Title: Principal Consultant for Mining Engineering

Company: SRK Consulting US

Location: Tucson, Az.

Valerie Obie is a mining engineer and mineral economist with 30 years’ experience in the mining industry. Her areas of expertise include developing planning models for feasibility studies and what-if scenarios to visualize economic feasibility of potential projects and property acquisitions; managing projects (major scoping, prefeasibility, bankable feasibility, and detail design) using industry standard project management processes; developing short/long term strategic and business plans, and providing project and cost controls. Ms. Obie chose this career because her father was in the industry and she really enjoys being a mining engineer and minerals economist so this was a very natural progression for me.

Ms. Obie is a master’s degree in organizational management from the University of Phoenix and a bachelor’s degree in mining engineering from the University of Arizona. The biggest challenge was how she approached a very male dominated field and through hard work, passion and knowledge she is well-respected in the mining operations field. Ms. Obie’s greatest strength is a front line understanding of mining which enables her to understand what is required for project management and controls.