Newmont Mining Corporation

BATTLE MOUNTAIN, NEVADA - With help from Newmont, the Building Trades class at Battle Mountain High School started their new classroom project of building a house. The land and materials for the house were donated by Newmont, and the entire house building process-from the foundation to the rafters-was completed by BMHS students.

For each new building project, students use practical math skills to survey the land and to ensure that everything is square and level. From there, students work off of the concrete pad and raise the walls, while learning important on-site skills as well as practical, everyday life skills. Students also learn about safety, a value that is as important on the job as it is at home. Leadership skills are taught as well, as Senior students who have taken the class before pass on their knowledge to new students in the class. Responsibilities are shared and the students learn to work together to build the home. The class is offered every year, with students typically repeating the course two to three times in order to gain a full understanding of the home-building process. Seniors and Juniors who complete a full year can earn 7.5 college credits from Truckee Meadows Community College (California), and another 7.5 credits can be earned if another full year is completed. When finished, the homes are sold at appraised value, and proceeds from that sale go directly into funding the next home-building project in the next school year.

Two Battle Mountain (Nevada) High School students frame interior walls for a home as part of the Building Trades program.

ELKO, NEVADA - Newmont donated two gently used desktop PCs, complete with towers, screens, keyboards and mice, to Head Start of Northeastern Nevada. These computers replace old and worn out PCs that had been used by the teachers. The people at Head Start were very grateful for the donation. Newmont appreciates the opportunity to support this invaluable program, which provides educational and health services to children from low-income families and to children with disabilities.

NEVADA - Several Newmont employees received special recognition for their part in Newmont's support of the Guard and Reserve. Underground employees Bruce Nerpin and Ed Neal were honored for the support they provided to their team members who have served in the National Guard overseas. Likewise, employees Marshall York, Robert Flowers, Mike Sondermann and Jim Kestle were also issued awards at a ceremony in Winnemucca. A big salute goes out to all our employees in the Guard and Reserve and to their managers and supervisors who support their service to our country. Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) is a Department of Defense agency established in 1972 that seeks to promote a culture in which all American employers support and value the military service of their employees. They recognize outstanding support, increase awareness of the law and resolve conflicts through informal mediation. For more information, please visit www.esgr.mil.

Elko ESGR awards recipients with employees who nominated them. From left to right are Christopher Yell (Underground employee and Guardsman; nominator), Underground team leaders Bruce Nerpin and Ed Neal (recipients) and Michael Bolley (Underground employee and Guardsman; nominator). Winnemucca ESGR Award Recipients (photos not available) include Marshall York - Newmont Carlin Mine Foreman (nominated by SPC Dave Kumbera), Robert Flowers - Newmont Twin Creeks Mine Maintenance Supervisor (nominated by SSG Tony Vedis), Mike Sondermann - Newmont Twin Creeks Mine Foreman (nominated by SGT Randy Buckner) and Jim Kestle - Newmont Midas Mine Maintenance Superintendent (nominated by SGT Gary Ahnfeld).

DUNPHY, NEVADA - Sixth graders from French Ford Middle School in Winnemucca, Nevada, toured Newmont's TS Power Plant as part of their energy studies. This tour gave them a glimpse of how clean energy is being produced. Newmont welcomes the opportunity to educate the public, especially young people, about what we do to improve life for our global community-and how we do it in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

A DTE employee at Newmont's TS Power Plant (back row, center) stands with students from French Ford Middle School (Winnemucca, Nevada), who traveled about 70 miles to see the facility as part of their studies on energy.

A French Ford student holds a protective viewing shield to his face as he looks through an observation portal to see the intense, coal-fueled combustion that is the first step in the plant’s power generating process.

BATTLE MOUNTAIN, NEVADA - Newmont employees joined other individuals at a kick-off event at Battle Mountain Junior High School, where they signed up to participate in the WATCH D.O.G.S. program.

WATCH D.O.G.S.® is the father involvement initiative of the National Center for Fathering that was founded by Jim Moore, a concerned father who chose to take action in response to a 1998 middle school shooting in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Moore wanted to help prevent violence from occurring at his children's school or at any school. The first program was launched at George Elementary in Springdale, Arkansas, the school of Moore's oldest child. Today, more than 1,500 programs in 36 states and New Zealand participate in WATCH D.O.G.S. The K-12 program's goal is to help every school in America be positively influenced by the committed involvement of fathers and father figures in the lives of their children and students. The program invites fathers, grandfathers, uncles or other father figures to volunteer for at least one full day at their child's/student's school during the school year. Volunteers perform a variety of tasks during their volunteer day, including monitoring the school entrance, assisting with unloading and loading of buses and cars, monitoring the lunch room or helping teachers in the classroom by working with small groups of students on homework, flashcards or spelling. The Watch D.O.G.S. program is being well received across northern Nevada, and Newmont employees are among its participants and biggest supporters.

Manuel Villanueva (left), is one of several Newmont employees serving as WATCH D.O.G.S. volunteers in the Lander County (Nevada) School District.

The Newmont Nevada workforce is full of admirable individuals who go above and beyond the norm in extending help to others in need.  One such person is Twin Creeks Mine Maintenance employee Tim Swatman.  Tim traveled to Washington D.C., where he underwent a lengthy, sometimes uncomfortable, procedure to donate blood stem cells for a global bone marrow donor program that helps cancer patients.  The program ships bone marrow and blood cells for patients around the world.

Tim, who had previously signed up as a donor while serving in the Air Force, said he sensed a need to help out such people and it didn't matter to him whether he knew them or not.  He just wanted to give them a chance that they might not have had otherwise.

Tim explained that the procedure he underwent was a peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) donation.  He was injected with a drug used on cancer patients to increase their cell counts after chemotherapy.  Once a day, he received an injection in each arm to raise his cell count for the donation.  Then on the fifth day, some of his cells were harvested.  He described being hooked up to a blood filter, which moved blood from his left arm and through a series of centrifuges to separate the cells.  The blood then went through a warming unit and was sent back into Tim's body through an IV in his right arm.  He said that it took 4-1/2 hours to collect about half an IV bag of cells, along with 200cc of plasma (in which to suspend the cells for transfer to the patient).

Tim said that the drug administered to him as part of the process made every bone in his body hurt after four days of injections.  But within about a week after the donation, he was feeling better, although he was urged to carefully avoid receiving any cuts, because he had been injected with about 800cc of anti-coagulants.  He also had to avoid alcohol, aspirin and anything else that might affect blood clotting.

Thankfully, the regimen each day was not an all-day ordeal, so Tim had some spare time for leisure activities.  He reported that after each session, he and his wife would go sightseeing around Washington, D.C.

Tim's story caught the attention of Elko Daily Free Press writer Adella Harding, who interviewed Tim about his experience for a feature story in the Mining Quarterly.

We salute Tim Swatman for going beyond "the distance" in support of this noble program that can help save lives.  For more information about marrow donation, visit www.marrow.org.