Real Life Mining Stories with Leadership Lessons From R. Glenn Ray
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It was three months before my 19th birthday and I had been working through the summer of 1972 for my father as a laborer on a residential construction projects. I assisted the carpenters wherever needed from digging the footer to final touches of varnishing and installing baseboards inside. One day my father, who was a science and industrial arts teacher, corrected my hammering technique, AGAIN. Sitting on top of the plywood roof, I decided that I had had enough. In anger, I tossed my hammer high in the air and it landed in the soft brown dirt. I stomped down the ladder and walked the quarter mile home. There, I took a shower and then traveled toward the Ohio River, placing applications in every plant and coal mine in the area.
Two months passed before my many visits to various mine sites and main offices of mining companies received any response. On September 19th, the phone rang and North American Coal Company scheduled me for a physical and my first shift starting at midnight.
After my physical, I was directed to the company store next door to buy the needed supplies. As I entered the company store, I felt as though I was stepping into the 1940’s. The company store was a long, narrow building that looked like an old-time hardwood store with oiled, wooden floors. The walls were lined with things coal miners used. Various utensils and clothing lay neatly folded on a shelf. The seriousness of what I was about to do began to weigh heavily on me. I had read about company stores, company housing, and script, which was the form of payment miners used years before. Script could only be cashed or used at company stores. That way the company could charge any price they wanted to due to their monopoly.
I searched the aisles and picked out a pair of steel toed rubber boots, a hard hat, a miner’s belt, a round aluminum miner’s diner bucket, some medium long johns (tops and bottoms), socks, a shirt, and a pair of bib overalls. The whole amount came to a little less than $200, a good portion of my first two paychecks. After union dues were taken out, those first two checks were hardly worth the effort. I gathered up my new belongings and headed home anticipating my first shift.
Thus began a new, dangerous phase of my life. My endurance, mechanical ability, and common sense were tested time and time again. I chose to dive into a foreign physical and social environment. I made my share of mistakes, as did all new miners. However, I learned that I could quickly adapt and survive in such a place.
The next ten years were long and hard but with clear, deliberate goals, I completed my undergraduate and masters degrees. The good leaders I have known learned from the difficult, challenging experiences and were successful in completing well thought out plans. Rather than beating them down, the tough times strengthened their resolve to attain their vision for their lives.
R. Glenn Ray’s article series, “Real Life Mining Stories With Leadership Lessons” appears in the Feature Story section found in each industry segment.
ARTICLE SERIES ON MINING CONNECTION:
REAL LIFE MINING STORIES WITH LEADERSHIP LESSONS
May 9, 2011
Leaders Should Create an Open Environment
April 19, 2011
The Best Leaders Use Respect, Not Bullying
April 5, 2011
Motivation Results from Communication
March 22, 2011
Chaos and Leadership
March 8, 2011
Leaders Who Get in the Trenches Earn Respect
Feb. 22, 2011
Leadership Can Come from Followers
Feb. 8, 2011
Leaders Constantly Strive for Higher Performance
Jan. 25, 2011
You’ve Got One Boss and You’re Looking at Him
Jan. 11, 2011:
Difficult Jobs Require the Right People
Dec. 29, 2010:
Leaders Pass Knowledge on to Others as Teachers
Dec, 21,2010 - Holiday Focus
Find Ways to Reach out to Followers
Dec. 13, 2010:
Getting the Feel for Leadership Takes Work
Nov. 30, 2010:
Leaders’ Actions Impact All Employees
Nov. 13, 2010:
Teamwork Results from Common Goals
About R. Glenn Ray
R. Glenn Ray, Ph.D. spent nine years working as an underground coal miner in Southeast Ohio from 1972 to 1982. In his book, Tons of Stone above my Head: Coal Mining Stories with Leadership Lessons (2010), Ray gives readers an intimate understanding of the challenge, excitement, danger, and pain common in the life of an underground coal miner.
His union classifications included ventilation man, rockduster, scoop car man, and roofbolter. For the last five years of his work in coal mines, he served as a production supervisor and track construction foreman. Along with over a hundred stories cataloging his experiences in all of these positions, his book offers leadership lessons he learned at the time or in retrospect.
Ray has owned and operated a consulting company called RayCom Learning since 2000. As president, he works with leaders to create environments where employees communicate clearly and choose to support organizational goals. He has clients in fourteen states to whom he provides training on leadership and communication.
The Facilitative Leader, Small Group Facilitation, Creating Team Breakthrough, and Designing Communication for Difficult Situations are some of his most popular programs. In addition to those programs, Ray provides coaching services and culture analysis processes to enhance individual and organizational performance.
Ray served as the training manager for BorgWarner Chemicals and GE Plastics for four years and the director of the Institute of Education and Training for Business at Marietta College for ten years. He is a past president of the National Speakers Association of Ohio and the Mid Ohio Valley chapter of the American Society for Training and Development and is presently a board member of Leadership Ohio and the Economic Roundtable of the Ohio Valley.
Ray has written ten books on leadership and communication. Along with Tons of stone above my Head, he has published You Can’t Push a Pig into a Truck (2007) and The Facilitative Leader (2006). Ray earned his doctorate in interpersonal communication from Ohio University in 1988.
To stop by RayCom Learning’s website, CLICK HERE
