History

The NJCGA was initially organized as a Steering Committee/Council to address mutual concerns of the State’s utilities. It was soon visioned to be a permanently established group that should include ALL stakeholders in future efforts to develop and implement initiatives that would promote effective damage prevention practices.

The NJCGA was born and on November 2, 2005 – the Kick-off Meeting was held in Edison, NJ.

Its organizational structure was modeled from the national CGA that was formed in 2000.

Under its Mission Statement, the group began and has continued to operate under a Board of Directors comprised of a cross section representation of the utility, government and private stakeholder groups. On an as needed basis, both standing and ad hoc committees have been formed to address specialized or specific areas of interest or concern.

The CGA’s list of accomplishments in this past decade include:

• Quarterly Meetings that have provided a venue where all stakeholders throughout the state can meet and learn, exchange opinions/ideas and collaborate toward either a process improvement or resolution of a problem.
• Municipal mandates and penalty assessments for removal of mark-outs (assisted in initiating steps toward a BPU declaratory ruling on jurisdictional rights)
• Design Markouts – supported the development and implementation of a state-wide utility engineer contact directory by the NJUA
• Participated in the promotion of online reporting and mapping of damages
• Participated in the promotion of programs conducted by Rutgers Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT) that have dealt with pipeline safety and security
• Participated in the rollout of the 811 nationally recognized one-number to call
• Continued the practice of obtaining the Governor’s Proclamation of April-National Safe Digging Month
• Going into our 14th year of developing and facilitating contractor excavation safety training events throughout the state

To date, the NJCGA has 325 participants of record whose level of support and involvement varies but which has still contributed to the ongoing success of our group.

It is the future hope that the NJCGA will continue to demonstrate achievement of the common goal to promote damage prevention and public safety.

Board of Directors

The Board of Directors will be comprised of a chair, vice chair, secretary, past chair, the chair of each stakeholder group, and members-at-large as appointed by the chair. There will be no term limitations.