Alpha Natural Resources Opens Running Right Leadership Academy



Miners learn to extinguish a belt drive fire at the Alpha Academy’s mine lab.
Alpha Natural Resources opened its Running Right Leadership Academy, a comprehensive, state-of-the-art education and training facility for mine safety and operations. “The success of our company and industry starts with safety,” said Kevin Crutchfield, chairman and CEO of Alpha Natural Resources. “The Running Right Leadership Academy is the culmination of years of planning and hard work, and we are proud to have brought this concept to reality. The scale and scope of the facility is the first of its kind in the industry, demonstrating our leadership and commitment to the wellbeing of our employees.”

Located in Julian, West Virginia, USA, Alpha has invested approximately $23 million into the facility and development of the curriculum, which is extensive and integrates a broad range of subject areas including technical, safety and leadership skills. It will be a resource for miners who work underground, as well as surface miners and office support personnel.

The Alpha Academy is a 136,000-ft2 campus that includes classroom space for up to 300 people; a 96,000-ft 2lab that can simulate mine situations and conditions; labs for electrical, welding and maintenance skills training; the latest mine safety technologies, including air flow sensors and multi-gas handheld detectors; a command center for mine rescue and emergency preparedness training; and facilities and equipment for supervisory leadership skill training. Virtual reality simulators will allow participants to operate continuous mining machines, roof bolters, scoop and haul trucks, and receive real-time feedback on their performance. All employees in the Alpha organization will eventually go through the academy, which will supplement the company’s existing mine safety training programs.

The large lab has been constructed to resemble a room-and-pillar mining operation with various stations, such as a continuous miner with proximity detection, a roofbolter, a refuge chamber, a cascading oxygen system, and a feeder along with a conveyor drive. The large concrete block building uses walls constructed from aluminum siding (painted black) to give the effect of pillars and ribs. It has a gravel floor and ventilation controls (Kennedy stoppings) separating air courses.

The Oxygen Cascading System allows mine rescue team members to recharge the tanks on their self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) without removing the gear. Up to five SCBAs can be recharged at a time and it takes less than a minute to recharge the units. Rescue teams under full apparatus can practice fighting fires at the drive station in the simulated underground mine. Similarly, another area, which resembles a large storm drain, can be filled with water to practice working under extreme conditions with waist-deep water.

The training facility has multiple labs for electrical, maintenance and welding training. Another lab allows technicians to work with hydraulics and latest electronics like servos and variable frequency drives. The training facility has three bays using both 5DT and Immersive Technologies simulators.

Working with Virginia Tech, West Virginia University and the University of Utah, the Alpha Academy will offer classes to certify Mine Examiners and Emergency Medical Technicians. They will also be able to offer annual refresher training, as well as classes on incident investigation, root cause analysis and risk management. For people unfamiliar with mining, they will offer “Understand Mining—A Day in the Life of a Miner.”

Alpha Natural Resources acquired Massey Energy shortly after the tragic Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine disaster. As part of its settlement with the Department of Justice on the UBB mine explosion, Alpha Natural Resources was supposed to place $48 million in a health and safety research trust. The agreement also called for remedial safety measures that included building a stateof-the-art training facility with a full training curriculum to train Alpha miners, which would also be available to other mining companies.

“The Alpha Academy is an extension of Alpha’s employee-driven Running Right safety philosophy, which focuses on eliminating at-risk behavior through employee observation and reporting. Our ultimate aim is to further improve employee safety and regulatory performance so that we move closer to zero safety related incidents,” said Crutchfield. To commemorate the opening, Alpha hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony at the facility that was attended by state and local elected officials, community leaders, employees and other business partners.


As featured in Womp 2013 Vol 07 - www.womp-int.com