/21 QUESTIONS
Exclusive interview with
Sylvain Brisson
questions
Owner at Drillco Mining & Exploration
Sylvain Brisson was born and raised in a small community in Quebec, Canada. After college, he spent five years as a welder fitter, before being offered a job working on the ‘drills’ in 1988. Initially, he wanted to return to university, but quickly he got hooked and never looked back. He started at the bottom as a drill helper, then he was promoted to a driller and later to a supervisor, before taking on his first specialized drilling job at Cameco's McArthur River. Successful results lead to a challenging two-year tunneling project in Switzerland. Back in Canada, Sylvain was promoted to a field supervisor then to an underground operations manager, focusing on special projects. In 2007, he joined HyTech Drilling in Smithers, British Columbia. A few years later, Sylvain joined a team to start a brandnew drilling services company in Central Canada. After four years of growth it was time for Sylvain to begin making a difference to the entire industry. In 2013, he became president of Drillco Mining and Exploration, an innovative drilling equipment manufacturer. Their first project was a mini raise bore and then they had the crazy idea of creating a modular system based on clean-tech and advanced technology that could operate in surface, underground and heliportable configuration. Today, after eight years and many sacrifices, Sylvain’s company is finally taking off. 6
Grigor Topev: How did you start out in drilling? Sylvain Brisson: I grew up near some of the major mining camps in Canada knowing and seeing many friends and people I know working on rigs and making careers in the industry. In the spring of 1988, I was offered a job as an underground drill helper, decided to give this a try for a year or two, save some money and go back to University to become a metallurgist. After a few months on the job I was hooked and never looked back. GT: You have been working in the drilling industry for more than 30 years. Please share a positive or a negative field experience that you will never forget. SB: By far, my best experience was managing a contract in Switzerland on the Lötschberg Tunnel. This was the turning point in my career, seeing the level of required expertise, precision, accuracy, efficiency and how differently Europeans were operating. This experience really made me see things from a new perspective and to this day, it was by far the largest influence in my career - it took my blinders off, really opened my mind and allowed me to look at things in a different way/ outside the box. Likely, it would have never happened had I not worked in both Cigar Lake and McArthur River where I was trained and gained valuable experience on specialized drilling by some of the best in the industry. Coring Magazine #16
