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Ros Hill directs the UA's San Xavier Mining Laboratory, which draws students, researchers and miners from around the world.

The International Society of Mine Safety Professionals has awarded the H.L. Boling Above and Beyond Safety Award to John R.M. "Ros" Hill, director of the Henry G. "Hank" Grundstadt San Xavier Mining  Laboratory and professor of practice in the mining and geological engineering department of The University of Arizona's College of Engineering.

"The award is meaningful for me because it is a recognition by our peers that we are running a first-class health and safety program (at the UA) and the students are getting quite a bit out of it, as well," said Hill, who also has a joint appointment in the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health.

Mine safety has been at the core of nearly all of Hill's professional life.

A graduate of the Colorado School of Mines, Hill at some point occupied nearly every job at the Spokane Research Laboratory of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, starting with the U.S. Bureau of Mines as a project engineer looking for ways to detect and minimize rock bursts, a deadly phenomenon associated with deep underground mines.

In May 1972, Hill was working in the Lucky Friday mine in the Coeur d'Alene mining district in Idaho when he was called to the nearby Sunshine mine. A fire in the Sunshine had killed 91 underground miners and trapped two survivors for a week. Hill made up his mind then that he would focus his career on miner health and safety.

At Spokane, Hill wrote more than 30 publications on mine safety. He obtained the funding and eventual oversight of a number of projects that have received national and international recognition. He also served on committees related to miner safety, including seven years on the organizing committee for the International Conference on Ground Control in Mining and the first conference on the use of artificial intelligence in geotechnical engineering.

Hill became the first permanent director of the Spokane lab after it was transferred from the Bureau of Mines to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in 1996. In 2004, he took a leave of absence to teach at the UA and decided to retire and stay in Tucson.

At the San Xavier lab, Hill oversees a 90-acre site south of Tucson, near the town of Sahuarita, that is a one-of-a-kind teaching facility. It is the only student-run underground mining laboratory in the world with access for rubber-tired vehicles, rail haulage and a shaft.

The lab is entirely self-supporting, largely through user fees for underground research, demonstration projects and training programs, Hill said. Mining and underground construction workers from around the United States, as well as UA students, go there to learn.

"When we talked about mining," he said, "we used to talk about production, but it's become very apparent in the modern mining era that safe production is the only kind of production that is acceptable today."

Hill said students who graduate, and even those who don't, come away with a highly marketable set of skills. They learn how to safely operate forklifts, jackleg drills and other equipment, and are certified in handling explosives, all of which "gives them a leg up" when applying for jobs.

The San Xavier lab also has a unique public outreach component.

Brian Duffy, a senior research specialist at Steward Observatory and a member of the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, said the association has occasionally done rescue training at the lab. Duffy said Hill organized a special tour of the facility for the group's members earlier this year.

"We thought it was important to understand how a mine is laid out and learn the terminology. In the past we've trained with federally certified mine rescue teams, and we thought that to be able to speak to them in a knowledgeable way was important. It was the best tour we've had in years," Duffy said.

Science Foundation Arizona also is funneling money into the lab for new equipment and testing future innovations, such as devices that can locate the positions of miners underground and video games that create disaster scenarios and show how best to navigate a labyrinth of tunnels to escape.

"I've learned a lot. Learned to do underground construction and tunneling. It's fun. He (Hill) is great. He spends a lot of time with us out here," said Sarah Dahlin, an undergraduate engineering major and the health and safety foreman at the San Xavier Lab.

Robert Tracy, the student mine manager, coordinates with Hill and the mining engineering department "to make sure we have shifts out here to come out and learn to work."

Tracy, who said he comes from a mining family, said, "It's a bigger job than I thought it would be, coordinating people in industry, the University and meeting students' expectations, making sure they can do what they want to do and have fun and still get stuff accomplished. It's a big balancing act."

"He dedicates 100 percent of his time to us. If we need anything, he's always there. He encourages us to work safely and have fun doing it," said Rita Riggs, the lab's engineering foreman.

"For me it's been so much fun," Hill said. "The students are just so much fun to work with. They're all curious and want to learn, they really care about the mining industry and they all want to do the very best they can. I almost hate to see them graduate but I know they are leaving with skills and an appreciation for safety that will last them a lifetime."