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MISSION & HISTORY
Our mission…
To service customer needs by providing a quality one-call process that protects the public, underground infrastructure and environment.
Our history…
The Ohio Utilities Protection Service (O.U.P.S.) was founded in 1972 as a nonprofit association of the Ohio Bell Telephone Company (now A T & T Ohio), East Ohio Gas (now Dominion East-Ohio) and the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company. That first year, O.U.P.S. processed 13,678 digging requests.
Key dates in our history:
- 1984 — O.U.P.S processes our one-millionth call.
- 1989 — Senate Bill 174 requires all Ohio utility companies to participate in a one-call service. O.U.P.S. subsequently merges with the United Utility Protection Service.
- 1990 — Senate Bill 264 requires all Ohio citizens to call before they dig.
- 1993 — O.U.P.S. adds an internal marketing department to increase awareness of our function and services. The department develops billboards, brochures, television commercials and public service announcements to broadcast our message.
- 1994 — Ernst & Young, LLP, rates O.U.P.S. "Best in Class" in its benchmark telecommunications study of one-call centers.
- 1996 — O.U.P.S. launches www.oups.org, making us the first one-call center in the nation with its own Web site.
- 1997 — Spearheaded by our marketing department, O.U.P.S. sponsors the first-annual "O.U.P.S. Safety Day" in Cincinnati. Also that year, O.U.P.S. processes our sixth-millionth call.
- 2000 — O.U.P.S. launches i-dig, a free, real-time online processing system that allows contractors and excavators to submit their digging requests online.
- 2002 — O.U.P.S. celebrates 30 years of one-call excellence.
Today, O.U.P.S. has over 900 utility members and received nearly 1 million digging and excavation notices each year.
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Things to note
• O.U.P.S. Experiences Unusually High Call Volumes
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