Ryan Isto Email & Phone Number

My name is Ryan Isto and am a graduate student at Montana Tech, studying mining engineering. I recently completed by bachelor's degree in petroleum engineering in December 2020, at Montana Tech.I worked two summers as a Geotechnician for Avalon Development Corporation in Alaska. In my first summer I was the field assistant to the Project Geologist, being able to firsthand see how an engineer makes decisions and manages a project in real context. During my time at the project, I learned skills that allowed myself to be a more effective member of the project by learning basic minerology skills, being trained in safety, including CPR training and helicopter training, and interpersonal skills. In my second summer I worked as a line cutting crew member in Tok, Alaska. I was given more responsibility in the field including leading a crew to complete difficult tasks under a time constraint in a safe matter. I grew more as a leader, gaining leadership qualities such as being a better communicator and being more organized which allowed me to lead my crew to perform at their best every single day. I was eventually sent to work at a remote spike camp where there was minimal contact with upper management challenging myself to make better decisions to benefit the productivity and safety of my coworkers. This past summer I was given the opportunity to be a Mining Intern with Kiewit. I worked at the Regal Mine located in Dillon, MT. Here I worked along side the project engineer to track production rates and manhours to produce weekly reports and to manage costs. I was provided diverse opportunities including; surveying highwall benches, performing quality assurance reports on excavated highwalls, overseeing quality assurance during a ball mill replacement, representing Kiewit during a dump presentation to the client, and helped the project with a variety of other tasks. This experience provided me with insight on the challenges project engineers face when working at a mine site.