Mining Program Trains About 1,400 Students in an Average Year
in including MAPTS in the partnership. “Rajive and I go way back,” Bieber chuckled.
part of it, but all the mines themselves have numbers of open positions, and can’t get applicants to apply. Our last class we had two students for six positons!” “We’ve also been approached by Nevada gold mines, a group of mines from Barrick and Newmont merged in Nevada. They’re coming up and reviewing our program, because they want to use us to learn how to develop their own in-house training. They want to come up and learn how we teach. “We are really the only ones in the world that do what we do.” Although we usually talk about the training MAPTS does for mining, they are also the leading school for oil field workers as well. “Our whole Anchorage office is based on oil field compliance training. We do a lot of the MSHA training for Alaska.” Across all programs and divisions, MAPTS trains about 1,400 students in an average year, he said. To learn more about MAPTS, look online at the MAPTS website at www.mapts.alaska.edu. Here is also an excellent video that describes the program: www.alaska.net/~mapts/videos/MAPTS2018.m4v.
The partnership is just one way that MAPTS has adapted to financial and pandemic challenges, to continue its core mission of training new miners and oil field workers in Alaska. “We endured some serious budget cuts, 35 percent last year,” Bieber said. “We had to make it up somehow, so we reach out to do different things to offset costs. “For example, we still train a lot for Canada (mining companies), which provides revenue to train Alaskans. What I’m so proud of is our ability to do mine training, purchase facilities, build and stock those facilities, and do it without any additional state funds. We’ve been able to do that with grants and contracts.” The Greenland project is almost done the first year of the three year contract. “With Covid, a lot of the travel was put on the back burner until this year,” Bieber said. “The Greenland trainers will be coming in soon, with four or five trainers to start.” The other big challenge MAPTS is dealing with is finding more students to join the mining industry, he said. “Our student numbers are still way down. COVID is a
www.alaskaminers.org I The Alaska Miner I November 2021
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