Mr. Stebbins graduated from the University of Idaho with a bachelor’s degree in Mining Engineering in 1979. He worked for the U.S. Bureau of Mines for 10 years before resigning to pursue a career in private industry. After three years working under the mentorship of Otto Schumacher at Western Mine Engineering, Inc., he formed Aventurine Engineering, Inc., in 1995. A licensed mining engineer, he spent the majority of his 45-year career estimating the costs of proposed mining and mineral processing projects and then evaluating their economic potential. In addition to authoring the chapter on Underground Mine Cost Estimating and co-authoring the chapter on Surface Mine Cost Estimating in the third edition of the SME’s Mining Engineering Handbook, he developed the Sherpa series of software products used by both industry and the government to estimate the costs of underground mining, surface mining, placer mining, mineral processing, and reclamation.