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Education
* BEng, Mining Engineering—Curtin University, Western Australia
* First Class Mine Manager's Certificate—DME, Western Australia
* Quarry Manager's Certificate (Australia)
* CEng—Institution of Civil Engineers, UK
Employment History
* Current
Independent Construction Management Consultant focused primarily on the underground mining sector.
* 2004-2007
Thyssen Mining Construction Canada, Senior Project Manager, including $12 million gold and $20 million coal mine developments.
* 2001-2004
RockTek, Vice President of specialist blasting firm.
* 1997-2001
WMC Resources, Underground Manager of the world's third largest nickel operation.
* 1993—1997
National Mine Management, Project Engineer Paddington, Blair, Mt Morgans, Henty, Yilgarn Star,…
* 1991—1993
London Underground, Supervising Engineer Jubilee Line, a £2 billion, ten mile rail tunnel extension.
* 1989-1991
Transmanche Link, Site Engineer, Channel Tunnel, the biggest infrastructure project in Europe.
Experience
Independent Management Consultant. Responsible for entrepreneurial strategy development, startup and continued successful and profitable operation of RockBreaking Technology LLC.
* Exploration drift rehabilitation feasibility study for the acquisition of a Wyoming copper deposit for an Australian resources company. Coordinate due diligence, helicopter reconnaissance, geotechnical assessment and ventilation for underground diamond drilling.
* Provide state, federal and DOT compliance permitting services for import/export of specialty pyrotechnic devices manufactured in Eastern Europe for TruFlare.
* Contract management support for gold exploration drift development in Nevada. Implement differential billing to account for scope and workflow changes. Set up contract administration decision guidelines.
* Magazine management, ATF compliance, Employee Possessor certifications and supply of explosives for Underground Vaults & Storage shaft-sink in Kansas for TMCC.
* Sub-contact management support for major US Department of the Interior dam and reservoir construction in Colorado. Realign site job functions according to skills and talents, re-positioning construction site management and augmenting estimating staff while ensuring a smooth transition. Improve site financial reporting to executive management.
Thyssen Mining Construction Canada, Senior Project Manager. Operational, commercial and legal management. Metal and non-metal mining projects in USA. With approval authority for negotiating and invoicing clients and payment of subcontractors, consultants and vendors.
* Responsible for managing EPC and commercial aspects of a joint venture of international contractors for a $20 million Foundation Coal slope project in Illinois. Financial, technical and commercial assessment and analysis of the project was integral to the board decisions.
* Site setup, including local infrastructure and accommodation of foreign-speaking workforce. Procured, negotiated, and managed engineering, technical assistance and heavy construction contracts.
* Coordinated the project management team, foreign technical experts, remote procurement, consultants, sub-contactors and the client to ensure proper decision making.
* Implemented and oversaw regular internal and external status meetings, with the executive and technical management of Thyssen Schachtbau Gruppe Germany, Precision Mine Repair USA and TMCC Canada.
* Technical support for watertable management, groundwater evaluations, cofferdam construction, grout injection.
* Initiated the creation of custom web-based inventory management database. Conducted frequent international web conferences.
* Responsible for leading a $4 million litigation support effort.
* Duties included claim analysis, exhibit preparation, attorney briefings, position formulations, research, and testimony basis preparation, e-discovery coordination.
* Prepared the technical and financial defense strategy. Engineering, construction, and economic analysis of claims. Developed issues, prepared testimony basis, and designed trial exhibits.
As Project Manager at Turquoise Ridge, Nevada, responsible for a workforce of 70 underground miners, tradesmen and staff.
* Assured the work is delivered in accordance with approved plans, and specifications. Managed safety, scope, cost, schedule and change control and forecasting.
* Reduced financial losses by retrospectively enforcing contract provisions and successfully deleting unprofitable scope, terminating expansion into questionable areas and reducing workforce overhead and completing the project 5 months early. Losses were thereby reduced by $1.2 million.
* Introduced a decision tree response for superintendents and senior staff to improve the financial outcomes and site agreements on complex issues.
* Liaised with MSHA, OSHA, ATF, NIOSH and NV Contractors Board.
RockTek, Vice President, Golden, Colorado. Responsible for business development, marketing, and R&D strategy for Australian public company.
* Created promotional videos, presentation materials and press releases, and implemented a trade show program to increase sales of niche products & services. Wrote and presented technical papers at CIM and SME conventions. The result was a 60% increase in sales, new territory distributor agreements and public company investment.
* Introduced site training, including seminars, videos, procedures, materials and examinations. Clients included the National Park Service, Forest Service, Molycorp Inc, Normandy Mining, Phelps Dodge, Stillwater Mining & Getchell Gold.
* Aligned the advertising and selling functions, allowing new promotional programs to be introduced and redundant ones eliminated, resulting in a cost saving of around 15% and an increase in sales.
* Responsible for analysis of potential merger and acquisition targets from a technical, financial, corporate and management perspective.
* Member of the Board of Directors of the Australian-American Chamber of Commerce.
WMC Resources, Underground Manager, Leinster Nickel Operations, Western Australia. Responsible for an underground workforce of 150 at the Perseverance sublevel-cave and open-stope nickel mine.
* As head of the Elimination of Fatalities Task Force, instilled safe work practice attitudes with FIFO commute presentations. Lead inter-departmental groups to develop practical safe work procedures that enabled dangerous tasks to be completed accident-free. The Lost Time Injury rate was reduced to the lowest in the mine's history.
* Implemented a system of operating cost management that assigns cost accountability to the lowest functional level with SAP®, resulting in economies upwards of 15%.
* P&L responsibility with a $10 million budget. Responsible for setting new production targets.
* Oversaw an increase in production of 12% to a sustained 1.3 million tonnes, breaking all previous records.
As Open Pit Manager, was responsible for planning, budgeting, reconciliation and cut-back management for safe, sustained ore production from the Harmony Mine.
* Successful implementation of Intellimine® GPS tracking and dispatch systems
* Introduced a training matrix for all site personnel and personally trained higher technical and systems management functions
As Project Engineer, was responsible for the financial justification, programming, management and control of over 26 concurrent projects.
* Successfully led and directed a diverse group of scientists, engineers, and support staff and provided coordination between maintenance, operations, construction, and specialty contractors.
* Led the timely design, construction & commissioning of infrastructure improvements, which enabled operational efficiency to be improved, realizing cost reductions in the order of $2 million per year.
* Responsible for project management of permitting, technical, and financial feasibility study efforts by multiple international consultants. Negotiated and managed major engineering, technical, and environmental contracts.
* After hydrological and geological modeling with Dames & Moore, built a 4km diversion canal capable of handling 2 million m3 of stormwater. The canal prevented further pit-wall failure during the monsoon season and protected nearby infrastructure from subsidence encroachment.
* Oversaw shaft refurbishment, underground dewatering system replacement, MineCom electronic personnel tracking, Automated Mining Systems mobile fleet automation, drill-drive rehabilitation, 6-Sigma training, underground crushing station upgrade, underground and surface fleet management, foundation design and construction.
* Persuaded the EPA to grant an exceptional license for the construction of additional evaporation ponds facilities. Oversaw the URS design and pond wall construction that not only eliminated a long-standing environmental non-compliance but also increased mine dewatering efficiency by 30%.
* As leader of the Best Practice Lead Team, established a database driven capital project management system to enable Best Practice initiatives to be tracked and followed through. The team initiatives resulted in major operational innovations, increasing efficiency by 7% and effecting operating cost reductions amounting to $4 million.
* Justified capital and operational improvements with RONA, EVA, ROE & DCF financial performance methods and PrimaVera®, AutoCAD®, VentSim® & Vulcan® software.
As Production Engineer of the Rocky's Reward Mine, responsible for stope and drill-and-blast design, equipment selection, project planning and procedures and production management.
* Devised a narrow vein drill and blast method, enabling profitable extraction of an additional $5 million of underground resources. Trained blast designers and crews to maintain the quality control.
* Developed interactive hole charging system, which enabled accurate ore boundaries to be defined by production long-hole sampling. Blasting was optimized and dilution was reduced by 15%.
* Created a new narrow vein drilling method, which enabled previously uneconomic deposits to be selectively mined, thereby increasing revenues by $1 million.
* Successfully designed and oversaw the drilling, charging and blasting of largest mass-blast in the mine's history.
* Ore reserve estimation to JORC and NI 43-101 standards (AusIMM) with Datamine®, rock mechanics, CMS survey control with Surpac®, block modeling with XPAC®, reconciliations, pad planning, scheduling, waste dump sequencing, pit design and optimization.
* Led the implementation of ProdTrak®, a production tracking and reporting system that made scheduling and resource allocation more systematic. Equipment utilization increased by 9% and stockpile blending was improved so that variability of run-of-mine feed to the mill was reduced and concentrate recovery increased by 3%.
* Originated an Orica magazine delivery contact, which enabled unsupervised stock-taking & delivery underground to be made by the supplier instead of taking miners away from their main function and reducing costs by $12,000.
* As President if the Leinster Community Group, developed web sites for the outback towns of Leinster & Leonora and linked them to WMC Resources and tourism sites.
National Mine Management, Project Engineer, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Responsible for invoicing, inventory, scheduling, drill and blast design and providing cost analysis support to upper management. Construction, mining and government contracts.
* Successful greenfield to startup and production of first ore at the environmentally sensitive Henty gold project that was blind-bored shaft in a World Heritage listed rainforest in Tasmania.
* Converted supply arrangements from consignment stockpiles to automatic minimum quantity re-ordering using MPAC® at Henty. Routine stocktaking duties were reduced resulting in a time saving of over 20 man-hours per month.
* Implemented a Mineral Balance Sheet, highlighting areas of commercial risk using Gemcom® with @Risk to develop optimal mining strategies with SRK.
* As Founding Editor of the Western Australian Mining Club in Perth, created a monthly magazine. Club membership increased by 40% to 1,500.
* Introduced open-book recording that enabled comparison of client's daily work log records with our own at the Yilgarn Star mine. The end-of-month payment disputes that had plagued the project were eliminated, invoice aging was were reduced by two weeks and the client relationship was improved.
* Developed a shift hand-over system that caused functional interactions to be communicated between shift personnel, increasing efficiency by up to 600 man-hours per year at Yilgarn Star.
* Arranged a system of capturing incidental services as dayworks, thereby increasing revenues by 8%.
As Intern for the Western Australian Mine Manager's Certificate, worked at 6 different mines as a foreman, shift boss, blaster, equipment operator and miner. Hands-on experience in:
* room-and pillar, open stope, flatback, cut-and-fill, sub-level-cave, block-cave, open-cut, resue
* gig, ladder and Alimak rising
* paste-fill, shotcrete, rock-fill
* portal installation, shaft-sinking, raise-boring,
* ventilation, diesel permitting, blast monitoring, mines rescue
* exploration drilling, sampling, core logging
* process plant operation, including flotation, CIP, CIL, flash drying, filtration and crushing
As part of the estimating team, responsible preparing feasibilities and designs with Whittle® and tenders for underground and open pit mining and tunneling.
* Improved inside out system of contract tendering so that prices for services not listed in the tender could compensate for low-priced schedule of rates items.
* Cessation, closure and reclamation compliance and reporting.
London Underground, Asst Supervising Engineer Jubilee Line Extension, London, United Kingdom. Responsible for preparing Bills of Quantities, overseeing tunneling and archeological contracts.
* Reformed the method of reviewing Bills of Quantities to highlight anomalies, overlaps and gaps.
* Member of the DOT ocean racing team rowing squad, competing in France, Belgium and Henley.
Transmanche Link, Site Engineer, Channel Tunnel, Dover, Kent, United Kingdom. Responsible for setting out the under-sea work of cross-passages, pump motor rooms and sumps in the 23 mile underwater section of the £15 billion project.
* Coordinated re-bar and concrete placement of ring beams and tunnel inverts
* Installation of lattice-girder and NATM shotcrete
* Placement and grouting of precast steel and concrete tunnel segments
* Laser and string-line surveying and setting out.
* Member of the English Channel Tunnel cycle team from London to Paris.
Dynamic Industries Australia, Sales Manager, Perth, Western Australia. As Sales Manager, built a startup mining and process equipment division into a $5 million enterprise.
* Initiated contracts with US, European and Asian equipment manufacturers, enabling products to be imported on a consignment basis, maintaining a positive cashflow while building the customer base.
* Extensive foreign contract negotiating experience in the Far East and USA.
* Developed factory to mine-site just-in-time re-ordering system, winning wear-part customers and increasing sales by $500,000.
* Successfully responsible for securing initial and repeat business.
Has successfully held profit and loss responsibility, managed international development, engineering and construction projects in Australia and North America and Europe. Has mining and construction experience in all project phases from mergers and acquisitions through the conceptual, feasibility and financial analysis, loan acquisition, lender negotiation, engineering, procurement, and construction. Proven success in operations and management of heavy industrial facilities, feasibility analysis and studies, environmental permitting and remediation, engineering project management, project evaluation, financial evaluation. Has been an officer in public and private corporations and has extensive experience managing complex business structures, internationally and domestically. Many years of success in human relations, safety management, operations, personnel management, contract development, negotiation and administration, budgeting, project controls, construction claims, business development, negotiations, and financial modeling and analysis. Proven ability to quickly analyze key business drivers and develop strategies. High integrity, energetic leader known for the ability to build and manage teams and strategic alliances. Has made positive contributions to the bottom line in every position held. Outstanding people skills and excels in solving complex problems
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