Western Mining Services

Mineral Exploration Consultants

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Advanced Mineral Exploration Training

The Scope of our Mineral Exploration Training

We teach courses that are designed for all who are senior exploration managers, who aspire to be senior managers or who routinely work with and support senior exploration managers and want a better understanding of the challenges of management level positions in our industry. Our comprehensive advanced mineral exploration training covers a broad range of topics:

  • Mineral exploration at the strategic scale – the roles of greenfield and brownfield exploration in development and implementation of corporate operating and growth strategies
  • Design and management of exploration programs and portfolios
  • The importance of group structure, program design, process discipline and effective people management to achieve exploration group objectives
  • Opportunity generation including the exploration search space concept, targeting science, the application of targeting models and new opportunity due diligence
  • Development of commercial terms for mineral exploration transactions and deal negotiation
  • Strategic risk evaluation and management in order to develop and maintain the necessary licenses to operate exploration projects in varied risk environments

Management Level Training Classroom

Our in-person SEM Courses are open enrollment and cover all of the above topics — see the Agenda and Syllabus for last year’s Denver SEM Course as an example.

In addition, we provide individual training modules and courses, in-house, for clients who desire training that is tailored to their particular needs.

Our Senior Exploration Management (SEM) Course 

We have presented our Senior Exploration Management Course annually since 2010, publicly in Denver and Perth, and in-house using versions tailored for individual clients. The Course is never static — we review and update the materials regularly (literally each time it is offered) in order to improve the Course and keep it relevant. Follow these links to the Generic Agenda and Generic Syllabus for the Course. These documents provide basic curriculum and timing information for both sessions — Perth and Denver.

The feedback on our SEM Course is consistently positive. WMS now has more than 900 SEM Course alumni working in countries throughout the world.  Information about our SEM Courses is available on this site and by email request: jeff.welborn@wesminllc.com. 

The Course materials and messages are designed to provide valuable learning for exploration managers and prospective managers, and also for those who must interact with exploration management, in companies of all sizes. The scale at which the material is received, and the scope for potential use of the material, varies depending on each student’s background, training and industry role.

Here is the upcoming schedule:

  • Denver: 2-5 December 2025. In Denver, we now partner with the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) to present our SEM Course. SEG provides the venue at their Littleton, Colorado headquarters, and they handle all registration, payment and other administrative aspects of the Course. The SEG website will provide the Course Agenda and registration information. We hope to have that link available by early May 2025. In the meantime, please contact Jeff Welborn (see below) for further information.
  • Perth: 24-27 February 2026. The 2026 Perth venue will be the same as it has been for the last several years — St. Catherine’s on Park, 2 Park Road, Crawley WA 6009. The Agenda and registration information for that course will be available through Jeff Welborn (see below) starting 1 June 2025.

If you have questions, or if you simply wish to guarantee a place now in either course, please contact  Jeff Welborn, jeff.welborn@wesminllc.com.

Online SEM Course

In response to the Global Pandemic, we offered an online version of our Senior Exploration Management Course in virtual format through our WMS Institute site.

We have taken the online SEM Course down from the site, temporarily,  in order to make improvements and in order to partner with the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) in producing a new online SEM Course. Our objective is to create a valuable and easily accessible product that makes the SEM training available and cost effective to those who are unable to attend one of the in-person SEM Courses for any reason. Information about the new Course, when available, will posted on this WMS site and on the SEG site.

Selected Training Materials

  • Glossary of Terms
  • Selected Reference Materials – Minerals Systems Science
  • Selected Reference Materials – Targeting

Specialties

  • Multi-Scale Targeting and Metallogenic Analysis
  • Exploration Strategy Development and Analysis
  • Advanced Mineral Exploration Training

Archives

OUR MISSION

We formed Western Mining Services (WMS) in 2005 and our mission has always been simple:

We Help Our Clients Achieve Mineral Exploration Success!

We deliver and sound advice and training that are grounded in our extensive experience and our keen understanding of exploration systems.

  • We work globally from two bases: Denver, Colorado and Perth, Western Australia.
  • Our skills and experience cover all aspects of the mineral exploration process, both technical and commercial.
  • Collectively, we represent more than one hundred thirty years of hands-on mining industry work, including senior management experience in over 35 countries.

CONTACT US and let us work with you and your exploration team as your advisor, your trainer, your facilitator.

Western Mining Services LLC

7343 South Alton Way,
Suite 100

Centennial,
Colorado 80112
USA
Office: +1 303 770 0948

Western Mining Services Pty. Ltd.

Suite 26, Kobold House,
17 Prowse Street,

West Perth, WA6005
Australia.
Office: +61 (0)8 9322 4601

Contacts

Steve Bussey
+1 303 884 8337

steven.bussey@wesminllc.com

Jon Hronsky
+61 417992518

jon.hronsky@wesminllc.com

Jeff Welborn
+1 303 884 8325

jeff.welborn@wesminllc.com

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