Resumes

AGAPITO ASSOCIATES, INC. Mining & Civil Engineers & Geologists
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Name/Title	Expertise
Michael P. Hardy, Ph.D., P.E. Principal/President/Chairman of the Board (University of Minnesota)	Over 35 years experience in rock mechanics and mine design project management. Project manager for mine design in coal, trona, nahcolite, borate, gold, and oil shale. Manages projects involving field geotechnical data gathering, numerical modeling, design of underground mines, solution mining, backfill, and geo-hydrology. Taught advanced rock mechanics and mine plant engineering at the University of Minnesota. Past chairman of the Underground Technical Research Council (UTRC) of the ASCE and SME. Committee member for the National Academy of Science, National Research Council on the Waste Isolation Project (WIPP). Registered professional engineer in Colorado and Texas.
Francis S. Kendorski, P.E. Principal/Vice President (University of Arizona, Tucson)	Over 35 years experience in consulting in rock mechanics, mine engineering, blasting, tunneling, litigation assistance, and geology. Provides consulting engineering services to the mining and civil engineering industries in ground control, subsidence, water problems, underground and surface rock mass stability; rock slope design, room-and-pillar design, caving methods, mine and quarry planning, mine and tunnel failures, and vibrations from blasting. Extensive experience in forensic engineering for attorneys and insurers in mine and tunnel failures, underground construction claims, equipment use, business interruption; property and casualty cases, blasting, subsidence, and floods. Responsible for projects in stone, industrial minerals, copper, gold, molybdenum, coal, salt, and sand and gravel. Experience in financial valuations, due diligence, feasibility studies, and preparation of bankable documents. Registered professional engineer in Alabama, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Presented with the 2006 Rock Mechanics Award.
Timothy A. Ross, P.E. Principal & Manager (Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University)	Over 30 years experience managing mine operations and mining engineering, specializing in underground, surface, and highwall mining. He has extensive underground experience with longwalls, continuous miners and continuous haulage, conventional mining systems, pillar extraction, and mobile roof supports. Tim’s surface mining experience includes dragline, truck/shovel, and contour mining operations. His capabilities include ground control design and problem resolution, feasibility studies, economic evaluations, study and review of mine design, long- and short-range mine planning; mine evaluation, operating and capital cost estimates, equipment selection recommendations, mine staffing and scheduling, new mine start-up; and utilization of seismic tomography for ground characterization projects. He is a registered professional engineer in Colorado, Kentucky, New Mexico, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. He is also a member of the SME Professional Registration Committee.
J. F. T. Agapito, Ph.D., P.E. Principal (Colorado School of Mines)	Over 40 years experience in consulting in rock mechanics and mine engineering. Established rock mechanics and mining engineering consulting firm. Has worked on many geotechnical and ventilation projects for underground mines, both in soft and hard rock. Has conducted research programs for government agencies, and was an expert witness in cases relating to ground stability. Extensive experience on ground control issues in longwall coal mining. Responsible for geotechnical projects in operating oil shale, coal, copper, trona, scheelite, molybdenum, uranium, and potash mines. Evaluated plans for large oil shale mines and the disposal of nuclear waste in deep geologic formations. Taught senior level courses in ventilation and rock mechanics at Colorado School of Mines. Registered professional engineer in Colorado and Washington. (Fluent in Portugese and working knowledge of Spanish and French)
Gary L. Skaggs, P.E., P.Eng. Sr. Associate (Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University)	Over 35 years mining experience in underground domestic and international mining. He has executive level management experience for large, underground, multi-mine complexes and corporate technical groups. His strengths are integrating operating, technical, and business functions; productivity, quality, and safety improvements, operational and safety audits; reserve and resource analysis; feasibility studies, and due diligence evaluations of mining enterprises. His experience includes trona, limestone and conventional, continuous miner, and longwall operations in coal. He is a licensed professional engineer in fourteen states and the province of Alberta, Canada. Gary is a Registered Member of the Society for Mining, Exploration, and Metallurgy, Inc. (SME) where he serves on the Professional Licensing Exam Committee, the Council of Education's Accreditation and Curricular Issues Subcommittee, and the ABET Visitors Selection Committee. Gary serves as a commissioner on the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, Inc. as SME's representative for mining engineering. He is a member of the SME Foundation Board of Trustees, the Colorado Mining Association, the Rocky Mountain Coal Mining Institute, and the National Society of Professional Engineers.
Brian F. McGunegle, P.E. Sr. Associate (Michigan Technological University)	Over 35 years experience in mining operations. Provides consulting engineering services to the mining industry in the areas of mine engineering, mine planning, rock mechanics, material handling, mine ground control, and general mine operations. Projects include ground control problem resolution, study and review of mine design, long- and short-range mine planning, mine evaluations, operating and capital cost estimates, equipment selection recommendations, expert testimony related to ground control and mine design issues, and management of drilling operations. A highly experienced mining engineer with a strong record of success in mine management, engineering, and mine planning. Registered professional engineer in Colorado. (Working knowledge of Spanish)
Tom L. Vandergrift, P.E. Associate (Colorado School of Mines)	Over 20 years experience in mining and geotechnical engineering related to ground control, with emphasis on underground mine design and highwall mine design. Tom provides practical ground control solutions for highwall and longwall mining, and mobile roof support retreat operations. His experience includes design of longwall gateroad pillars, pillar retreat cut plans for both partial and full extraction, stress analysis and mine design in multiple-seam environments, subsidence prediction, design of roof support systems, rock and soil mass characterization, in situ stress measurement, instrumentation, and application of seismic imaging techniques to characterize slopes and foundations. Tom routinely uses numerical modeling techniques to aid in developing geotechnical solutions. He developed a suite of design approaches for highwall mine ground control plans that are currently applied throughout the western United States. Tom is a registered professional engineer in Colorado.
Douglas F. Hambley, Ph.D., P.E., P.G. Associate (University of Waterloo)	Dr. Hambley has over 30 years of experience in mining engineering and geology throughout North America. Dr. Hambley holds a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of Waterloo, Canada, an MBA from Lewis University, Illinois, and a B.Sc. (Hons) in Mining Engineering from Queens University in Canada. He is an active member of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration of AIME; the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum; the Association of Engineering and Environmental Geologists; ASTM International; and the Society of American Military Engineers. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Ontario and a Registered Professional Geologist in Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He brings to AAI extensive experience in underground mine and tunnel design, rock mechanics, mine ventilation, hydrogeology, evaporite geology and mechanics, and environmental engineering. (Fluent in French and working knowledge of Spanish and German.)
Martin W. Chenoweth, P.E. Associate (Colorado School of Mines)	Over 25 years experience in civil construction and mining operations. Martin's areas of expertise include mine and quarry planning and blasting. Design experience includes exploration drilling, site characterization, resource modeling, mine layout, equipment selection, and operations. Martin has surface and underground blast design experience in production blasts, controlled blasting techniques, drop raise construction, fragmentation analysis, and forensic investigations. He has also implemented statistical process control at various operations to improve overall efficiency. Martin has represented both sides in construction claims resolution regarding differing site conditions. Projects have included precious metals, industrial minerals, oil shale, uranium, heavy civil mass excavations, tunneling, and shaft construction. Martin is a Registered Professional Engineer in Colorado and a member of the ASCE, ISEE, and the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration.
Susan B. Patton, Ph.D., P.E. Associate (University of Alabama)	Over 20 years experience in the field of mining engineering. Her areas of expertise include ventilation, property evaluation, and mine environmental. Susan has a broad experience background ranging from mine site engineering to research. Mine site experience includes surface coal mine engineering and permit compliance. Susan held a faculty position at Montana Tech where she was responsible for teaching core coursework in the mining engineering curriculum, conducting research and developing coursework to enhance the environmental engineering and aggregate mining offerings. Research projects focused on the mine closure, coalbed methane/longwall mine interaction, and safety. Susan previously served in the management position of Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Research at Montana Tech. Susan is a registered professional engineer in Colorado, Alabama and Montana.
David P. Conover Senior Physicist (Colorado School of Mines)	Over 28 years experience as a mining engineer in the mining and civil industries. He developed and expanded the GeoGuardTM shield monitoring system for longwall face management and geotechnical analysis. Dave also developed software programs to aid the mining and civil industries, and techniques to estimate excavation equipment production rates and vibration characteristics for equipment manufacturers.
Bo Yu, Ph.D. Senior Engineer (West Virginia University)	Over 10 years experience in mining engineering. Provides consulting engineering services to the mining and civil engineering industries in numerical modeling, in situ stress measurements, ground support design for underground mines, slope stability analysis, and geological modeling in dam design.
Albert Adu-Acheampong Sr. Engineer & Laboratory Manager (Mackay School of Mines)	Over 7 years experience in mining engineering. Projects include rock mass classification, underground support design, rock mechanics investigation and numerical modeling, ventilation modeling, resource evaluations and laboratory rock properties testing. Project experience spans underground soft rock and coal mining, and open pit/underground hard rock mining.
Hua Zhao Project Engineer (West Virginia University)	Hua joined the staff of Agapito Associates' Grand Junction, Colorado office as a Project Engineer performing numerical modeling. She is a recent graduate of West Virginia University with an M.S. degree in mining engineering and a Ph.D. in applied mechanics.
Rick Baars Project Engineer (New Mexico Tech)	A recent graduate with a growing array of mining and geologic background with the ability to integrate the geophysical method for application to geology. Projects include geologic and geophysical integration and interpretation, block modeling and reserve development/analysis, general field geology and geological engineering applications. Experience includes but is not limited to open pit and underground coal geology/mining, open pit and underground hard rock geology/mining for metals, commodities, and aggregates. Experience also includes multiple geophysical exploration techniques as well as geologic exploration with multiple applications ranging from shallow subsurface remediation, water table identification, geothermal resource exploration, surface mapping, and exploration.
Samrat Mohanty, Ph.D. Project Engineer (Southern Illinois University)	Dr. Mohanty has a diverse background in mining rock mechanics and civil geotechnical engineering. Projects include rock slope stability analysis, numerical modeling, and underground pillar design. Experience includes coal mine ground control, slope stability, acid mine drainage, pavement/haul road design, directional drilling, and dam/levee seepage and stability analysis. He also has experience in geologic mapping, multiple geomaterial testing and monitoring procedures, and coal combustion byproducts utilization.