The takeaways from the keynote session at this year's
Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) annu-
al meeting, which was held during February in Phoenix,
were clear and informative. Outgoing SME President Steve
Gardner was the emcee, and prior to the keynote, he intro-
duced Phillips S. Baker Jr., CEO, Hecla Mining. Celebrating
its 125
th
anniversary, Hecla sponsored the session.
Baker kicked off his presentation with an impressive video
that can be viewed at: www.hecla-mining.com. Hecla Mining Co. was founded in 1891
to acquire and trade mining claims in northern Idaho's newly discovered Silver Valley,
a district that has so far produced more than 1.2 billion oz of silver. Today, Hecla is
the largest primary silver producer in the U.S. "This milestone causes us to consider
our priorities and the path of our longevity," Baker said. "Our first priority is safety. We
are constantly looking for ways to engineer risk out of the equation."
What's the secret to longevity? "You have to start with great, long-lived, low-cost
assets, and Hecla has them," Baker said. "The company's Greens Creek mine, as
an example, is in its 28
th
year of having a 10-year mine life and it still has 100 mil-
lion oz of reserves that are growing. Every long-lived company has one company-
making asset like Greens Creek."
Baker is an important man in the silver mining and processing industries, but
before an audience of engineers, he couldn't compete with an astronaut. In a nut-
shell, Air Force Colonel and astronaut Mike Mullane talked about teamwork. Col.
Mullane completed three space missions and logged 356 hours in space aboard the
shuttles Discovery and Atlantis. Much of his presentation was tied to the Challenger
space shuttle disaster, which occurred 30 years ago, and what went wrong and what
we could learn from it. He walked the crowd through the rigors of launch day, get-
ting suited up and readying for a trip to space. Knowing that you are riding on 4 mil-
lion lb of propellant, Mullane asked rhetorically: What type of team would you want
supporting you? The answer obviously is the best team NASA can assemble.
He talked at length about guarding against the normalization of deviance, a long-
term phenomenon where teams (or individuals) repeatedly accept a lower standard
of performance until that lower standard becomes the norm. He also discussed the
essence of responsibility and accountability as a leader and an individual, pressing
the crowd to maintain themselves as courageous self-leaders.
"Workers rationalize short cuts in best practices when they are under pressure,"
Mullane said. "When nothing bad happens, it gives them a false positive feedback.
One starts to believe the risk of taking the shortcut is manageable. Ultimately these
decisions will lead to ugly, predictable surprises." Sound familiar?
The shuttle program was sold to Congress and the American people as a game-chang-
er for space exploration, Mullane explained; it was going to dramatically reduce the cost
of exploring space. A fleet of four orbiters were going to sustain a flight rate of 26 mis-
sions per year. To succeed, they had to fly often. The most missions launched in a one-
year period was 11. Under tremendous schedule and budget pressures and over multi-
ple launches, the NASA team accepted a lower standard of performance for the solid
rocket booster O-rings until that lower standard became the norm. Disaster resulted.
Much of this is documented in his book,
The Outrageous Tales of a Space
Shuttle Astronaut
. Mullane encouraged the crowd to hang on to their sense of vul-
nerability; and to set challenging, yet attainable goals. If they are set too high, the
team will either give up or find shortcuts to meet the goals.
Steve Fiscor, E&MJ; Editor-in-Chief,
sfiscor@mining-media.com
Set Challenging, Yet
Attainable Goals
6 E&MJ; • MARCH 2016
F R O M T H E E D I T O R
Steve Fiscor/Editor-in-Chief
www.mining-media.com
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