Staffing has been an issue for the Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA) in recent years.
In some cases, the shortfall has impacted MSHA’s frontline inspections. One inspection, for instance, might involve an inspector an aggregate producer is extremely familiar with, whereas the next three or four involve completely different inspectors.
This has been a point of frustration for some producers. WD Scepaniak, a contract crusher based in Holdingford, Minnesota, is among those to experience this dynamic over the years.
“To be candid, it seemed for a while like we would get a new inspector – one who had never seen us before – for every inspection,” says Scepaniak, who serves his company as director of aggregate operations. “We had never seen them before, and they were kind of throwing the book at us.”
WD Scepaniak has experienced a transition for the better over the last few years. The change involved a new district manager.
“We recently had a change in our district manager, and we were proactive as a company to communicate with them who we are, where we work and what we do,” says Scepaniak, who reflected on his MSHA experience during the 2025 Pit & Quarry Roundtable & Conference. “One of the asks we had was for a little bit more uniformity with inspections, as well as inspectors.”
According to Scepaniak, his company has now engaged just two different inspectors across its last dozen or so inspections.
“What we liked with that is we knew what to expect,” Scepaniak says. “We knew what they were going to look for, so we can be proactive in making sure things are up to their liking and for our own safety, as well. That is one thing we really appreciate.”
Now that WD Scepaniak has recurring inspectors, Scepaniak says inspections have been more educational in nature. And that’s been a huge benefit for everyone.
“We’ve seen this progressively improve with our portable operations,” he says. “Every site is a little bit different. Things can get missed by our own people, but we’ve seen a lot of uniformity and a strong consensus in terms of what’s important for the inspector. It’s been good.”
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