Miners Are Miners

摘要

For those impacted by the coal industry downturn of the last few years, a big question has loomed: What now? For Tom Smith, the answer lay just two hours south of his original home in Kentucky, in the zinc mines of East Tennessee. "I came out of the coalfields, and a lot of the coalfield guys are moving this way," says Smith, who works as maintenance manager for Nyrstar Mining's three East Tennessee mining complexes and the associated mill (preparation plant). "It's been a learning curve going from coal to zinc-the processes-but the fundamentals are the same. Miners are the same whether it's coal or zinc."