Biography: Bryan Strahl

Bryan working for the Pacific Northern Railroad

Bio: Bryan was born in Chilliwack, British Columbia on April 11th, 1988.  Bryan’s great grandparents are from Germany and Swedish descent and arrived in Canada in the early 1900’s.  His grandfather, father and uncles ran a logging company out of Agassiz BC, until Bryan was the age of 5.  After logging Bryan’s father went into equipment handling for other logging and mining operations, with home-base still in Chilliwack.  Bryan’s uncles went into retirement and politics.  To this day, Bryans family still remains involved with politics.  After graduating from Sardis Secondary School in 2006, Bryan took his first year of Engineering at the University College of Fraser Valley.   After one year, Bryan transferred into the UBC Mining Engineering Department and now, is planning to graduate in May 2012.  Throughout his schooling, Bryan has had the great opportunity to work for the rail transportation industry and various mining companies. 

Why He Went Into Mining: “I choose mining engineering because it provides unique and challenging problems, work outside of the office and has a wide variety of career options including: becoming mine planners and designers, consultants for tunneling operations (for road, rail, hydro-electric, water supply or sewerage works), operations managers, technical specialists (eg. rock mechanics, drilling and blasting, mine machinery or ventilation), investment analysts and advisers, researchers, or general managers and mine managers. To prepare for such a career, students such as myself cover a broad range of interesting subjects such as mining technology, rock mechanics, ventilation, geology, metallurgy, surveying, economics and finance, management, health and safety, environmental principles and computer applications. 

Once in the UBC mining engineering program, I became very interested in underground rock mechanics and metallurgy.  Although at first, they may seem mutually exclusive, both career choices put myself in important and challenging positions within the industry.“

Work Experience:

·       Pacific Northern Railway (PNR) Contractors – BC and Alberta

·       Xstrata Technology – Vancouver

·       Goldcorp (Musselwhite Mine) – Ontario

·       New Gold (New Afton) – Kamloops, BC

Future Work: My first job in industry will be for New Gold at their New Afton Operation as an underground mine engineer.  I am very excited to start work and apply my skills because underground mining engineers can be involved with coordinating mining activities, maintenance scheduling for all equipment, short/ long term mine planning, scheduling, rock mechanics and design.

Travel Experience: China, Singapore, Malaysia, United States, Across Canada, Holland, Belgium, France, Japan.

Research Trip Responsibilities:  “As mine contact representative, my job is to coordinate mine tours in order to justify research trip status.  Though I have accounted many challenges including: language barriers, busy signals, time differences and establishing contacts, I have been able to coordinate six mine tours for our 2012 Graduating Class Research Trip.  The tours include (one) Undergound Gold Mine, (two) Open Pit Gold Mines, (one) Open Pit Coal Mine, (one) Marble-Slab Quarry and (one) Porcelain/Glass Factory and Quarry. “ Other responsibilities include arranging funding from our generous sponsors, meal planning with the mines and helping with executive decisions in many trip plans.”

The UBC Mining 2012 Research Field Trip to Turkey would not be where it is today if not for the efforts of Bryan Strahl. His self-motivation, perseverance and professionalism have fueled the class as a whole in achieving its goal of going to Turkey to visit mines operating in a different place and culture.