W.Va. Mine Safety Technology Consortium Working to Bring Innovation to Industry
Brianna Saunders - assistant; Dennis Jarvis II - director; Lauren Clark - intern; and Randy Massey - program coordinator
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Dennis Jarvis II, director of MSTC and Tom Weeks
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U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.
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MONTGOMERY, W.Va. – For more than two years, the Mine Safety Technology Consortium has been working to help small businesses in West Virginia bring new products and technology to the marketplace.
MSTC is a public-private partnership involving business owners, industry and government leaders, and education professionals. The consortium has three primary objectives: address mine safety and health, economic development and job creation within the state.
One of MSTC’s main goals is to address a key recommendation made in an extensive report issued after the 2006 Sago Mine disaster by expanding research, development and manufacturing opportunities in West Virginia to ensure the state leads the nation in mine safety, health technology and equipment.
“The whole concept is a continuation and revitalization of communities in the coal fields,” Director Dennis Jarvis said. “When we help (companies) start manufacturing their products, they’re supporting the industry, but they’re also creating skill sets.”
MSTC is a principal component of a parent project at Marshall University’s Center for Environmental, Geotechnical and Applied Sciences, and is supported by a $2 million grant from the federal Economic Development Administration. That grant is matched by $1 million in state funds and $600,000 in donations from private sources, as well as an additional $400,000 of in-kind contributions from consortium members.
The federal funding was made available through the assistance of U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.
“When I created the consortium, I envisioned a forum for sharing resources and information to improve and ensure the safety and health of our miners,” Rahall said. “West Virginia has a long and rich mining history, and is in a unique position with significant coal mining expertise, to take the lead in developing the next-generation of technologies to address critically important issues as they relate to the safety of the miner.”
MSTC is working with a number of state-based small businesses, and has met with or approached around 20 more companies in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio over the last two years, Jarvis said.
Among those companies is Tom Weeks’ Miner’s Helper.
The Miner’s Helper is a robotic arm, used primarily to install belts on roller lines, Weeks said. But it also can be used for many other applications, he said, including changing tires on vehicles and installing piping.
“I know about underwater robotics and I incorporated that into the underground mining industry,” Weeks said. “This will help miners maintain a higher level of safety, prevent strained backs, pinched fingers and other injuries.”
Weeks started his company, based in Beckley, W.Va., nearly two years ago. The Miner’s Helper is the result of many years Weeks spent working and diving off the coast of Louisiana.
Weeks got hooked up with MSTC while he was trying to find funding for his invention.
MSTC has been able to do a number of things so far for Weeks, Jarvis said, including helping to obtain a patent attorney, and rewriting the business plan and sending it to venture capital groups.
“I’m not seeing any money for my business, but that’s not MSTC’s fault. The money’s not trickling down (from the federal government) like it’s supposed to,” Weeks said. “(Jarvis is) bending over backwards to help me. He’s doing everything in his power to see that I get what I need for my business.”
In fact, an MSTC staff member still is working on obtaining a loan, Weeks said, and as a result of the organization’s assistance, Bridgemont Community and Technical College is taking on the Miner’s Helper and will be building another prototype as a class project. At the same time, MSTC is providing technical drawings that Weeks can take to a fabricator to manufacture the arm.
“Dennis has been very helpful in lining things up for me,” Weeks said.
A demonstration video of a prototype Miner’s Helper at the 2007 Bluefield Coal Show is available on Weeks’s YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/MrTomSlickster.
John Mandeville of Beaver, W.Va., near Beckley, has been working with Jarvis and the MSTC staff for a few months. Mandeville’s company, Mandeville Equipment, designed and built an underground vehicle similar to a personnel carrier, called The Mole. The all-eletric, four-wheel-drive vehicle is mainly for bosses to travel from one mine section to another, Mandeville said.
More information and specifications on The Mole are available on Mandeville’s Web site, http://mandequip.com/the_mole_4.html.
While Mandeville Equipment has been around since the early 1990s, and sells other products related to the coal industry, the Mole is about a year old, he said.
Mandeville said he learned about MSTC when he was looking for federal funding for his company.
“They’re working real hard,” Mandeville said of Jarvis and the MSTC staff. “He’s got us exposed on a state Web site and they’re trying hard.”
While it’s still early in the Mandeville/MSTC relationship, Mandeville said he was confident that the organization’s assistance will be helpful.
“Our goal for these companies is to make them full functional,” Jarvis said. “There’s really no limit to what we can do for them.”
Although the consortium has been in existence for more than two years, an October event at Bridgemont Community and Technical College was MSTC’s “coming-out party,” Jarvis said.
MSTC partnered with Create West Virginia for the event, which featured a number of companies the consortium is assisting.
Jarvis said the next miner’s celebration is planned for June 16-17 at Glade Springs Resort near Charleston.
Among other initiatives, MSTC also is working with a coal company to create a new, three-dimensional safety training program, Jarvis said.
“We’ve also ratcheted up the recruitment side for businesses,” he said. “We’d like to see more companies want to come into West Virginia.”
In addition to helping companies with technical aspects of their businesses, MSTC also has a business incubation aspect, Jarvis said. The consortium has a total footprint of about 7,000 square feet, with about 2,600 square feet still available for development.
MSTC can use that space to help an existing business expand, or to encourage an out-of-state company to relocate to West Virginia, he said.
MSTC also offers entrepreneurship training through a partnership with the Women’s Business and Training Center, and training through Bridgemont Community and Technical College.
The primary mission of MSTC is to aid in the expansion of research, development and manufacturing opportunities to ensure West Virginia leads the nation in mine safety, health technology and equipment, Jarvis said.
Following a successful first two years, consortium officials have their eyes on the future, with expansion plans in the works, Jarvis said. Among the things MSTC is considering is expansion of the training modules and creating satellite locations throughout the state.
While MSTC’s mission is similar to the Robert C. Byrd Institute or the West Virginia High Tech Consortium Foundation, “what we were asked to do is not replicate,” Jarvis said.
“We’re a group that provides resources for people who maybe don’t know it’s available,” he said. “Mining is not just the miners. Five to seven jobs are directly related to every mining job.”
Rahall called the consortium a “thriving and important initiative that has grown in significance in a relatively short time.”
“It serves as a catalyst for transforming mining know-how into superior coal mine health and safety products and services, including training technologies,” Rahall said. “I am particularly proud of the progress, ingenuity and commitment of the many home-grown entrepreneurs from southern West Virginia who, in collaboration with the MSTC, work hard to apply their talents to the noble cause of their friends’ and neighbors’ livelihood.
“MSTC has taken the lead to encourage 21st Century innovations for the future of the mining industry and the new generation of miner, which is so important to our state and our nation.”
—by Jim Fisher
For more information:
Contact: Dennis Jarvis II, director
Phone: (304) 734-6221
E-mail: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Web site: http://www.wvmstc.org
