On the shoulders of giants: Homestake workers share knowledge for SURF's future

Mining does not take place at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), but SURF would not be a world class laboratory without the expertise of hundreds of individuals employed in the former Homestake Mine who helped make the facility all that it is today and who are now passing on their knowledge to a new generation.

Former Homestake workers helped excavate and maintain infrastructure in what was once the deepest gold mine in North America. Many of them transitioned to work at SURF following the mine closure in the early 2000’s, and their skills and knowledge have been essential in establishing and maintaining America’s underground laboratory. In its 20-year history SURF has employed around 100 former Homestake employees.

The collective knowledge of each of these individuals and their deep understanding of the facility remains highly valued today. Tom Regan is just one example of a former Homestake employee now a valued member of the SURF team.

Regan began his career at Homestake as a teenager. “My first day on the job was November 2nd, 1969,” Regan said. He was employed as a foreman through the mine closure and decommissioning in 2001. When America’s Underground Lab was first envisioned, Regan was one of the first people hired by the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority to open the mine that had flooded during the time between closure and the establishment of the laboratory. He began an important series of annual inspections of every level that are still carried out to this day.

Regan is now beginning a series of recorded lectures about the details of every level at SURF, including details on the interconnections and boreholes between drifts and shafts, infrastructure, underground hazards, and history. This effort is preserving vital first-hand information for future employees at SURF.

“If you are operating on a level like the 4850 Level (L), it’s not only important to know what is happening on your level, it’s important to know what is going on in the levels above you and below you,” Regan said. “This is part of the information we want available to future generations.”

Wisdom passed down

Those future generations include engineers like Randi Seiwald. She spent the summer of 2017 as an intern at SURF before graduating from South Dakota Mines as a mining engineer. Today she works for Dyno Nobel, a global leader in the commercial explosives industry.

During her student internship, Seiwald helped crews place steel reinforcement in the Ross Shaft. When asked what she remembered most about the experience, she recalls the legacy Homestake workers who imparted decades of wisdom and learning in work underground.

“Anytime you talk to somebody whose whole life has been in the career that you're in, you always learn something. At SURF I was surrounded by a crew of professionals who have been doing work in this place for years, sometimes following their fathers and grandfathers. It was just such a privilege to be immersed in that wealth of knowledge,” Seiwald said.

Stories like this are repeated, again and again at SURF. The current series of articles on the top-down maintenance of the Yates Shaft include more examples of the value past Homestake workers bring to SURF operations today.

SURF Infrastructure Technician Jake Mack is on one of the crew’s replacing timbers in the Yates Shaft. He was quoted in this recent article by Juliet Winger highlighting the crews who are completing the monumental effort to overhaul the timber structure.

Mack gives credit to the voices of experience who helped inform the complex work of replacing timbers. “We were really lucky that some of the old timers were still here. Charlie Roth did timber back in Homestake [Mining Company] and for RCS Construction when they started rebuilding.”

“Charlie was an integral part of getting started on the timbers,” adds Yates Shaft Foreman Ashana Baumberger, “I think he’d been here for 40 years when he retired. I worked with him for five years, and I learned a lot from Charlie, and then once he was just about to retire, we started doing timber. Going down and showing us how to do it – that was big.”

Generations underground

SDSTA also includes several employees whose parents, grandparents and great grandparents worked at Homestake. The generational connections to this place hold real meaning for those like Derek Lucero, who started working at SURF 14 years ago, following in the footsteps of his grandfather.

“My grandpa, Ernie Moser, worked at Homestake as an electrical boss. I am told he was one of the few people who has actually climbed the ladder system in the Ross Shaft from the 5000L all the way to the surface,” says Lucero, who currently works as an Environment Safety and Health Training Specialist at SURF.

“My grandfather’s work included the task of lining the Ross shaft with electrical cables which helped to power the goldmine. Early in my career, I was involved in the rehabilitation effort of the Ross shaft and was tasked with removing all of the old cables and J-boxes that my grandfather helped to install. I even found a few places he had signed off on some of his work, which was a proud and unique experience.”

Another SURF staff member with generational ties to the facility is Yates Shaft Foreman Mike Mergen, he was also quoted in an article on the Yates Shaft overhaul.

“My grandpa, my dad’s dad, mined from the 4100L to the 4800L. This hole. It’s kind of cool when I’m down in that area working. I’m reworking what my grandpa probably did,” shares Mergen. “A lot of generations of people in my bloodline have been in this hole.”

The unique experiences that Mergen and others are developing at SURF today are also valuable for the future of this facility. The science experiments currently in place or under construction at SURF have future lifespans measured in decades, therefore it’s possible a few more generations could extend the legacy of those working at SURF today.

As the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment comes online, more workers are needed in all aspects of the facility. A job fair, sponsored by SURF and Fermilab, is taking place at the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center on April 16.