ProStar Holdings (MAPS.V) is a Software as a Service (SaaS) company that captures, records, amalgamates and displays the precise location of critical underground infrastructure.
With 35 million miles of underground utilities in the U.S., there are about 500,000 utility strikes annually during excavation that have resulted in damaged cables and pipes, sometimes with fatal consequences.
ProStar offers a suite of products, PointMan Plus, PointMan Pro, and PointMan Enterprise, all of which are designed to improve the business operations of any industry that needs to know the precise location of sub-surface infrastructure.
By providing real-time access to precise location information, ProStar’s solution significantly decreases liabilities and increases productivity during construction and maintenance activities.
Most of the world’s mapping systems identify the location of surface objects. Google Maps, for instance, helps drivers get from point A to B by identifying objects on the earth’s surface.
ProStar is mapping the tangled spiderweb of cables under our feet.
On March 24, 2022, ProStar announced that Kokosing Construction Company – one of America’s largest heavy highway construction companies – has adopted ProStar’s cloud and mobile solution, PointMan.
“Not knowing the location of underground utilities on a construction project exposes us to major risks and liabilities that can be costly,” stated Terry Hendershot, a GM at Kokosing, “PointMan helps us to achieve our goals in terms of improving our workflows and creating a much safer project site.”
“Kokosing Construction Company is one of the largest family-owned contractors in America serving the transportation sector,” states MAPS, “Founded in 1951, Kokosing constructs everything from highways and iconic bridges to landfills. Their capabilities include asphalt and concrete paving, mass earthwork, piling, post-tensioning, steel erection, and underground utilities”
“Large construction companies like Kokosing are adopting PointMan in order to identify where all of the utilities are buried on their construction sites,” stated ProStar CEO Page Tucker, “Not knowing where utilities are buried with any level of accuracy is a major concern with significant risks and associated liabilities that are costing stakeholders tens of billions of dollars every year.”
Kokosing has an ethical and financial incentive to adopt MAPS’ technology.
For an example of underground work gone bad: in 2018, “a VC Tech driller struck an unmarked natural-gas lateral, releasing gas that spewed out of storm sewers in front of a senior-living center and flowed into The Barr House, a tavern,” reported The Cap Times.
“Less than an hour later, the gas ignited near the tavern, leveling the downtown intersection, critically injuring the firefighter Ryan Welch and killing Barr, who had also responded to the gas leak while off duty,” added The Cap Times.
The deadly explosion was captured on a police car dash cam.
The accident illuminated “a toothless regulatory system that allows drillers and excavators to routinely flout laws to cheaply complete work that brings internet, phone, water and natural gas to Wisconsinites”.
“It’s like the Wild West,” stated Robb Kahl, a former Democratic state legislator.
In British Columbia, Canada, homeowners or businesses that need to dig underground must register with a “Click Before you Dig” website.
The government checks with its partners, and then advises the excavation applicant “to contact any other parties who may have underground facilities in your excavation area but are not BC 1 Call members.”
“You are not clear to excavate until all members notified have contacted you,” the government warns, “BC 1 Call does not confirm clearance to dig”.
If that sounds convoluted, clumsy and prone to user error – that’s because it is.
Through its own hardware, and partnerships, ProStar is amalgamating global underground data.
ProStar has strategic business partnerships with the world’s leading geospatial technology providers, data collection equipment manufacturers and their dealer networks, including Trimble, Juniper Systems, Bad Elf, Vivax-Metrotech, Radiodetection and Subsite Electronics.
In this exhaustive December, 2021 Interview, ProStar CEO Page Tucker talks to Radius Research about MAP’s business objectives.
‘PointMan is our flagship product, it is patented, fully commercialized, and it provides the ability to capture record and display the precise location of critical infrastructure, both above ground as well as below ground, which includes utilities and pipelines,” confirmed the CEO Tucker.
“Below the ground, we have a spaghetti bowl of utilities and pipelines that criss-cross each other. In most cases, we don’t know where those utilities or pipelines are located with any level of accuracy.
We take the electromagnetic cable, pipe utility locating device. We integrate that through Bluetooth technology to any standard mobile device that is utilizing PointMan. This is not the GPS chip that’s embedded in your device, which gets you the 1–3-meter accuracy. These are precision GPS receivers, that can get you one-centimeter accuracy” – End of Tucker
U.S. infrastructure received a C- score from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which estimates $2.6 trillion in funding is required over the next decade to modernize it.
“President Joe Biden is laying out his next big proposal: A roughly $2 trillion plan for improving the nation’s infrastructure and shifting to greener energy over the next 8 years,” reports CNN.
Biden’s plan allocates $621 billion for roads, bridges, public transit, rail, ports, waterways, airports and electric vehicles.
All of these projects will be significantly cheaper and de-risked with ProStar’s PointMan technology.
In the last 12 months, ProStar’s share price has slide from .80 to .31, amidst a general rout of new technology companies.
It has a current market cap of $31 million.