UMD opening center to train next generation of miners

The University of Minnesota Duluth is developing a new Mineral Resources Center to help meet a growing need for skilled mining workers.

Proposed taconite and copper-nickel mines in northern Minnesota could create hundreds if not thousands of new jobs in northern Minnesota in coming years. In addition, hundreds of workers at existing iron ore mines are nearing retirement.

Filling those jobs is a big concern, said John Marsden, president of the national Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration.

"We've got an aging workforce, the technical expertise is either retiring, or leaving the industry," he said at a conference in Duluth Today.

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At the conference, Marsden and other mining industry officials highlighted the challenge of training qualified workers to replace those workers. He said the industry has been living off the legacy of graduation classes from the 1970s and 80s.

To train a new generation of workers, the U of M center will help produce more graduates trained in exploration, processing and other core mining disciplines.

The new center will combine existing geology and engineering programs designed to train enough qualified workers, UMD geologist Jim Miller said.

"UMD will have that reputation in the industry, that when they hire, we'll have students that are specialists in certain aspects, but they will have a full understanding of the mining cycle when they come out," he said.

Miller said UMD has been planning the new center for five years and will open it in the next year or two. Another challenge is a shortage of trained faculty in mining disciplines, 70 percent of whom are expected to retire nationwide by 2020.