Women in Engineering 2023 - Rebekah Averill

Rebekah Averill - Mining Engineer, Brierfield Quarry, Lhoist North America

What made you want to pursue a career in Engineering?

"I have always liked solving problems, and now I get to do it every day while working in what is basically a giant sandbox."

Growing up, I was always into building stuff, understanding how things worked, and then trying to make them better. Now I get to design Blasts and build roads and dumps while optimizing the development of the pit.?

What is your educational background? And your field of specialization?

I have a bachelor’s degree in Mining Engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology. I specialized in Mining Engineering with an emphasis on explosives. Who doesn’t like getting to blow stuff up and not getting in trouble for it??

Can you share a project you did at Lhoist?

I just finished building an extension to our aggregate partner’s pad, we added 10 acres onto the existing 15-acre pad. We started in December of 2022 and finished it in May of 2023 moving around 400000 tons of rock.

"This challenged my surveying skills as I had never done anything like this before but in the end, I learned how to do some cool stuff with my GPS that I now use on a daily basis."

Have there been challenges on your path to becoming an engineer which you faced due to being a woman? And how have you overcome these?

Even if you can only take 1 class at a time do it! It is a rewarding field and the people are amazing. You will get to do things and design stuff that you never would have imagined.

"I knew what I was getting myself into when I entered this field but having a fantastic team supporting me makes dealing with any challenges easy."

What advice would you give someone who would like to get into engineering or completing those qualifications?

Even if you can only take 1 class at a time do it! It is a rewarding field and the people are amazing. You will get to do things and design stuff that you never would have imagined.