Blasting community together once again

From left: Vulcan Materials Co.’s Nick Compton visited with Hinkle Contracting Co.’s Barry Adkins and Forrest Shelton during a break at Technology Demonstration Day in Lexington, Kentucky. Photo: P&Q Staff

The blasting community converged on Lexington, Kentucky, last week for the Kentucky Blasting Conference, but a more intimate industry group gathered just ahead of the annual meeting for education and networking at Technology Demonstration Day.

Technology Demonstration Day is an invitation-only event Sauls Seismic and Nomis Seismographs host, with a goal of keeping blasters on the forefront of technological innovation. A series of presentations were delivered this year, with representatives from Austin Powder, Epiroc, Nelson Brothers, R.A. McClure, Sauls Seismic and Strayos sharing their latest tech and insights.

“It’s to everybody’s benefit to optimize your blasting and make it safer,” says Jeff Taylor, president of Sauls Seismic. “We want to make the explosives energy go as much as possible to breaking the rock, therefore producing fewer vibrations and resulting in fewer neighbor issues.”

Because one bad blast collectively impacts the blasting community, it’s imperative that even competitors work, to a degree, together to ensure business continues as usual.

“It’s good to get the groups together – explosives companies and the aggregate companies – to share ideas,” Taylor says. “Plus, ever since COVID with everything shut down, I think everybody was itching to get out and see people again.”