The right amount of data through Vulcan Explorer

The mining industry has been a fantastic industry to work in.   I’ve only been in it about seven years, but the experience has been amazing.  Whether its open pit coal in Colombia, underground gold in Nevada, or remote drilling jobs in Alaska, every adventure has opened doors for new learning opportunities.  

One of my favorite experiences was working on an exploratory core drilling job in a remote corner of the Alaskan Interior.  We would wake up in our tents, get some grub, and hop on the helicopter for a quick flight up to the rig.  The views were amazing.  You could see miles and miles of nothing but Alaskan wilderness in every direction.  I was on the job with a couple of drillers, a geologist, some geotechs, and a cook.

Now that I’m in a technical sales role at Maptek, when I look back on that experience I often think about the geologist that was on site.  He was always on his computer looking at the drillhole data, reviewing geotech reports, sending emails, building resource evaluations, talking on the satellite phone, etc.

Thinking back I realize I felt bad for him, always cooped up in the “office tent”.  It reminds me of a quote that states, “technology should not get in the way of what you want to accomplish.”  It would have been nice if he had better tools for updating his drillhole database and resource model so he could spend more time on the rig and in the core shack.  Alaska is too beautiful of a place to be spending days in a tent.  I spend most of my days in my “office tent”, when I would much rather be on a drill rig running a jumbo or loading the face.

In my opinion, technology should not get in the way of completing a task.  All too often software programs provide tons of options and only a handful are needed. Not only does this mean the user spends more money than they should, but they end up getting distracted (or overwhelmed) with too much functionality.

When I am selling technology, I try to help my customers get exactly the software they need.  In my opinion, Vulcan Explorer is the perfect amount of functionality at a price that won’t break the bank.  I know that if I’m running a drilling project, I want as much of my money going towards “rock in the box”. I also know that I don’t want to be cooped up in a tent on my computer when I could be looking at the core or discussing the project with the drillers.

Now, what sort of sales guy would I be if I didn’t pitch something?  Vulcan Explorer is available at a price that is affordable while giving users the robust power of the industries leading software package.  Many clients who purchase Vulcan began their initial stages of exploration with competitor packages.  Why not start out with the software everyone ends up using anyway?