Hi, my name is Kristin and I have two engineering degrees. I received my BS in Mining and Minerals Engineering from Virginia Tech, and an MS in Engineering Management from Wilkes. I get asked all the time how I decided to be an engineer and how the heck I ended up in mining. As a child I loved to build things with my dad. My favorite thing to build was birdhouses! I always enjoyed science and math courses and because of that enjoyment the course work seemed to come easier to me. During my college career and following graduation I have worked for Oldcastle Materials. They are a huge aggregate, asphalt and heavy highway construction company. I was hired as a mine process engineer and I worked with two quarries from mine planning to plant layouts and optimization all the way through to working with the asphalt plants. I had the opportunity to write justifications for capital expenditure projects, justifying up to a few million dollars in spend. It was so rewarding to see the projects come to fruition and see the improvement they made at our sights. I then had the ability to travel all over the country as a Performance Manager to our sister companies and help with aggregate optimization projects. We used lean principles to help make our locations safer and more profitable. It is extremely satisfying to be able to help locations improve in a variety of ways. My engineering background has been a huge influence on the way I interact with people and leverage my knowledge base to help improve their operations. I then did a stint as a sales representative for aggregates and asphalt within my company. I am was able to leverage my engineering background to help not only increase sales at my company but to provide added value to our customers. In my current role as area manager I am ale to leverage all my years of experience to work at the sites and improve their safety and financial performance. I am working to build a strong team with great people who will be able to continuously improve our operations.