Committee Member

Rick Brake

FAusIMM(CP)

Director, Mine Ventillation Australia

Dr Rick Brake is a Chartered Practicing Mining Engineer, based in Brisbane, Australia, with 30 years experience in underground and open cut operations in Australia and North America. He graduated with First Class Honours from the University of Queensland and has since completed a Master of Business Administration from Deakin University in Victoria and a PhD in physiology from Curtin University in Perth in the area of human heat stress. He has statutory qualifications in both coal and metalliferous mine ventilation and is a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, a member of the Mine Ventilation Society of South Africa, and a Member of the Minerals Industry Consultants Association of Australia.

Rick was Ventilation Superintendent for the four Mount Isa underground mines in the mid 1980s. He has been a member of the Editorial or Organising Committees for several major ventilation conferences. In 1999, he formed his own consulting company, Mine Ventilation Australia, specialising in the areas of sub-surface ventilation, mine refrigeration and cooling, heat stress and egress and entrapment. His company has subsequently consulted to many underground mines in Australia, PNG, China, South-East Asia and Africa. He also presents many training courses and seminars on mine ventilation, egress and entrapment, and heat stress and has published over 30 technical papers in these areas.