Morrison Award
This prestigious award celebrates the excellence of individuals in honor of the late Jarrod Morrison (1974-2017), whose commitment to damage prevention and safe excavation was greatly respected.
Who is Eligible?
Any working in the damage prevention industry in the state of Oregon is eligible for nomination, this includes OUCC council members, utility, and nonprofit professionals.
Who Deserves a Morrison?
We’re looking for industry leaders who have achieved excellence in damage prevention this year. An ideal candidate will have demonstrated exceptional safety expertise, wisdom and leadership and has achieved success in all safety endeavors.
Winners
2025 Recipient: Paul Schmidt
The 2025 Morrison Award has been awarded to Paul Schmidt, with Canby Excavating/Canby Consulting Company.
Paul is a damage prevention champion who truly ‘walks the talk’ when it comes to safe excavation. With over ten years working with Canby Excavating as Safety Director and a consultant, he has been instrumental in creating a culture of continual improvement through Safety Fairs, emergency drills, case studies, remedial trainings and much more.
Paul researched, learned, and revamped excavation safety programs used by the Canby Excavating management and field teams working at various projects throughout Oregon. This included OSHA standards for Excavation Trench Safety, Confined Space, and compliance with regulatory rules set forth at the federal and state levels.
From an industry perspective, Paul has actively shared lessons learned through his involvement with the Northwest Utility Contractors Association and as a board member for the Oregon Utility Notification Center from 2020 to 2023. Even after he left the board, Paul has presented detailed and insightful Safety Minutes at several board meetings which have raised the bar for this recurring agenda item. He was among the first to complete the new CGA excavator safety training modules online and reported on his experience at an OUNC board meeting.
With a service mindset, Paul is always stepping up to help whenever and wherever it is needed, including public events, media interviews, meetings, conferences and more. He consistently brings his positive attitude and sense of humor wherever he goes — even while he is quietly dealing with challenges that could stop some in their tracks. Safety runs in his blood and you can tell he has a true passion for learning from successes and mistakes to ensure excavators can go home at the end of the day without injury to themselves, their coworkers or their pocketbooks. Outside of work, he even serves as a Safety Coach for Tualatin Valley Youth Football.
2024 Recipient: Lyssa Patterson
The 2024 Morrison Award has been awarded to Lyssa Patterson, field locating supervisor for Applied Professional Services. Known for her unwavering dedication to safety and education, Lyssa has been a driving force in the damage prevention community.
Lyssa has:
- Spent the past 29 years designated utilities working in both public and private utilities with Locating, Inc., FISK, APS, and Applied Field Services
- Been involved with the MUCC council since 2019 and has served as council secretary since 2020
- Was featured on KPTV Fox 12 to help educate Oregonians about the 811 process in 2024
- Partnered with excavators and other professionals to designate utilities properly for both planning of infrastructure and excavation
- Wholeheartedly understands the value the protecting of utilities and infrastructure and believes that being proactive in planning and organized at each job is paramount to save time, money, and – most importantly – lives
2023 Recipient: Jason Williams
The 2023 Morrison Award has been awarded to Jason Williams, damage prevention specialist with NW Natural. Jason’s nomination highlighted unparalleled dedication to damage prevention and enthusiasm for providing underground utility safety education to excavators, homeowners, locators, facility owners, and others within the local community.
His passion for delivering the 811 message can be seen in his efforts to continually find new and innovative ways to reach the correct audience, allowing him to get the message to the right folks at the right time. He tirelessly works towards a safer, more responsible excavation process by continuing to seek better ways to educate and support contractors.
Jason has established an impressive damage prevention reputation over the years, and the receipt of this award is well deserved. His impact has resulted not only in increased awareness around excavation safety and dig laws, but has also reduced the number of underground utility damages.
Jason is an active member of the Oregon Utilities Coordinating Council. He is the damage chair for Lincoln, Linn Benton, East Linn, and Lane UCCs, as well as the zone director for Zone 2.
2022 Recipient: Frank Planton
Frank has served in the damage prevention world in Oregon and the greater NW for decades. The Oregon board has often called on Frank and his strong historical knowledge bank to help stay on course. Frank has been in his current role for over ten years and previously served as the General Manager and the President of the OUCC. His commitment holds firm to this day, and you may see him at board meetings or traveling across the region with the OCC Corvette to help promote the 811 message. Frank continues to be one of the brightest of the many committed and passionate faces of damage prevention in Oregon.
2021 Recipient: Don Moore
Don has been a catalyst for change since he joined Cascade Natural Gas in 2017. From the day Don began his role as the Region Director of Cascade’s Oregon territory, he became an active damage prevention champion. He set strong expectations for his team, leading key damage prevention initiatives to help protect his workers and the community. Don encouraged his employees to educate the public on job sites, hand out public awareness information, and sponsor local community events to improve pipeline awareness. He made the use of Damage Hit Kits a standard requirement of damage investigations to improve documentation and promoted filing complaints against negligent excavators. Don hired an outside subject matter expert consultant to provide enhanced locator training to his employees, to improve gas locating accuracy and reduce at fault damages. He utilized a combination of employee awareness, training, and enforcement that contributed to a reduction in damages between 2018 – 2020 in Cascade’s Oregon territory. The actions Don voluntarily promoted within his region became the pathway for larger companywide initiatives.
Don also immersed himself in the larger damage prevention community outside of Cascade. Don proudly served on the OUNC Board for 3 years, sitting on the Executive Director Selection Committee, the Budget and Audit Committee, the O.A.R.’s Committee, and chaired the Damage Reporting/DIRT Committee. During his time as the chair of the Damage Reporting/DIRT Committee, he helped advance Oregon State reporting into a meaningful report of key metrics that he arranged to have verbally presented to the OUNC Board and the OUCC Board. The report helped bring awareness to overall state metrics, pinpoint risks, and guide funding and education accordingly. Don also played a pivotal role in hiring the first ever OUNC Executive Director.
2020 Recipient: Frank Frenzel
During Frank’s 33 years at the City of Lebanon, he trained most of the people he worked with on OR811 dig laws and provided them with new rule changes that occurred. For many of those years, he was part of Train the Trainer. Frank was a member of the East Linn UCC for over 25 years. As a member, he participated in the Contractor’s breakfast & dinners and volunteering at safety days. • When he first found out about the Career Day in Lebanon he helped provide the indoor space as well as about a 3 block square of room for the vendors to set up. Along with that he provided the needs to successfully bring in over 1,000 students and people to view the different contractors in our area. He reached out to the OUNC who has helped support his efforts at that event. His humbleness has always shinned through as he shares his dig safe message.
2019 Recipient: Bryan Baxter
Bryan Baxter has been a leader in Oregon in damage prevention for over a decade. His creative ideas and respected passion aided in the delivery of the 811 message throughout the state. Even after moving from the Damage Prevention department at NW Natural, Bryan continued to work closely with the councils he had supported for so long. His efforts as an ambassador of Oregon811 continue to influence new people coming into the industry and will for some time.
