American Exploration & Mining Association's Laura Skaer to Retire
The American Exploration & Mining Association announced today that Executive Director Laura Skaer will retire effective March 31, 2019, after more than 22 years of service. "I have had the pleasure and honor of being AEMA's Executive Director for 22 years. It has been the most rewarding and personally satisfying part of my 44-year professional career since I graduated from law school. Mining is the greatest industry on the planet and AEMA members are the best of the best," Skaer said.
Skaer has served as the Executive Director for AEMA, formerly the Northwest Mining Association (NWMA), since December 1996. Under her leadership, AEMA has grown to be the largest membership-based trade association for the mining industry in the U.S. AEMA President Bob Comer glowingly recognized this leadership, stating, "Laura is renowned within the mining community for her passion, knowledge and countless contributions to the industry that have established her among the most respected advocates for mining in the Nation." In 2013, Laura was named one of 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining by Women in Mining UK.
In December of 1996, Laura Skaer took the helm of the venerable, 101-year-old regional mining association and steered it to national acclaim. In her first month as Executive Director, Skaer set forth an agenda in the Association's newsletter to "make 1997 the year the Northwest Mining Association establishes itself as a proactive leader and the most respected association in the [mining] industry." Proactive, however, was an inadequate description for the blitzkrieg that would ensue. Within six months, the Association was filing a lawsuit against Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt over illegal bonding regulations. One year and one day later, NWMA won that legal battle, establishing not only a landmark victory for hardrock mining and the nation's small businesses, but also the dawn of a new age for the Association. Within her first year, Laura had achieved precisely what she set out to accomplish - she transformed the NWMA into both a feared and revered advocate for mining in America. "Today, AEMA is the premier voice for mineral exploration and access to public lands thanks to Laura Skaer's proactive leadership," said Erik Best, immediate Past President of AEMA.
Since Laura's arrival, AEMA's corporate membership has increased to the highest level in the association's 123-year history. "Membership shot up after we showed that the Association was ready to fight," said Skaer.
Not only did Skaer show she was ready to fight, she also showed she was receptive to change. Throughout her career, she implemented a variety of changes contributing to the Association's success. Working closely with an executive committee of seasoned mining executives, Laura worked to improve the Association's financial health by modernizing budgeting and accounting methods and, ultimately, taking the Association from an operating deficit to a surplus. In 2006, after carefully surveying its membership, the Association held its 112th Annual Meeting in Reno, NV, the first time it had ever been held outside of Spokane. Attendance skyrocketed, and the decision was made to return to Reno biennially. Three years later, attendance had more than doubled. Perhaps most notably, in 2013 Skaer oversaw the Northwest Mining Association become the American Exploration & Mining Association, solidifying its role as the national voice for the exploration and junior mining sectors in the U.S.
Laura's leadership at AEMA has played an essential role in advancing the hardrock mining industry's interests in key mining states and on Capitol Hill for the past 22 years," said Debra Struhsacker, Environmental Permitting & Government Relations Consultant and longtime friend.
Throughout her career, Skaer has unwaveringly led AEMA in supporting public lands access, securing permitting reforms, challenging mineral withdrawals, and supporting AEMA members' permitting efforts. Most recently, she led an industry coalition of small and mid-sized mining companies to oppose EPA's CERCLA 108(b) rulemaking to impose additional, duplicative financial assurance requirements on the hardrock mining industry. The coalition was paramount in demonstrating to the Small Business Advocacy Review Panel that current federal and state requirements adequately protected the taxpayer; and that additional duplicative assurance requirements, totaling $7.1 billion, would have threatened the viability of the U.S. mining industry.
Though Skaer will relinquish her formal role, her advocacy efforts are far from over. She believes there is much left to accomplish and plans to remain active in advocating for the mining industry. "I see this as a transition to the next stage of my professional career as opposed to a 'retirement.'"
Skaer's successor will join the AEMA staff in January, working with her until her retirement in March to ensure a smooth transition.
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About AEMA:
AEMA is a 123-year old, 2,000-member national association representing the minerals industry with members residing in 42 U.S. states, seven Canadian provinces or territories, and 10 other countries.
UTAH HIGH SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION TEACHERS WIN SECOND-PLACE IN 2018 HARBOR FREIGHT TOOLS FOR SCHOOLS PRIZE FOR TEACHING EXCELLENCE
Salt Lake City Teachers, High School Share $50,000 Award
For Immediate Release
Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018
Contact: Karen Denne
818-836-5272 or 818-307-0510
kdenne@hftforschools.org
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah—A team of three construction teachers from Salt Lake City have won second-place in the 2018 Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, earning them and their high school skilled trades program $50,000 as part of $1 million awarded nationally.
Robert Cook, Vaughn Nickerson and Anthony Van Horn, who teach construction at Granite Technical Institute in Salt Lake City, were surprised in their classroom by a representative from Harbor Freight Tools for Schools with the news that they and their school will receive $50,000—$35,000 for the school’s skilled trades program and $15,000 divided among the three teachers.
“The creativity and hands-on projects that Mr. Cook, Mr. Nickerson, Mr. Van Horn and the other winning teachers bring to their classrooms is an inspiration,” said Danny Corwin, executive director of Harbor Freight Tools for Schools. “This is education at its best, and we are humbled to honor these teachers and shine a light on excellence in skilled trades education.”
Three $100,000 first-place prizes were awarded to a welding teacher from Georgia, a building trades teacher from Michigan and an industrial diesel mechanics teacher from Ohio, with the prize winnings split between the individual teacher or team and their high school skilled trades program. Fifteen second-place winners across the country, including Cook, Nickerson and Van Horn, were also surprised with the news that they and their schools had won the cash award. In addition to the more than $1 million in first- and second-place prizes awarded by Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, the company Harbor Freight Tools donated $34,000 to 34 semi-finalists.
The prize was started in 2017 by Harbor Freight Tools Founder Eric Smidt to recognize extraordinary public high school skilled trades teachers and programs with a proven track record of dedication and performance. The prize is awarded by Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, a program of The Smidt Foundation.
“These incredible teachers are an inspiration—to their students, to their communities and to us,” said Eric Smidt, Harbor Freight Tools founder. “They are masters of their trades and instill in their students a passion for the skilled trades that gives them a path to a meaningful, good-paying career. These are local jobs in every community across America, building and repairing homes, fixing cars and appliances, and so much more. We’re honored to be able to recognize these teachers for inspiring and developing the future workforce our country needs.”
Robert Cook, Vaughn Nickerson and Anthony Van Horn teach the Construction Youth Mentor Connection (CYMC) program at Granite Technical Institute, which focuses on serving students with school credit deficiencies and ensuring they complete high school. Cook has been teaching at Granite for 20 years and has a master plumber’s license. Nickerson has been teaching for 17 years and has a contractor’s and residential master electrician’s license. Van Horn joined the school three years ago after obtaining his contractor’s license.
Through the CYMC program, students have an opportunity to explore different aspects of the industry, including differences between residential and commercial construction, as they then move to more focused training in carpentry, plumbing and electrical.
“We love working in an industry that is ever changing and helping students build skills to adjust to the change,” the team wrote in their application for the prize, “but more important we love making a difference in the lives of the kids changing the life they come from to one with unlimited opportunities.”
From the first class they take, students are given the chance to develop relationships with postsecondary and industry partners. Internship opportunities allow the student to assess the work environment of a company while the employer assesses the work ethic of the student.
The school holds a celebration at the end of the school year honoring students for completing their high school requirements for graduation and the developing industry skills. Companies are invited to the celebration, and students have a chance to talk with the companies about employment. Every student attending the 2017 celebration had multiple job offers from companies before they left.
“Students build skills that are marketable and that will provide an income far above what is currently found in many of their families,” the team said.
The first-place winners of the 2018 prize are Gary Bronson, an industrial diesel mechanics teacher at Laurel Oaks Career Campus in Wilmington, Ohio, Charles Kachmar, who teaches metals and welding at Maxwell High School of Technology in Lawrenceville, Georgia, and Andrew J. Neumann, a building trades teacher at Bay Arenac Intermediate School District Career Center in Bay City, Michigan. Kachmar and Neumann will each receive $100,000—$70,000 for the school’s skilled trades program and $30,000 for the teacher. Because of Ohio’s state policy regarding individual cash awards to public employees, Bronson’s school will receive the entire prize winnings.
The school’s prize winnings will support the skilled trades program being recognized, and the teacher’s or teacher team winnings can be used at their discretion.
The 2018 prize drew more than 550 applications from 49 states and included three rounds of judging, each by an independent panel that included experts from industry, education, trades, philanthropy and civic leadership. The field was narrowed this summer to 52 semi-finalists. The application process, which included responses to questions and a series of online video learning modules, was designed to solicit each teacher’s experience, insights and creative ideas about their approach to teaching and success in helping their students achieve excellence in the skilled trades. All learning modules are available here.
For a list of the other 14 second-place winners, click here. The high schools of the remaining 34 semi-finalists will each receive a $1,000 Harbor Freight Tools gift card to support their skilled trades programs. The list of the semifinalists is available here.
For more information about the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, including the final round panels of judges, please visit hftforschoolsprize.org.
About Harbor Freight Tools for Schools
Harbor Freight Tools for Schools is an initiative of The Smidt Foundation, established by Harbor Freight Tools Founder Eric Smidt, to support the advancement of skilled trades education in America. With a deep respect for the dignity of these fields and for the intelligence and creativity of people who work with their hands, this program was created to foster and shine a light on excellence in skilled trades education in public high schools. Believing that access to quality skilled trades education gives high school students pathways to graduation, opportunity, good jobs and a workforce our country needs, Harbor Freight Tools for Schools aims to stimulate greater understanding, support and investment by public entities and others in skilled trades education. Harbor Freight Tools is a major supporter of the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools program. For more information, visit https://harborfreighttoolsforschools.org
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Sens. Lee, Markey Introduce Spectrum Valuation Act
WASHINGTON - Today, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the Government Spectrum Valuation Act. The bill would require annual coordination of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to determine the value of electromagnetic spectrum assigned or allocated to each federal agency. It would also require each federal agency to report the value of their electromagnetic spectrum in the President’s budget and each federal agency’s financial statement.
“Congress has a clear responsibility to ensure that federal spectrum is being managed effectively and appropriately,” Sen. Lee said. “One of the first steps to conducting effective oversight is assessing the value of federal spectrum allocations. By simply calculating the value of federal spectrum allocations, Congress and the Administration will be better equipped to identify valuable federal spectrum bands and manage each federal spectrum allocation more efficiently.”
“Spectrum is the oxygen of the wireless world, ensuring American consumers and companies enjoy all of the benefits of this Internet of Things economy,” said Sen. Markey. “It’s a simple formula: more available spectrum equals more competition and innovation. But you cannot effectively manage what you have not measured, and this legislation will finally ensure the public knows the value of spectrum held by the federal government so we can ensure it is being put to the best use.”
Bill text and an online version of this release can be found here.
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HE NEW ABNORMAL
By Robert C. Koehler
852 Words
Thousand Oaks, California: a city torn apart by wildfire and gunfire. Both are unnatural disasters.
“This is the new abnormal,” Gov. Jerry Brown said this week at a press conference, talking about global warming and the three voracious fires that are tearing up his state, one of them — the Camp Fire, in Northern California — the deadliest and most destructive in the state’s history.
“Unfortunately, the best science is telling us that dryness, warmth, drought, all those things, they’re going to intensify,” Brown said.
In Thousand Oaks, northwest of Los Angeles, the new abnormal met the new abnormal. On Nov. 7, a gunman entered the Borderline Bar and Grill in that city and started shooting, killing 11 patrons and a police officer. He then shot himself. Several of the patrons, including one of the victims, had survived the mass shooting a year earlier at a Las Vegas concert.
There was no time to grieve. A day later, as the Washington Post reported, “catastrophic twin blazes had formed a ring of fire around this Southern California community. The second tragedy of the week had somehow dwarfed the first.” Thousands of people were forced to evacuate their homes.
Gunfire and wildfire. This is a country at war with itself in multiple ways.
The shooter, Ian David Long — described, of course, as a troubled loner — was a former Marine who had been deployed in Afghanistan. Is there a relationship between the shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill and the fact that Long had been trained as a machine-gunner?
The American mainstream media are far more willing, it seems, to acknowledge a relationship between human activity and climate change, including the increasing intensity of natural disasters, such as hurricanes and wildfires, than they are willing to acknowledge a relationship between killing abroad, which is called war, and killing at home, which is called murder.
A New York Times story in the wake of the shootings, however, wades into the complexity of this relationship.
Reporters interviewed a number of his fellow Marines. One of them, utterly shocked by what happened, said: “He was a really good guy. He gave me the Bible I still carry today.” But he added: “We were trained as machine-gunners, so you know you are capable of doing something like this. But that he did it makes no sense. It is against all our values.”
Presumably the violated values concern the killing of Americans, which, I fear, is a precarious distinction.
The Times story also informed us that Long’s battalion “saw little action” during his deployment in Afghanistan, pointing out, without comment or further context: “The only casualty in the battalion died by suicide after being hazed by other Marines.”
Wait, what?
This bit of data may have absolutely nothing to do with the mass shooting spree in Thousand Oaks, but it seems to say something about values as defined by the military and reported by the media.
When life itself isn’t sacrosanct — when the taking of it is allowed to serve tactical and strategic purposes — values can quickly crumble. Killing people, at the very least, becomes no big deal. Sometimes it’s even, you know, necessary.
A Marine is “hazed” by fellow Marines and commits suicide. The awfulness of this resonated for me partly because it was reported with such a shrug, worth half a sentence. (The Times did, however, link to a longer story about the incident.)
Here’s another quote from the story, from someone who served with Long: “I’m not surprised someone I knew ended up doing a mass shooting. We had another guy recently committed suicide by cops in Texas. Guys struggle. We’ve lost more Marines in our peer group to suicide than we ever lost in Afghanistan.”
I fear the influence of militarism expands well beyond the strategy and tactics that are under its control. The essential value it maintains, with a budget almost beyond comprehension, is that safety, freedom and morality itself require belief in — and willingness to kill — a designated enemy. It’s the simplest possible solution to life’s paradoxical complexity: Kill the bad guy.
Sociologist Peter Turchin has called it the “principle of social substitutability.” After the Sandy Hook killings six years ago, he described this principle in an essay: “On the battlefield, you are supposed to try to kill a person whom you’ve never met before. You are not trying to kill this particular person, you are shooting because he is wearing the enemy uniform. . . . Enemy soldiers are socially substitutable.”
I fear this principle has spread through our gun-saturated society like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Angry and troubled souls can wage their own wars, and more and more of them are doing so. Perhaps the problem isn’t that many people are troubled — there are lots of reasons to be troubled, both crazy and legitimate — but that so many of them have embraced a simplistic, life-devaluing solution to the trouble.
It’s the same solution the country itself has embraced.
“Mass shootings and mass burnings,” said Stephen Pyne, a wildfire expert at Arizona State University, quoted by Wired magazine. “Welcome to the new America.”
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Robert Koehler, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. His book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound is available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
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