Welcome Barry Ndlovu, Chanda Lwimba, Reno Pressacco and Wikus Deventer.
Barry is a Caving Specialist at Rio Tinto, Chanda is a Senior Resource Geologist for Mopani Copper Mines, Reno is a Principal Geologist at Roscoe Postle & Associates and Wikus is a Divisional Geologist at Sasol Mining Holdings. Learn more about their accomplishments and what makes them a Champion for GEOVIA below.
DISCOVER OUR CHAMPIONS:
Barry Ndlovu
Specialist Caving, OT Technical and Studies, Copper & Diamonds
RIO TINTO
Barry Ndlovu is a mining engineer with over 15 years underground mining experience and currently works for Rio Tinto as a Caving Specialist.
Barry has been a GEOVIA GEMS and PCBC site expert since 2006 across multiple block caving sites including Palabora Lift I as a Superintendent Cave Management, Freeport DOZ and DMLZ as a Cave Management Technical Expert, Palabora Lift II Superintendent Mine Design and now Oyu Tolgoi Technical & Integrated Planning.
He has also worked with us; Dassault Systèmes (formerly Gemcom) as a Senior Business Analyst in 2007, delivering training, technical services and support as well as consultation for GEOVIA GEMS and PCBC at various sites including Philex Mining Corporation’s Padcal site in the Philippines and Petra Diamonds (formerly De Beer’s) Finsch Mine in South Africa.
His career highlights as a PCBC super user include developing meaningful multicultural relationships with operators, engineers, managers, all the way up to VPs and CEOs; working and interacting with Dr. Tony Diering and the Geovia Caving Business Unit team for the past 13 years in 4 continents and traveling to over 30 countries. Barry is keen to share his PCBC expertise and knowledge to the GEOVIA community and other caving practitioners and scholars.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-ndlovu-a6a6144/
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Chanda Lwimba
Senior Resource Geologist, MOPANI COPPER MINE
Chanda Lwimba is a resource geologist with over 15 years experience mostly in the Zambian mining industry. His experience combines working on a number of mines (both underground and open pit) as a well as in mining consultancy.
Chanda was first introduced to Surpac in 2007 while working for African Mining Consultants where he received specialist level training in the software. Prior to migrating to Surpac, Chanda was a datamine user. He is currently working at Mopani Copper Mines in perhaps the most complexly folded scenario on the Zambian Copper-belt. His main interests are in databases, statistics, variography and block modelling. He is especially passionate about seeing Geovia Surpac develop a module which will provide the first truly successful and 3D underground stope reconciliation solution.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chanda-lwimba-a7433059/
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Reno Pressacco
Principal Geologist, ROSCOE POSTLE & ASSOCIATES
Reno is a geologist who has worked in the mining industry for more than 30 years in mineral exploration, mine development, mining operations and providing consulting services to the mineral industry. He has carried out assignments in North, Central, and South America, Finland, Russia, Armenia, and China in a variety of geological environments that hosted gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, nickel, molybdenum, uranium, PGM, and industrial minerals deposits.
He first started using version 3.2 of Surpac in the early 2000’s and has watched the code grow and expand and has contributed a number of comments and suggestions for improvements over the years.
Reno also currently participates as a member of the PDAC Technical Session Organizing Committee and is a member of the CIM Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves Best Practices Committee.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reno-pressacco-92647196/
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Wikus Deventer
Divisional Geologist, SASOL MINING HOLDINGS
Wikus is a Post-Graduate Geologist from the University of Johannesburg with more than 10 years’ experience in COAL. He started his career at Sasol Mining as an Exploration Geologist, working in the Free-state and later the Waterberg coalfields of South Africa.
After a short stint as an Exploration Geologist he joined Sasol Mining’s Geology Information Management team, here he was responsible for creating various seam and inter-bedded coal models using mainly Minex structure and resource modelling and Surpac to investigate possibilities of modelling sill and dyke structures. Wikus developed TCL scripts to complete repetitive tasks in Minex.
As the current Geology Manager of the Geology Information Management Department, his department oversees the modelling process across all Sasol Mining’s operations and also upholds the integrity of the Geological Database (mainly using SQL but investigating python and R to expand functionality to users).
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wikusvandeventer/
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Joining the Champions Program
Are you keen on sharing your knowledge with the GEOVIA community? Do you enjoy having engaging conversations about a topic you are passionate about in mining? Then the Champions Program is for you! Become a part of a community that promotes the sharing of knowledge through access with a GEOVIA expert and stimulating discussions with other passionate users all while getting recognized by your peers!
There are so many opportunities that we have created for you to participate in at your discretion. Sign-up is easy and it takes less than 5 minutes, so apply now to become a Champion today.
Simply click on the badge below to begin your Champions journey!
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