Eye to the future

Attendees of an upcoming mining summit in Elko County will play a simulation game that could determine the future of Elko and other small towns in northeastern Nevada.

The fifth annual Summit of Mining Communities, scheduled for the Elko Convention Center on April 4-7, is expected to draw between 100 and 125 participants whose goal is to discover ways mining communities such as Elko can avoid the boom-and-bust cycles that typically plague mining towns.

Keynote speakers David Buerle and Juliet Fox of Innovative Leadership, which has locations in Wisconsin and Australia, developed a simulation they call the Futures Game. Participants at the mining summit will discuss ways they think Elko and similar communities should look in the future, and the game maps out the effects of their decisions for the year 2031.

"It is really enlightening," says Pam Borda, executive director of the Elko County Economic Diversification Authority. "They are experts and work internationally with rural communities on sustainability practices in resource-based communities in terms of looking at the future and trying to map out plans on how to diversify."

The upcoming summit makes its first appearance in Elko. While past mining summits in Leadville, Colo. and Butte, Mont. focused on historical mining and the often messy environmental issues left behind when mining ceased or slowed in those areas, the primary goal of the Elko conference is to advance ways to keep the economy of northeastern Nevada thriving when mining eventually plays out in Elko and surrounding counties.

"We look at it as a great opportunity to invite attendees to come to Elko and showcase the modern mining era," says Don Newman, executive director of the Elko Convention and Visitor's Authority. "We can showcase steps taken to prevent this. We have a huge labor force of highly skilled individuals, and as mining winds down what does the community need to do to retain it so that we don't go from boom to bust? We really are focusing on sustainability and diversification within the modern mining era."

The Summit of Mining communities is expected to a wide range of participants, from mining executives who might lay the groundwork for what to do with a highly skilled workforce, to county commissioners, city planners, local government officials, and leaders of economic development agencies.

"This really is about economic diversification and sustainability of modern resource-based communities," Newman says.

The Summit of Mining Communities is a joint effort of Barrick Gold, Newmont Mining Corp., Great Basin College, ECVA, Elko County, Elko County Economic Development Authority and the Northern Nevada Stewardship Group.

"Diversifying our economy and growing intelligently takes a whole community it isn't just something an economic development organization can do," Borda says. "This (summit) is the beginning of letting our communities know they need to be part of the strategic planning process of where they want to go what they want to look like and build plans based on implementation of that rather than just letting growth happen."

Much of the current growth in and around Elko has been sparked by mining and mining-service-related companies, Borda notes. "That is not go to do us any good in a downturn," she says.

Mardell Wilkins, assistant to the president at Great Basin College in Elko, says although mining is going gangbusters in Elko County, it is time to think about where the county is headed.

"There are a lot of things we are doing in this community that will probably be presented at the summit so that other communities can take away what we have learned and what we are living right now," Wilkins says.

Moving the conference to Elko not only provides the summit with a prime example of a community that needs to focus on economic diversification, but it also gives a crucial boost to Elko County at a time when special event are at a virtual standstill.

"It gives us the opportunity to bring additional people to the community," Newman says. "Conferences and events like this give us an opportunity to showcase various parts of the community, and hopefully people will come back when they have leisure time. These conferences are really important for us."