Industry Workforce Committee focuses on collaboration
Genevieve Homyack
SME has four strategic committees to match its four strategic goals. These committees include Association Growth, Industry Innovation, Industry Workforce and Responsible Mining and Underground Construction. Every five years or so, SME conducts a strategic planning session to review and update the Society’s Strategic Plan. This session includes the SME Board and key members of the SME Leadership. The current plan was created in 2020 and updated in the summer of 2023.
In September, the Industry Workforce Strategic Committee provided an update on current and new projects to the SME Board at the SME Midyear Meeting in Las Vegas, NV. Recently, I followed up with the committee chair, David Bieber, to ask about their progress.
Homyack: What are the top projects for the Industry Workforce Strategic Committee this past year?
Bieber: We completed an initiative focusing on creating a template for collaboration with programs serving foreign ex-patriots who already have technical degrees and skills, and how to connect them with employers in the mining industry who need those skills. This initiative started with a collaboration with Emily Griffith Technical College in Denver, CO; that collaboration has been handed off to a tactical committee that is working to prepare a template for working with other programs. The committee started work on a social media initiative but realized that social media as a whole was too much for the resources available. Therefore, the emphasis has shifted to social media outreach to those already in the mining industry with the goal of keeping them in mining and related jobs. A second current initiative is focusing on trades engagement and determining how to help people in the crafts and administrative roles in mining transition into management roles. We are also working to see if there are opportunities to partner with other mining organizations such as the National Mining Association and the American Exploration and Mining Association on workforce issues.
Homyack: Are you enjoying your term as chair of this committee?
Bieber: I am honored to have been chosen to lead the Industry Workforce Strategic Committee and am grateful for the commitment and involvement of my fellow committee members. The members of the committee and their willingness to work together for a common goal has made chairing the committee a pleasure.
Homyack: Do you have any advice for the next chair?
Bieber: Committee members set measurable and achievable goals which lends a sense of accomplishment to serving on the committee. Strategic committees focus on big picture initiatives dealing more with the “what” than with the “how.” Keeping that in focus, this committee’s success is at least in part due to the following:
• Being respectful of each other and maintaining a willingness to work as a team.
• Keeping the number of initiatives actively worked on to no more than three or four at a time.
• Making sure that the initiatives are truly strategic (i.e., big picture).
• Continuously evaluating whether the initiatives being worked on are achievable, and if not, being willing to modify or abandon them.
• Having regular monthly committee meetings held on the same day and time each month.
• Completing at least one initiative each year.
Homyack: What would you say to prospective new members?
Bieber: The Workforce Strategic Committee is always looking for new members who want to be a part of a group that helps SME accomplish its goals of helping to solve workforce issue in the mining industry.
SME Strategic Committees consist of six members serving three-year terms, a chair, a staff representative, and a board member liaison. New members are selected through a nomination process. The committee selects or confirms a new chair at the SME Midyear Meeting to begin or continue a two-year term the following March immediately following the MINEXCHANGE 2025 SME Annual Conference & Expo.
If you would like to learn more about one of these committees, please feel free to attend the meetings held during the MINEXCHANGE 2025 SME Annual Conference & Expo. For more information on how to serve on an SME Strategic Committee, contact Genny Homyack (homyack@smenet.org).