Vice Chairman's Message By Andy Hawbaker: Strange Times, Indeed

Vice Chairman Message: Strange Times, Indeed

These are strange times indeed! In the last thirty or forty days we’ve added new words and phrases like Coronavirus, COVID-19, self-quarantine, and social distance to our daily vocabularies. The country deemed our industry to be essential, thankfully, and, as we were certain we knew, we saw that our partners in this industry would also be there during times of great need.

TX Mining Monthly’s theme this month is technology. Fighting this virus has pushed many of us past our personal technological boundaries. With more of our employees working from home, the use of virtual meeting software such as Microsoft Teams, GoTo Meeting, Skype, WebEx, and Zoom have become common place. If you’re like me, you learned a great deal about how truly useful and effective these tools can be. Perhaps we are learning many lessons to carry forward?

Our industries, Coal, Uranium, and Industrial Minerals exist through a powerful network of strong relationships. Our partners in these industries are also our friends and our neighbors. We go to church together, our children play sports together, and we share a common effort to provide a quality product to each of customers. The technology we’ve used in these last several weeks to remain in touch, to have meaningful conversations and meetings, and undoubtedly finalize important deals. These tools of technology work so well because of the strong relationships we have already built!

The Texas Mining and Reclamation Association is a place where those relationships may begin, it’s certainly a place where they are built upon and strengthened. To all of you holding back, wondering about the strength of this organization: Come join us, or come back to us! Rebuild, or build upon those relationships, so that in these unprecedented and sometimes strange times, you know who you can count on.

Andy Hawbaker
TMRA Vice Chairman