Built on Bravery: How WVU's Mine Rescue Team Was Born

Members of the 2024 WVU Mine Rescue team practice a live fire drill at the simulated underground mine located at the Academy for Mine Training and Energy Technologies.

We’re built different here in West Virginia. Grit runs in our blood, and we know what it means to work hard. 

Story by Kaley LaQuea, Communications Specialist
Photos by Paige Nesbit

Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Mountaineers and coal miners have shaped the Mountain State, from seasoned veterans who sacrificed in the depths of traditional industry to the next wave of engineers honing their skills today at the Benjamin M. Stater College of Engineering and Mineral Resources. We’re paying homage to how intergenerational collaboration, knowledge transfers and fresh perspectives are shaping the future.

Mining engineering alumnus Travis Hartsog, who’s West Virginia born and raised, grew up watching his father working as a mining engineer. He knew it was his path. The summer he turned 18, he worked underground as a surveyor before he began classes at WVU.

Travis Hartsog, WVU mining engineering alumnus and founding member of the WVU Mine Rescue Team. 

“To be honest, my parents were scared to death that I was gonna enjoy making money and not wanna go to school in the fall,” he recalls. “After that summer I thought ‘You know, this is fun and I enjoy it, but I know I'm not going to be able to do this forever. This can be tough work, so going to school to be able to continue would be the best thing.”

Hartsog says that in his first few years taking classes in the mining department, it was rare for his teachers to have hands-on industry experience. 

Members of the WVU Mine Rescue Team cautiously approach a training exercise at the Academy for Mine Training and Energy Technologies, also known as Dolls Run. 

“I understood a little more about the practicality and I started thinking, ‘OK, well, they're teaching us this but in the real world, this is gonna hold you back because this law, that law and everything. I understand why they don’t teach the laws, but I wanted to find a way to help students who may not have an internship underground or at a mine until they graduate.”

Hartsog says there was a lot of discussion happening about getting a mine rescue team together, but little momentum. He wanted his classmates to experience the same hands-on learning he’d had. At the time, rescue teams like the one at the Colorado School of Mines were more common out West, so he reached out to them for guidance. 

Hartsog’s push to get the team going was a labor of love and an opportunity to apply that Mountaineer spirit. With limited resources and know-how available, students had to get creative. So they got to work building their own program from scratch. In 2009, the Academy for Mine Training and Energy Technologies at WVU was completed and ready for action.

“Even though [Doll’s Run] isn’t a real mine, it gives them a vision,” Hartsog says. 

Ashton Crawford, left, Evan Rice, right, simulating the rescue of injured miner Braden Kiesel, center, while maintaining proper treatment and transfer of the patient to safety. 

Hartsog reached out to mining experts and educators at other institutions like Virginia Tech too. By Hartsog’s senior year, he’d managed to get all the necessary equipment donated. He rounded up 11 students and the team took off, growing its skills and signing up to compete.

Like Hartsog, current WVU Mine Rescue president and captain Justin Waybright grew up listening to stories of his father working in mining and knew that it would be part of his future.

WVU student and Mine Rescue Team Captain Justin Waybright is dressed in his full gear and ready for a training exercise at the Academy for Mine Training and Energy Technologies.

“I had the background from him of just knowing the process before actually going there,” Waybright says. “Being able to just go see everything really solidified me knowing that that's what I wanted to do.”

Since Hartsog’s days at WVU, the team has gone on to sweep championships, winning against established teams like Colorado School of Mines. Waybright, now in his third year as captain, has been a key component to the team’s success.

He served as the briefing officer when the team took home two international victories in spring 2023 and 2024. At this year’s professional national competition in Kentucky in August, Waybright and mining engineering student Dylan Shilling earned fourth and fifth place respectively in the BG-4 Bench, a skills match where members troubleshoot problems with equipment and breathing apparatuses typically used in mine rescue. 

Out of 85 professional benchmen, Waybright and Shilling took top positions as the only collegiate members to compete. Waybright feels the camaraderie among those in the mining industry is an integral part of building support and trust, especially when it comes to safety training and emergency preparedness.

The 2024 West Virginia Mine Rescue team. Top, left to right: Cole Delisle, dual Mining/Civil Engineering; Ian Stengel, Electrical Engineering; Conner Keddie, Mining Engineering; Tristen Kucera, Mining/Civil Engineering; Ashton Crawford, Mining Engineering; Dylan Shilling, Mining Engineering; Logan Holbrook, Biomedical Engineering; Brendan Del Coro, Forest Resources Management; Justin Waybright, Mining Engineering and Evan Rice, Mechanical Engineering. Bottom, left to right: Joseph Statuto, Engineering Technology; Samantha Roark, Mining Engineering; Grace Hansen, Mechanical Engineering; Trent Cavanaugh, Mining Engineering; August Lasko, Mining Engineering and Braden Kiesel, Mining Engineering.  

“Every time we go to a big professional competition like that, it really gives us more insight on what it is and what all they do, what it means to them — because they're the ones that are actually working there, going in,” Waybright says. “And if they have to go do something, most of the time it's people they know that they’d be going in after.”

Hartsog has also experienced the close-knit community of the industry. After graduation, he worked his way up to operations manager, getting experience in different roles all over the state before transitioning to being a project engineer in Beckley. But Hartsog’s career in industry hasn’t taken him too far from home and he’s stayed involved with the WVU Mine Rescue team.

“You know it gives you a blue suit feeling,” Hartsog says. “It was worth it. It was fun, and I’m extremely proud of what it has become. It's grown further than I ever thought it would.”

Hartsog acknowledges the work is tough, but it’s been an essential part of his own life as well as the story of West Virginia.

“Coal impacts my life every day by giving me a career and giving me hope, giving my children hope,” Hartsog explains. “It’s extremely important, it’s in way more products and things than people ever realize,” Hartsog explained. “If it can't be grown, it must be mined.”

---