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Hello, Miners. Hello, podcast listeners. Welcome into another episode of mining minds. Excited to have you guys with us today as we sit down with Brian or it. He's a geotechnical engineer, tailing specialist, owner of his own consulting firm, Brian Ullrich LLC and fellow podcast producer of Behind the Scenes of Brian. Brian walks us through his journey how his grandmother influenced his path to being a rock hound. He dives into some of the projects he's been involved with all over the world. And at the end of it, he gives us a little tailings wrap that he made back in the 19 eighties to check out Brian and some of the things he's done. You could go toe brian orrick dot net or listen to him on behind the scenes with Brian on all the major platforms. And while you're at it, don't forget the brass in share light Comment and swipe right when you're tuning in tow all things mining minds warning explicit conduct. This material may not be double over Children. Listener discretion is advised. E work worked out. Nothing country. You gotta find a way. You gotta be willing to go put some elbow grease because, you know, in educating his life comes from what up, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to mining minds. And welcome to the face. Sitting here hanging out with Dino Bronson. Good morning, Jason. Francoise James, What's up? What's going on? And we have the privilege and opportunity to sit down with geotechnical engineer slash expert Brian Ulrich. Did I do all right? You got it. You know, Dirk, I'm getting better. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome in Brian or Super excited to talk to you. I know we talked crap. It had to be six months ago now about collaborating a little or just talking back and forth. And so we're really excited to have you on the podcast. You you kind of know how the format goes. So we'll let you take it away, walk us through who Brian is where you grew up, all that fun stuff. Yeah, Thanks, Derek. And I'm really excited to be here, Like you say. We've been exchanging notes and emails and stuff like that since, uh, I think that since the cove it locked down started. Yeah, So I was raised in Colorado Springs, and when I was a youngster, I wanted to be an astronaut. It was just that kind of era where astronauts were the coolest people. Andi At the age of 13, I suffered a detached retina while playing ice hockey. And because my vision wasn't good enough any longer to be a pilot, I decided to make a change. And my grandmother was a rock count. My mom's mother was rock count, and I'd spend some time with her over at her place, and she she got me into the rocks. She was always giving me the rocks she didn't want. And she had a neighbor who gave her rock. So I was always always around the rocks. So I decided I wanna be a geologist. Nice. Yeah, right. Page of 13, huh? It might have been a little older than 13, but not much older. Um, and I had a cousin who was a mining engineer, and he says, Well, Brian, being a geologist is good, but you might want to think about being an engineer. And so I thought, geological engineering that could work. And somehow I got shifted to mining engineering. And you would think that being a Colorado native, I'd go toe Colorado school of mines just a natural fit. But I got a scholarship to New Mexico Tech, And so I went toe college and so coral that that's where I got my to undergraduate degrees mining, engineering and then geological engineering. I get I got my second degree because we're in one of those industry downturns and there was no mining jobs to be had. So I stayed in school, got that second degree, and I was fortunate enough even it was still a downturn. I got a job. The U. S. Bureau minds in Denver. Yeah, and that was in their underground roof control division. And we did a lot of research in the Western Underground coal mines, mostly Colorado and Utah. I happen to be in Utah in an underground mine. When the Wilbert disaster happened. I can't remember what year that was, but I had, uh, um, get word back home. But I was not in the Wilbert mine. I was in a different mind at the time. I can't remember how many miners perished that day, but there's 10 or 20 miners that died that day. Yeah, eventually, I I after a couple of years of being that the bureau minds. I was attracted to a consulting company called Night Piece. Old Night Peaceful has an office there in Elko and night Peace holds been busy and occupied in Nevada sense sometime in the mid to late eighties. And so I joined KP and spent quite a bit of time around the Elko area around the gold mines there, Carlin especially, uh, when, um, aka Twin Creeks. And after a few years, my boss came to me and said, Brian, wouldn't it be great if he could get your master's degree? So I told him, Yeah, it would be great, But if I stuck around here, I'd be getting sent to the field. I'd have to repeat a class. It would take me 10 years to get through, and he said, Well, you don't have to stay here So I looked at the different university courses that were offered. I needed one year program. I didn't want to be in school forever, and I found one in Canada, University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. So I went there and took that course. One of the best things I've ever done for my career was to get that Masters degree and I got back in a couple years later, he says, Brian, don't you think it would be great if you moved to Africa for a while? Eso So I went home that night and I asked my family. He said, What do you think about moving to Africa? And like in unison, they said No, E said. What about South Africa? I think there was some curse words flying out of my young Children's mouth. At that point, way did. We did go to South Africa were there for four years. Johannesburg again, one of the best things I've ever done for my career. Thio Johannesburg is a lot like away over drone Elko because it's just scattered with mines. You can be on a mining property within 45 minutes easily, and that's where I really got some amazing experiences there. Well, there's some huge lots of huge district in itself and and a huge underground and underground district. Correct? Absolutely, absolutely. And and there I I still working for KP as a geotechnical engineer, mostly working on the the tailings facilities there, a little more diverse there. There's copper and phosphate diamonds, uh, platinum gold as well, got a really great education for the for the business there. That was 99 to 2000 and three, and I we came back to the States after that. Four years And my boss says, Brian, don't you think you'd like to move to Elko, Nevada on? And I've always liked Delco and my wife, uh, had told me previously she wouldn't mind living there. So I asked my daughter, who was in high school, I said, and we just gotten back. I said, What do you think if we moved to Elko, Nevada, and she said, If you're going to move May we better move quick because I don't want to make lifelong friends here like I did in Johannesburg Way moved the Elko. Andi. That's where I stayed for about 10 years with KP before I got called back, or actually my wife came to me and said, Brian, we've been traveling all over the world for 10 years for the company's time to go back home and I said, Well, that that's great, But where is home? On DSHEA? She said. Denver E. Said, Okay, that work. We could make that work so we can have a transition between Elco in Denver. We sold our Spring Creek house and I had a little nice cute little house in the tree streets and El Co. For a couple of years and a little while after that, I was attracted away from KP by a company named Stan Tech who also has an office there. Um, in Elko, they used to be J B. R. They've done a lot of environmental work out there. About a half a year ago, I decided to go out on my own. The timing was just right. So I established my own company, Brian Hall, Rick LLC, when I'm doing the same thing, but at my own pace. So a lot of times I'm just working out of my cabin and just enjoy the heck out of it because I could break up my work day by going fishing right in the middle of the day. It's horrible. Yeah. So right right now, right now. I mean, we're in the Denver house because we've got evacuated because there was a fire right by our cabin. But we think the cabin is gonna be claimed. We just It's just a mandatory evacuation. So we're not knock on wood