Explosives Industry News

International Society of Explosives Engineers

Thierry Bernard Technologie T.B.T.
IEE Global Pty Ltd
The health and safety of our sponsors, exhibitors, speakers, and attendees at our upcoming 48th Annual Conference on Blasting & Explosives Technique at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev., from Jan. 28 – Feb. 2, 2022, is of utmost importance to ISEE.

 

We are committed to following the guidance of the CDC, state and local authorities, as well as the Las Vegas Paris Hotel. Below are a few of the safety protocols you can expect at ISEE’s 48th Annual Conference on Blasting & Explosives Technique.

COVID Compliance Officer

 

This year we are adding a COVID Compliance Officer to our exhibit show floor. The officer will ensure attendees are wearing a mask (except when eating or drinking), help point out hand sanitizing stations and will have the latest CDC updates for attendees.

 

Masks are required indoors in the State of Nevada. ISEE attendees will be required to wear masks as follows:  

- In exhibit booths and indoor exhibit facilities.  
- In conference and keynote rooms.  
- ISEE shuttle buses and any ISEE transportation services.  
- ISEE will have safety ambassadors throughout the exhibit floor providing masks to those who may need one. 
- ISEE’s booth on the exhibit floor will have additional information.


Some of the safety swag annual conference attendees will be given include face masks, networking bracelets and hand sanitizer.


NEW!!! Networking Bracelets: At the registration desk there will be three color bracelets, red, yellow and green. Please place the bracelet on your arm to indicate your networking comfort level. If you need additional bracelets, they can be found at the registration area.

RED:  No handshakes or contact for me

YELLOW:  I’m open to handshakes or moderate contact

GREEN:  I’m open to all appropriate contact

ISEE will provide a mask and hand sanitizer in every conference bag picked up at registration desk!

 

Hotel Meeting Rooms

To enhance your comfort, ISEE has worked with the hotel to enhance your comfort during the ISEE Annual Conference:

Meeting rooms will have additional space between chairs. For rooms with tables, that means fewer chairs per table.  For rooms that are set theatre style (without tables) there will be additional space between each chair.
Water bottles instead of “water stations.” Thank you to our sponsors for helping offset the cost of having water bottles available to all our attendees.
Separate microphones for all speakers, including cleaning microphones between each session.
Staff and volunteers assisting with additional hand sanitizer and directions to stations.

Visit https://isee.org/conferences/2022-conference/health-safety to view the full article online.

 
NOMIS Seismographs LLC
Yazoo Mills, Inc.
Industry News
There is still time to register for the conference! As we prepare to leave for the conference this week we ask that you please register online as the staff will be traveling and will not be able to process registrations that are emailed, phoned or faxed in.

 

Join leading experts in blasting, drilling, vibration and government affairs, attendees from more than 20 countries and over 100 exhibitors at the 48th Annual Conference on Explosives & Blasting Technique. Share ideas and discover the latest techniques and technology that will help propel your professional development. Many states recognize ISEE training for continuing education and recertification hours. 

Visit https://na.eventscloud.com/ereg/index.php?eventid=632980& to view the full article online.

 
The 48th Annual Conference will be filled with events, from workshops, to technical sessions, and social events with your fellow colleagues. Mentioned below are a few of the networking events you might want to mark down on your schedule to attend.

 

Emerging Professionals Social - Sunday January 30, 2022. This will be off site at the Mob Museum at 7:30pm. Bus will depart from the North door of The Paris at 7:00pm. Come join the EP section for an open networking event. Please be aware that a badge is required to be worn to attend this event.

 

Emerging Professionals Archives - Monday January 31, 2022 at 2:00pm. This will be located in Champagne Ballroom 1. The speakers will talk about the history of explosives companies in the United States.

 

Roger Holmberg

 After graduation in 1972 he was working as Blasting Research Engineer for the Swedish Research Foundation (SveDeFo), performed research in many quarry and mining operations and wrote computer codes for bench, tunnel blasting and thermodynamic codes for explosives performance calculations. Roger was President for SveDeFofrom 1982-1986. Roger has been involved as a blasting consultant in many parts of the world, for construction and mining companies and for government bodies. He was one of the founders of the International Society of Explosives Engineers (ISEE) and two years as President for the European Federation of Explosives Engineers (EFEE). Riger has had various positions at Nitro Nobel, Dyno Nobel, Orica and Nitro Sibir. Today he is working as Secretary General for EFEE. Roger is author and co-author of over 100 publications. 

 


Dennis Johnson

Dennis started with Ensign Bickford in 1984 and Dyno Nobel during the merger with EBCo in 2003.  Prior to starting with Ensign Bickford, Dennis worked extensively in the coal industry in Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. He has sold heavy mining equipment and worked for Southern Explosives.  Dennis has held various management positions with Dyno Nobel, Product Manager of Detonating Cord, Direct Sales Manager, and in product development for the Initiation Systems group of Dyno Nobel.  Dennis is currently Sales Manager for North America Electronic Initiation Systems.

Dennis is a graduate of University of Kentucky.  He enjoys spending time with his family and grandchildren, scuba diving and cooking for large groups of friends.

 

Richard O’Meara

Richard O’Meara started with Nobel’s Explosives in the UK in 1987, before it changed names to ICI Explosives, as a Technical Services Engineer before joining Austin Powder in the US in 1992 as an International Tech Rep. After getting his MBA and then spending a decade in the consulting business he joined Orica in 2008 and is currently the NA Technical Services Director. He has worked in many different mining operations, both surface and underground on 5 continents and is now considered one of the “old guys.

 

Scott Scovira holds a Bachelor of Science in Mining Engineering from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Scott is a 37-year member of the Society of Explosives Engineers and the Society of Mining Engineers. Scott worked for Orica and predecessor companies from 1985 to 2019 in marketing, technical services, safety, and management roles. Scott retired from Orica in 2019 and has since taken up a challenging second career with BME, Bulk Mining Explosives, as their Global Manager Blasting Science and Engineering.


 

Grand Network Gala - Tuesday February 1, 2022 at 6:30pm. Close out the Annual Conference by attending the gala.  This event will be held in Concorde A & B. Grab a drink, some food and relive the highlights of the conference with your fellow colleagues and new friends. All registered attendees are invited. 

Visit https://isee.org/conferences/2022-conference/schedule to view the full article online.

 
Richard O’Meara will be kicking off the technical sessions on Monday, January 31, 2022. There will be a variety of papers presented at the upcoming conference in Las Vegas from Monday through Wednesday. Below are just some of what will will be presented during the conference.

48th Annual Conference Jan. 28 - Feb 2, 2022. 

 

•Blasting for Rescue Applications - Speaker: John Norman

•Damaga to Rock: Near Field Seismic Models Revisited - Speaker: Santiago Gomez

•Mine to Mill Approach for Underground Mining - Speaker: Lauren Shields

•Blast Optimization from Drone Imagery - Speaker: Andreas Gaich

•Kinematic Modeling of Blasting - Speaker: Ruilin Yang

•Blasting Near a Crusher - Speaker: Scott Giltner

•Gas and Dust Explosion Research at the UKERT Lab - Speaker: Stephanus Van Den Berg

•Structure Response Study at a Quarry in Sumterville, FL - Speaker: Cathy Aimone-Martin

Visit https://isee.org/conferences/2022-conference/technical-papers to view the full article online.

 
If you are registered for the 48th Annual Conference then you will get a badge that will allow you into events and the exhibit hall. You will get an email with a bar code on it that will get scanned at the registration desk upon arrival at The Paris Hotel & Casino.

 

All attendees must wear their badge to attend all conference events and to get into the exhibit hall. This includes off site events like the Emerging Professionals Social and the Annual Clay Shoot as well.

Visit https://www.naylornetwork.com/ise-nwl/articles/index-v2.asp?aid=711011&issueID=86538 to view the full article online.

Requirement for Proof of Negative COVID-19 Test or Documentation of Recovery from COVID-19

If you plan to travel internationally, you will need to get a COVID-19 viral test (regardless of vaccination status or citizenship) no more than 1 day before you travel by air into the United States. You must show your negative result to the airline before you board your flight.


If you recently recovered from COVID-19, you may instead travel with documentation of recovery from COVID-19 (i.e., your positive COVID-19 viral test result on a sample taken no more than 90 days before the flight’s departure from a foreign country and a letter from a licensed healthcare provider or a public health official stating that you were cleared to travel).


Are You Fully Vaccinated for Air Travel to the United States?

You are considered fully vaccinated:

2 weeks (14 days) after your dose of an accepted single-dose vaccine
2 weeks (14 days) after your second dose of an accepted 2-dose series
2 weeks (14 days) after you received the full series of an accepted COVID-19 vaccine (not placebo) in a clinical trial
2 weeks (14 days) after you received 2 doses of any “mix-and-match” combination of accepted COVID-19 vaccines administered at least 17 days apart*
If you don’t meet these requirements, you are NOT fully vaccinated.

* CDC has not recommended the use of mix-and-match COVID-19 vaccine primary series. However, such strategies are increasingly common in many countries outside of the United States. Therefore, for the of purpose of interpreting vaccination records for travel to the United States, CDC will accept combinations of accepted COVID-19 vaccines.

 

Returning Home

 Need a negative test before boarding a plane to return to your home country? Please take the time to schedule your COVID test now to ensure you get in to get your test before your flight. Testing times are booking up and we want to make sure all of our attendees can return home when they are scheduled to.

 

There are several testing sites in Las Vegas. Please see link below to see sites to schedule.

 

We encourage you to visit the CDC website for the latest information.

Moreover, ISEE is in regular communication with the Las Vegas Paris Hotel, the location of the 48th Annual Conference. The Las Vegas Paris Hotel is providing ISEE with regular updates as to new guidance coming from the state of Nevada, Clark County, and the City of Las Vegas. ISEE will post these updates on our conference web page, and provide regular updates to our sponsors, exhibitors, speakers, and confirmed and prospective attendees. Currently, the Paris Hotel & Casino is requiring hotel personnel and guests to wear masks. It is the recommendation of the CDC that all individuals, who are able, be vaccinated to reduce the chance of contracting COVID.

Updated by CDC Dec. 17, 2021

Visit https://isee.org/public-documents/730-covid-testing-information to view the full article online.

 
Mitsubishi Materials USA Corp
American Elements
Get all the information you need for the conference at your fingertips.

 

The conference app will be the primary place to see the full schedule of events, check out the exhibit floor layout and even message any of the attendees. You will be able to personalize a schedule for yourself while your at the conference to make sure you don't miss any event you want to attend. Any alerts or news will be sent to the app so you will know of any changes and updates immediately.

 

App Name: ISEE 48th Annual Conference

Visit https://www.naylornetwork.com/ise-nwl/articles/index-v2.asp?aid=710718&issueID=86538 to view the full article online.

 
International Society of Explosives Engineers
26500 Renaissance Parkway
Cleveland, Ohio 44128