New Mines programs aim to fill engineering workforce shortage

The South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City will live up to its name with two new mineral-oriented programs – critical minerals, education and research.

Andrea Brickey is a professor in the university department of mining engineering and management. She said the programs target areas of need.

“For our students to learn more about the importance of critical minerals, as well as develop their skillsets to make them very beneficial for our workforce – and we do have a workforce shortage here in the United States,” Brickey said. “It’s expected that more half of our mining engineers are going to retire at the end of this decade.”

That, according to the university, will create over 220,000 job openings for new graduates.

She said in addition to creating high-paying jobs, there are also new methods that could make the industry more profitable in the near future.

“The novel extraction methods that are needed for certain things that we really don’t process here in the United States, like rare earth elements,” Brickey said. “Also, how can we extract secondary elements? We might have a mine that produces gold – but can they produce any other metals?”

Additionally, minimizing environmental impacts and increasing safety in the field are other priorities of the new program at the engineering school.