Job Description: General Manager - Geology and Mine Planning
The General Manager of Technical Services provides enterprise-wide leadership, governance, and strategic direction for all technical services functions across ASARCO's mining operations. This role is accountable for establishing a high-performance technical services organization that delivers integrated mine planning, ore control, geology, geotechnical engineering, assay laboratory operations and survey excellence across all sites.
As a key member of the senior leadership team, the General Manager ensures that technical services capabilities are standardized, data-driven, and aligned with ASARCO's business strategy, operational execution, and long-term value creation. The role drives integration between mine planning, operations, metallurgy, maintenance, and digital transformation initiatives and the Resource Center of Excellence (COE).
This position owns technical governance, planning integrity, and resource optimization across short-, mid-, and long-range horizons, ensuring that mine plans are executable, economically optimized, and aligned with safety, environmental, and regulatory requirements.
Essential Functions:
Enterprise Technical Leadership & Governance
- Lead and standardize Technical Services functions across all ASARCO sites, including mine planning, geology, ore control, geotechnical, assay laboratory operations, and survey.
- Establish and enforce technical governance, standards, and operating models across sites, including planning cycles, reconciliation practices, and reporting frameworks.
- Participate in the development of the Resource Center of Excellence (COE) to drive consistency, capability building, and best practice adoption.
Integrated Mine Planning & Strategy
- Own the integrity and integration of short-, mid-, and long-range mine plans across all operations.
- Ensure alignment between Life-of-Mine (LOM) plans, annual budgets, and quarterly execution plans.
- Drive optimization of pit design, pushbacks, cut-off strategies, haulage profiles, and capital sequencing.
- Lead enterprise-level trade-off analysis to optimize cost, recovery, and net present value.
Operational Integration & Execution Support
- Ensure technical plans are executable and aligned with operational readiness, equipment capacity, and workforce capability.
- Partner with Operations, Maintenance, SX-EW, Concentrator, and Metallurgy teams to align mine-to-mill and mine-to-leach strategies.
- Drive plan compliance and accountability through KPI management, performance reviews, and corrective actions.
Ore Control, Reconciliation & Geology Excellence
- Establish rigorous ore control and production geology standards to ensure optimal material routing and grade control.
- Own reconciliation processes across all sites, ensuring transparency between model, plan, and actual performance.
- Ensure full integration of assay data into ore control and reconciliation processes, maintaining alignment between sampling, modeling, and plant performance.
- Drive accountability for data quality from sample collection through laboratory analysis to final reporting.
- Drive continuous improvement in geological modeling, sampling, and data quality.
Geotechnical & Risk Management
- Provide enterprise oversight of geotechnical design, slope stability, and hydrological management.
- Ensure risks related to pit wall stability, groundwater, and geomechanics are proactively managed and integrated into planning.
- Establish risk-based frameworks for safe and sustainable mine design.
Assay Laboratory & Data Integrity Oversight
- Provide enterprise governance of assay laboratory operations, including sample preparation, analytical methods, QA/QC, and data management.
- Drive continuous improvement in sampling practices from pit to lab to ensure representativity and consistency.
- Monitor laboratory performance across key metrics, including accuracy, repeatability, turnaround time, and cost efficiency.
Exploration & Resource Development Oversight
- Provide enterprise leadership and governance for exploration strategy across all operations and development projects.
- Ensure alignment between exploration, geological modeling, resource estimation, and mine planning.
Financial Performance & Planning
- Own mine planning inputs to budgeting, forecasting, and cost modeling processes.
- Drive cost reduction and productivity initiatives through optimized planning and sequencing.
- Ensure alignment between technical decisions and financial outcomes.
Leadership, Capability Building & Organizational Development
- Build and lead a high-performing, multi-site technical services organization.
- Develop leadership capability across Chief Engineers, Chief Geologists, and Technical Services Managers.
- Establish clear roles, responsibilities, and decision rights across the technical organization.
- Drive talent development, succession planning, and recruitment of critical technical roles.
Stakeholder Engagement & Reporting
- Represent Technical Services in executive leadership meetings, board reviews, and external audits.
- Provide clear communication of technical risks, opportunities, and performance.
- Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, including SEC S-K 1300 reporting standards.
Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
- Deep expertise in open pit mine planning across all time horizons (short- to life-of-mine).
- Strong understanding of ore control, geology, geotechnical engineering, and survey integration.
- Proven ability to lead multi-site technical organizations and drive standardization.
- Strong understanding of exploration strategy, including brownfield and greenfield programs, resource growth, and reserve replacement.
- Advanced knowledge of mining economics, cost modeling, and optimization.
- Experience integrating mine planning with processing (SX-EW and concentrator operations).
- Strong capability in digital transformation, data systems, and analytics integration.
- Executive-level communication skills with the ability to translate technical concepts into business decisions.
- Demonstrated leadership in organizational transformation, governance, and performance management.
- High level of adaptability, strategic thinking, and decision-making in complex environments.
- Bilingual English/Spanish beneficial
- Strong understanding of assay laboratory operations, QA/QC protocols, and sampling theory.
- Experience with metallurgical accounting, data validation, and reconciliation processes.
- Familiarity with LIMS systems and integration with mine planning and processing data platforms.
Requirements:
Required Education and Experience:
- Bachelor's degree in Mining Engineering, Geological Engineering, or related field (Master's preferred).
- Minimum 15 years of experience in open pit mining, with significant leadership responsibility.
- At least 10 years managing multidisciplinary technical teams across multiple sites or large operations.
- Proven track record in leading mine planning, ore control, and reconciliation in copper or polymetallic operations.
- Experience with large-scale transformation initiatives, digital systems, or remote operations preferred.
ASARCO LLC provides equal opportunity for all individuals without regard to race, color, creed, religion, age, national origin, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, actual or perceived disability, military status, veteran status, marital status, familial status, or any other characteristic(s) protected by local, state, or federal law(s).
