency Framework for damage prevention with industry partners and then translate those competencies into an accredited training and certification pathway—ultimately setting the foundation for what could become a diploma or degree-level credential in the future.
“Formal recognition of damage prevention as a professional field will raise the bar for safety, attract new talent, and ensure consistency across the country,” Sullivan adds.
Although difficult to imagine, Health and Safety management and governance once operated in the same way as Damage Prevention today. The comparison between Damage Prevention governance and Health and Safety governance reveals a clear maturity gap in terms of structure, recognition, and institutional support. While both are essential to safe infrastructure and workplace environments, Health and Safety governance is significantly more developed and institutionalized than Damage Prevention as captured in the table below.
Although Damage Prevention is following a similar trajectory that Health and Safety did decades ago, without a dedicated effort to direct and set a course for the path forward, the various roles supporting Damage Prevention overall will continue to remain ungrounded. By developing standards, formal training, and a professional designation, Damage Prevention can evolve into a mature, recognized discipline improving safety, efficiency, and infrastructure resilience.
A Nation-Building Initiative
With damage prevention linked to everything from telecommunications and energy to public safety and environmental stewardship, the DPP program has the potential to become a national benchmark for excellence in underground safety.
The recruitment process for the Executive Director will begin this summer, with the goal of having the position filled before the end of 2025.