Christopher Koch is the owner and President of ZoneOne Locating. With over 20 years’ experience in damage prevention, he is frequently called to provide expert testimony in legal cases. As a member of Nulca’s executive board including terms as Secretary, Vice-President, and President, he helped shape the professional competency standard for locators. He is a regular contributor to Damage Prevention Professional and co-author of the book, Locating Buried Utilities – A Professional Approach. Koch holds a BES from St. Cloud State University and a graduate certificate in Human Resource Management.
Phone: (763) 682-0206
christopherkoch@live.com
www.zoneonelocating.com
www.zoneoneconsulting.com
Christopher has articles in the following magazines:
2010 Q2 Issue
2010 Q3 Issue
2010 Q4 Issue
2011 Q1 Issue
2011 Q2 Issue
2011 Q3 Issue
2011 Q4 Issue
2012 Q1 Issue
2012 Q2 Issue
2012 Q3 Issue
2012 Q4 Issue
2013 Q1 Issue
2013 Q2 Issue
2013 Q3 Issue
2013 Q4 Issue
2014 Q1 Issue
2014 Q2 Issue
2014 Q3 Issue
2014 Q4 Issue
2015 Q1 Issue
2015 Q2 Issue
2015 Q3 Issue
2015 Q4 Issue
2016 Q1 Issue
2016 Q2 Issue
2016 Q3 Issue
2016 Q4 Issue
2017 Q1 Issue
2017 Q2 Issue
2017 Special Locate Issue
2017 Q3 Issue
2017 Q4 Issue
2017 Q5 Issue
2018 Q1 Issue
2018 Special Locate Issue
2018 Q2 Issue
2018 Q3 Issue
2019 Q1 Issue
2019 Special Locate Issue
2019 Q2 Issue
2019 Q3 Issue
2019 Q4 Issue
For me, it’s always the chickadees that mark the coming of spring. After months of cold gray silence, the distinctive “hey, pretty” calls will be there all at once on some random Tuesday morning when I’m taking out the garbage. A few weeks later, the frogs make themselves known likewise seeming to rise up out …
I’ve been training locators for over 20 years now, a good amount of that time having been spent training technicians outside of my own company. Seeing how a variety of different organizations handle similar tasks offers a lot of insight into the culture of my trade. One of the things I’ve noticed over the years …
Back in the late 90’s, when I first trained as a locate technician, I did my ride-alongs with a retired telephone tech. On our first day together, he took me for a Danish and coffee and then set me to work locating a couple miles of copper phone line in a rural road ditch. By …
In November of 2017, NPR picked up an unusual story out of the United Kingdom. It seems that a scientist, Dr. Sally Le Page, learned about a water company technician using two bent tent pegs while working in front of her parents’ home. Incredulous, Le Page began an informal survey of a dozen regional water …
The Friday before I wrote this, I dispensed 14 cans of red paint. In the field, not accidentally in the bed of my truck (that’s a different column). I wonder sometimes how many cans and cases I’ve been through over the course of a quarter century in the field. For sure, the bulk of it …
As a guy who has been locating for the better part of 25 years, I’ve developed a few opinions about fast food restaurants; they in turn have develop an opinion about me. Turns out I’m what fast-food companies call a “heavy user.” According to Newsweek, that is one of the “20% of fast-food eaters who …
The CGA Best Practices includes an unusual item within Chapter Four, the section dealing with Locating and Marking. Number 17 among the Best Practices is “Forecasting/Planning for Predictable Workload Fluctuations.” The Practice Statement immediately following that heading reads, “A plan is developed for managing unpredictable fluctuations.” Notice the juxtaposition of the words “predictable” and “unpredictable”. …
One of the problems the locating trade faces is the perception that our job is easy. From the outside looking in, an excavator contacts the One Call center and within a day or so, accurate markings appear at their job site. DIRT reporting bears out that in the majority of cases when an excavator contacts …
It’s not a CONTEST For several years in the early 2000s I had the pleasure of volunteering with the International Locate Rodeo. It was always very gratifying to see locate technicians from all over the country come together to compete with one another in celebration of what is an often under-appreciated trade. Reflecting the environment …
For Valentine’s Day, I went on a weekend getaway to Wisconsin. Snowshoeing with my fiancé at a quiet resort, I reveled in the chance to relax ahead of what was sure to be another busy spring locating season in Minnesota. By the third week in March, I was wondering if my business would survive 2020 …
