The Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering has a 118-year, storied history, and has a new director with a fondness for that history.

“I have great respect for the individual who this school is named after,” Jeff Parshley, the new director of the Mackay School, said.

His admiration for John Mackay centers on Mackay’s understanding of how he could help and live in a community, something Parshley hopes to emulate in his new role. Parshley, leaving a long and successful career as a corporate consultant, is no stranger to the Mackay School. He has served on the Professional Advisory Board of the Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering since it was established, currently serving as co-chair of the board, and also served on the College of Science Advisory Council for four years (the Mackay School is housed within the College of Science). He said those positions have given him a lot of insight into the University’s needs and strengths, and they have also allowed him to work with the College of Science’s dean, Louisa Hope-Weeks, who will be his supervisor in the new role. Even with his experiences on campus so far, Parshley acknowledges that he has a lot to learn.

“I expect to spend a lot of the first few months just trying to get to know the faculty, understand what it is the departments are doing and where their challenges are and where I can maybe help,” he said.

Parshley received his degree in geology from Dartmouth College in 1980. He will be joining the University after spending 45 years in industry, most of which was spent with SRK Consulting, an engineering and science consultancy. Parshley is a leading expert in mine closure, traveling around the world to advise companies on environmentally and socially responsible mine closure. During his time at SRK, he took on multiple leadership roles, including as a director of SRK’s North American and Global Boards. He also spent five years as Chair of the Global Board. Parshley was the principal creator of the Standardized Reclamation Cost Estimator, a public domain software that was developed in Nevada and is used around the world to estimate the cost of mine reclamation.

Parshley also serves as secretary on the board of the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals. He has a long-held passion for collecting minerals. His experience in that role will inform how he engages with the W. M. Keck Earth Science and Mineral Engineering Museum, which is housed in the Mackay School with a door just down the hall from his new office.

“For more than a century, the Mackay School has helped shape leaders in mining, earth sciences and engineering,” University Executive Vice President and Provost Jeff Thompson said. “Jeff's career reflects that same tradition of excellence: his deep industry expertise, collaborative leadership style and commitment to the Mackay School make him the ideal person to lead the School's next chapter.”

Asked what his first priority was when he started in the role, Parshley said, “It’s pretty easy: the students.”

That goal includes both recruiting students to the Mackay School and ensuring that their education meets the needs of the workforce so they are “ready to take their place in whatever role they are going to do, whether it’s government, private industry, [or] academia,” Parshley said.

Parshley said that may be beyond the standard curriculum and include things like basic workforce training, including how to put together a good presentation, how to write for business, and other things that businesses initially spend a lot of time on with recent graduates.

“If we can give them some of that training before they leave the school, it's going to make our graduates more employable, more desirable,” he said. “People will be coming to us to look for employees, rather than us trying to push them out to potential employers.”

Parshley’s contributions to the mining industry led him to be awarded the 2011 Northwest Mining Association (now known as the American Exploration & Mining Association [AEMA]) President’s Award, the 2014 American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers/Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration Environmental Stewardship Distinguished Service Award, the 2017 AEMA Distinguished Services to the Minerals Industry Award. Parshley served as president of AEMA in 2021, and he was also recognized as one of the top 50 most influential people in mining in both 2020 and 2021, a list which includes presidents of both companies and countries, in Mining Journal.

Parshley plans to leverage this influence in the industry to achieve his second goal: enhancing connections with private industry to understand their needs and addressing those needs through education and research. He hopes that partnering with industry in this way can help the school secure more funding from industry and reduce reliance on government grants. His third goal is to improve true collaboration across the Mackay School.

“I have learned in the last 35 years of my career that when you do that, you can be far more successful than you could be on your own,” Parshley said. “It's helped me succeed in ways I could never have done without that collaboration.”

With an ambitious five-year plan filled with a series of goals designed to meet his priorities, Parshley expects a challenge.

“It’s just going to be a lot of work,” he said, “but I also think it will be a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to it.”