Coal miner's daughter sings his praises

Not all parents are sure that their kids appreciate them. But when they follow you into the family business and one of them writes an article describing you as a role model and all-around great guy, you can relax with a beer, put your feet up and think, "I've done OK." This is precisely the case for 43-year-old John Usibelli, father of Elizabeth and Vincent, all of whom are currently working at the coal mine in Healy that was founded by John's great-uncle, Emil.

"He is a very talented, low-key man; a working man's man; a well-rounded individual; a role model and a jack of all trades," Elizabeth wrote in her article about John, which inspired Mining News to talk to them both and find out more. John was aware of the mining going on around him even as a young child, although he didn't know his grandfather, John, or Emil Usibelli, because they both died before he was born.

Before the Parks Highway connected Healy to Anchorage and Fairbanks, John and his two sisters and parents had to fly to Fairbanks in the company airplane to get groceries. "I used to hate that when I was about four because of the turbulence," John recalled. In the mornings he would see everyone setting off to work every day on foot, as the mine site was within walking distance of the town.

John's father, Roland, was an equipment operator at the mine, and would talk about how the dozers removed the overburden so that the truck shovel could get in to mine the coal, and how the wash plant worked. "I always thought of it as a big sandbox with equipment," John said. John's older sister graduated in 1980 and left Alaska. Roland retired in 1981 and moved to the West Coast with John's younger sister.

John Usibelli operated equipment, studied mining engineering

John also thought about leaving, but most of the male friends he grew up with stayed and worked at the mine. So for a couple of years before enrolling at the University of Alaska Fairbanks he "stuck around and operated equipment," under the supervision of Warren Mattielli. At UAF he started out doing an associate's degree in welding technology, then switched to a bachelor's in mining engineering.

When John returned to Healy in 1986, it didn't escape his notice that the ratio of men to women in the area was rather disproportionate. Fortunately, he was introduced to his wife Teresa Chepoda by Mattielli, who had been at high school in Washington with Teresa's mother. Teresa is "quite the entrepreneur," according to Elizabeth. At one point she was running four businesses: a car rental company, a drive-thru coffee shop, a bed and breakfast and a U-Haul. Now it's just the latter two, and in the summer John helps out at the bed and breakfast, which he built himself - a large log house called Alaskan Chateau.

John was a production engineer at the mine for about nine years, "meaning I was the guy that knew ahead of time what needed to be moved, when, where," he said. That included knowing which way the dirt was going to move when 300 tons of explosives were shot on a vertical coal seam within 250 feet of the upper shop in 1999 - one of the trickier challenges of John's career - and thanks to him the shop remained intact. He also correctly calculated the distance for rerouting the power cable for the dragline during its move in 2002. If he had been out by a few feet, the cable couldn't have plugged in. "It was gratifying to see that all the topography maps matched up," John said.

Elizabeth listed some more of John's achievements in her article: "(he) negotiated the explosive bid to an eight-year low, implemented single seam cast blasting and forecasted five explosive budgets within 8 percent of actual. All of the pits he directly designed and managed were within 10 percent of budget. ... He is a great example of a man who has worked from the bottom and up."

Elizabeth Usibelli is doing an internship at the mine

For the past three years John has been doing various jobs at the mine, including "dabbling in special projects" and supervising reclamation. "I was burned out on the day-to-day work; there was no excitement anymore," he said. "Prediction was second nature." Currently he is trying to retrofit the tipple system, which crushes the coal into smaller chunks. It was built in 1982 when the mine used 45-ton trucks. Now 150-ton trucks are dumping their loads into the same vault, and it's the mine's biggest bottleneck, according to John. One of his goals is to get a 5-10 percent increase in productivity.

The new role has given John a chance to work closely with Elizabeth, who's now 20. She started out at the mine at the age of 17 after graduating from Tri-Valley High School, "to make a quick pay check for college." Elizabeth got into a program for the children of employees that enables them to work as tour guides and in reclamation, as long as they are enrolled in college. As a tour guide she got to know about all aspects of the mine, and on the reclamation side she planted trees and helped out in the lab.

At middle school Elizabeth wanted to be a teacher or a lawyer.

"I definitely didn't think I was going to work at the mine, I wasn't very interested," she said.

But in her summer job there she learned that there was a lot more to it than she'd imagined.

In her sophomore year at UAF, Elizabeth "decided my dad was pretty inspiring.

I decided, hey, I can do that," and she enrolled in the mining engineering program.

This summer she has been doing an internship at the mine to find out if it's really what she wants.

John entrusted her with a project to design a tipple add-on that makes the daily coal sampling easier to do, and now she's moved out of the office to the field, as an exploration geologist.

"She's putting in 11- to 12-hour days getting pretty muddy," John said. "It's kind of strange, as she's always telling me she's more of a girly girl. I never thought I'd see that." In fact, it was Elizabeth's brother Vincent, 19, who showed more interest in the mine as a child (he was excited by the explosives), and Vincent is working in the reclamation program at Usibelli now, but he hasn't made up his mind about it as a career.

"I loved growing up here in Healy, the opportunities were endless, you could play on any kind of sports team you wanted and actually get played," Elizabeth recalled. Healy has a population of about 1,000 and there were 60 kids at Elizabeth's high school. "I played hockey, volleyball, basketball and did dance. I was doing two practices a day or three because some of the seasons would run into each other. I was editor of the school newspaper," she recalled.

Elizabeth Usibelli hasn't yet decided on career path

John is also keen on sports, playing golf and basketball, as well as going hunting, fishing and camping in his spare time. He is also a volunteer and vice president for the board of the local hockey team, the Healy Coal Kings, which Elizabeth and Vincent both play for. The Usibellis are a family that's likely to stick together no matter where life takes them. John is considering doing more in the tourism business in the future, as he enjoys meeting the people from all over the world who come to the bed and breakfast. Elizabeth hasn't decided what her path will be in the mining industry yet.

"I'm on the fence - I know that I want to be involved in the mining environment, but it might be as a mining engineer or a lawyer. The whole process is interesting to me, the environmental part, how they go about getting what they want out of the ground while being conscious of the earth during and after," Elizabeth said. "I'm surprised at the mentality of people about mines still today, they think you can dig a hole in the ground and it's not regulated. I think it's very hypocritical. They are against coal mines, yet they enjoy the convenience of turning on a light switch and they have no problem putting gas emissions into the air while running their vehicles."

If Elizabeth were to start her own consulting company, as she suggested she might, John would join her "in a heartbeat," he said. "She's definitely intelligent and she's a people person," he added. John's family "is the most important thing to him and the only support he needs to be successful in life," Elizabeth wrote in her article, returning the compliment. "I am so damn proud of him that I too have chosen the same career as him."