We are proud to welcome and recognize a whole host of New Champions to the 2021 GEOVIA Champions Program. We are proud to call these individuals our GEOVIA Champions, a designation for world-class experts & influencers that create a positive impact on our industry and our professional community by sharing their knowledge, passion and vision.
We are excited to learn more about our Champions’ careers and about the journeys that led them to working in mining.
Discover more about our Champions and their accomplishments that make them stand out individually and as Champions for GEOVIA.
Alexandr KOTOV
With 19 years of experience in underground mining, Alexandr works as Deputy Director of UGOK for Innovative Development at ALROSA.
His career started as a drilling rig and loading machine operator. He then accessed managing positions for shifts and underground that lead him to become the Head for Underground Mining.
Between 2009 and 2013, he sharpened his Surpac skills in fan design, blasting and ore mining, together with the Bernicat team. Today, he helps his colleagues to validate their production planning and ore quality management based on PCSLC software. To complete his GEOVIA skills, Alexandr is also a MineSched software user.
Alexandr believes 3D tools are the future of the mining industry. Indeed, combining a high flow of information in a single integrated environment is critical for mining professionals to be more efficient.
Celestin KASATUKA
Celestin is a mining engineer with 21 years of experience in open pit mining and consulting experience in the mining industry. He currently works for Endeavour Mining as a Chief Mine Planning Engineer in West Africa. Celestin has worked with a wide range of commodities, producing mines around the world; Dassault Systèmes (formerly known as Gemcom) as a Senior Business Analyst in 2009, delivering training, technical services and support, Business Analysis at various sites in Africa, Europe,…
Celestin has used Whittle, Surpac and MineSched over the past fifteen years with exposure to pit optimization and scheduling (from the strategic planning perspective), Short to Long term production scheduling with MineSched and Pit designing, Blast designing, solid modelling, block modelling with Surpac.
Celestin is keen to share his software expertise and knowledge to the GEOVIA community, and to help colleagues deliver successful results.
Hildemaro MENDEZ ARAUJO
Hildemaro is a Mining Engineer at ETK Inc, a subsidiary of Gran Colombia Gold, bringing 13 years of experience in the mining world – of which 3 years in drilling and blasting, and 10 years in mine planning – to a new project.
During his career, Hildemaro evolved as Mine Planning Superintendent and Mine Manager in the largest open pit gold mine in Venezuela. In the last 4 years, he has been involved in the 3 major mining operations in Guyana. Among his achievements, Hildemaro demonstrated how to integrate GEOVIA solutions: Whittle in pit optimizations, Surpac in pit designs and MineSched in planning. In addition to that, he succeeded in expanding the reserves at Troy Resources Guyana, obtaining an increase in the life of the mine to 3 years.
Idrissa GARBA
Idrissa is a Mining Engineer with 15 years of experience in Open Pit and Underground Operations.
He started his career in Uranium exploration and Development before moving to Uranium Mining Operations including all Mining Engineering works (Drill & Blast, Planning, Blending, Pit operations). Since 2012, Idrissa manages Resource & Reserve review and all works related to Mine Engineering and Technical at a bauxite mine. More precisely, he is leading the Engineering team to deliver on Resource Development and Modeling, Grade control works, Reserve Review, Drilling and Blasting and all required planning support for the day-to-day Operations and at Strategic level (LOM Plan, Mine Closure and Rehabilitation).
In 2006 he started using GEOVIA Surpac and extended his technical skills with GEOVIA MineSched.
Mercedes MALLO RODRIGO
As graduate in mining engineering Mercedes joined Berkeley Minera, an uranium explorer with a portfolio of advanced projects in Spain. The company’s flagship “Salamanca Project” is a multi-pit operation with complex material flow, including ore lixiviation, pit backfill and different waste management.As a Mine Planning Engineer Mercedes was part of the team to go from exploration, FS to FEED. Specialized in Strategic Planning, she became the Mine Planning Superintendent.
In 2019 Mercedes decided to evolve to a Development Engineer role in the Technology department at Boliden. She now supports several operations in the Mine Planning area, including strategic planning, and she’s currently responsible of Long Term Planning on site for the Aitik operation.
Paolo DE LA CRUZ
Paolo has more than 11 years of experience in open pit mining. He started his career in the Philippines as a Drill and Blast Foreman, exposing himself to the operational side of Mining. Then he moved to a mine in Mongolia in 2012, where he became part of the engineering team, and learned about Surpac and Minesched.
He is currently working as a Senior Mining Engineer for one of Endeavour’s Gold Mine in Burkina Faso. His main duties include mentoring the Junior engineers and Medium to Long term planning. Paolo’s specialization is scheduling using Minesched.
He is excited to share the knowledge he gained throughout the years of using GEOVIA mining software.
Patricio MARIN GRIBBELL
Patricio is Planning and Project Lead at Carola Coemin Mining Group (Tierra Amarilla, Chile). He has more than 5 years of experience in underground mining projects exploited by the sublevel stoping method.
After graduating from the Atacama´s university as a mining engineer, he started his career as a Junior Engineer in 2017 at Carola Coemin, reaching his current position.
Patricio actively participated in the creation and standardization of Mine Planning, more precisely the Strategic Mine Planning and Long-Term Mine Planning using GEOVIA Surpac, Minesched and Isight.
Among his achievements, he actively contributed to a production increase from 120 to 240 ktpm by leading the Design and Planning of the Carola Mine. The new target is to double production again and position as the largest copper mining company in Chile.
Yevgeniy POLLE
Yevgeniy is a specialist in Mining engineering with more than 14 years of international progressive experience, covering Mine Planning, Geology and Surveying areas.
He has had the opportunity to work in various environments, in open pit and underground operations. He also took part to projects in West Africa and CIS, dealing with a diverse range of commodities including precious metals, iron ore, copper, coal and uranium.
Yevgeniy has an Engineering Degree in Mining and he is also an expert user of GEOVIA software, such as Whittle, MineSched and Surpac. Married with two children, he speaks both English and Russian (his mother tongue). His domains of expertise include mining project evaluation, Whittle optimizations, mine design, strategic and medium term planning, and Reserve estimation (JORC, NI43-101).
>> Learn more about the GEOVIA Champions program
