"I have built several projects in developing nations and have found it
rewarding," says Mike Robb of New Mexico. He has been in the mining business
for more than 30 years.
"A good steady job and a community improvement program can result in people's
standard of living going way up. Most companies have an active community improvement
program. For all practical purposes, you adopt the local village," he says.
"Taking a project from concept to operation is very rewarding. My career
has been pretty well split one-third technical, one-third supervision and
one-third management.
"To be a successful manager, you must have the technical background and
experience to evaluate what is going on, and you must have the supervision
experience to know that it is not as easy as it looks on paper. They all have
their rewards and frustrations, but management is to me the most rewarding."
Among the hardest decisions he's had to make as a mining engineer
was deciding to close a mine and lay off the workers. "Disrupting people's
lives is not fun," he says.
"The field definitely needs individuals that will take the technology beyond
the problems of production and environment," says Edward E. Hollop of Florida.
He has almost four decades of experience in mining engineering.
He has designed mines, carried out health and safety evaluations, taught
at the college level and worked all over the world. He says to set your sights
very high.
"The Colorado School of Mines has a space research center,"
he says. "The only way to live in space for long periods of time is to locate
a permanent source of oxygen beyond the Earth. The present potential source
is limonite on the moon. It will take mining engineers to plan, develop and
execute a mining operation on the moon in the near future to obtain the oxygen
trapped in the mineral."
Kathryn Rogers has a bachelor's degree in engineering and is currently
working on her master's degree in mining engineering. She got into engineering
because she was good in math and science and liked earth science.
She started out in general engineering and then took to mining. "At 18
or 19, that's a fairly tough decision to make," she says. She was also
interested in English and the arts, but felt that engineering gave her more
options.
Her first jobs in mining engineering were hands on. She worked at mines
in drilling, blasting and testing.
Now, she works more in the office. She is designing and trying new products.
She uses statistical tools and applies them to processes (such as lead smelting)
to make them more efficient. She describes this as one of her favorite aspects
of her work.
Most mining engineers are men, but there are a number of women. Rogers
works with seven other women at the mine. "We have never had any problems
with discrimination," she says.
She says this a great career for people who like the outdoors. "Mining
towns are perfect for camping, fishing, hiking and snowmobiling."
She and her boyfriend, who is also a mining engineer, are very happy with
their work. Someday, they might consider going overseas to work. "I'd
love to see Ireland, Australia, Indonesia, Peru or Chile."
John Mossop is a professor of mining engineering. He started out in the
asbestos industry until the identification of its health hazards changed everything.
He then went into lead and zinc, and after a metals downturn, into limestone.
Then he got into consulting, until he took his current position.
He first got into the field because he was good at math and someone suggested
engineering. He started in electrical engineering, but then he took a summer
job at a mine and liked it. "Miners are pretty independent. There's not
usually a boss looking over your shoulder every day. You get to make a lot
of decisions, especially in the smaller towns."
His tasks included planning and investigating the deposits and how to mine
them.
This field is always encountering new challenges. "The industry is not
static. It never stands still. There's always new equipment and new mining
methods," says Mossop. It has moved from manual labor to mechanization to
automation and it is still a continually changing industry.
And just because mining engineering is an evolving field with many opportunities
for change, moving around doesn't mean you have to give up a personal
life. "A mining town is a good place to bring up a family. I did it," says
Mossop.
"You get to know an awful lot of people. It's sort of a fraternity,
a very friendly environment. There's good camaraderie amongst mining
people."