MINING NEWS: UAF School of Mineral Engineering: All dressed up and nowhere to go

J. P. Tangen

For Mining News

An essential element of the Communist Manifesto was a free education to all qualified young men and women, followed by a rich and rewarding career that would produce endless benefits for the state and, by extension, all people. We, of the People’s Republic of Alaska, are fortunate to have realized this basic Marxist objective, at least in the area of mining and geological engineering.

I am told, in fact, that despite the presence of a vital mining industry, there is a shortage of qualified Alaskans to work at those mines. Currently, there are five large operating mines within the People’s Republic, and there are at least five more in the “pipeline.” I am further told that at the University of Alaska Fairbanks there are engineering programs begging for students and scholarships for all to mitigate any conceivable financial hardship.

Many of the mines, both those now operating and others on the drawing board are situated in rural areas where they do, or will, represent substantial infusions of cash into local economies. In addition, it appears that these jobs substantially favor local residents who are otherwise disproportionately under-employed.

Given the foregoing, I must concede confusion. One would think that such need and opportunity could not thrive simultaneously in our socialist heaven. Yet it does. It appears that the People’s representatives are allowing a disconnect to exist, without comment or cure. Possibly, there are in Alaska young men and women who do not wish to step into $80,000-per-year jobs upon graduation or who cannot resist the temptation to migrate to some far off place to pursue more menial careers. On the other hand, it seems incredible that there are fewer than 200 young Alaskans who can be induced annually to embrace these opportunities.

Currently, it is said that the national demand for engineers in the mining industry grows at a steady 300 new positions every year, yet schools across the nation can only produce candidates at less than half that rate, while here in the People’s Republic we are producing only a fraction of that total.

Every schoolteacher in Alaska is afforded the opportunity to learn about minerals in general and the mineral potential of Alaska through the AMEREF program. (For those who live in trees and eat snakes, AMEREF is the acronym for Alaska Mineral & Energy Resource Education Fund.) The AMEREF program has been putting educational kits into the hands of Alaska’s teachers for decades. In many instances, the teachers have even opened the box. Presumably, as the result of this initial exposure, every kid in the Republic knows that over the course of the average lifetime each of us will need huge amounts of copper, lead, zinc, silver, gold and many other mined commodities – all the fruits of our own backyard.

With that tidbit of information, it would seem to follow as night follows day that out of that fertile field young minds emboldened by curiosity would want to know how green rocks became copper pipes and how a person could make a living digging humongous holes in the ground.

I recently had the privilege of touring the state-of-the-art facility at the Fort Knox Gold Mine near Fairbanks. High above the pit, in command of the entire show, sat the operations manager. He had half a dozen computer screens arrayed across the desk in front of him from which he directed shovels and trucks and everything else happening in the pit 1,000 feet below. It has to be one of the coolest jobs on the face of the earth.

What kid in modern America would not happily spend his life in this wonderful world of modern science and technology? I have to believe that the reason we cannot find youngsters who want to be mining engineers when they grow up is because they don’t know what a brilliant opportunity they have. The demand is great, the education is available in our own university system, the price is right, and surely our kids are bright enough. Hey folks, this is the utopia people have fought and died to create. Karl Marx would be rolling over in his grave if he only knew how we were letting it pass us by.