Like many mining towns, Round Mountain is remote, with the closest city hundreds of miles away. Most of our ~1,000 employees live in Hadley, a small village adjacent to the mine, and the epicentre of daily life.
An aerial view of Round Mountain and the town of Hadley (pictured in back right.)
Giving back to the community has always been a priority for the mine and our people who work there, and beginning in 2007, employee volunteers began teaching welding classes twice per week at the local high school.
Their goal was simple: teach kids a usable, translatable, valuable skill that could help them succeed in the working world.
This year three employees from Round Mountain are leading the program: Dale Barber (Maintenance Instructor), Aldous Hume (NDT Technician) and Randy Osterhoudt (Welder). Their focus has been teaching the students welding techniques and how to design a 4” square metal cube. Dale Barber explains:
“Oxy/Fuel welding is the most fundamental welding process used today. It requires simple tools and is a very good skill to build upon. The Cube Project is a study in fabrication: the art of building something – in this case a 4” square from metal. It requires several skills and none of them are easy: design, engineering, measuring, precise cutting, cleaning and assembly. If any one of these skills is deficient, the fabricated cube will be deficient. It is a very difficult project – one that is much harder than it looks at first glance.
“The skills I have learned here have given me the confidence to put projects together at school and home. I want to challenge myself – my next project will be fabricating a Dodecahedron, or 12-sided shape.” (Destiny Peed, Round Mountain High School Student)
Destiny Peed, Round Mountain High School Student
Dale Barber (Maintenance Instructor, Roudn Mountain), and a volunteer welding teacher at the local high school.
