Strata Worldwide, with 29 years of experience primarily focused on the underground coal mining industry, has simultaneously been involved over its history with hard rock mining, tunnelling and underground construction. The company has evolved from roof control and contracting to the provision of technology and services but has remained true to its roots as a leading-edge, knowledgeable partner for safety and productivity in underground environments.

Now, with the advent of Strata Tunnelling, the organization takes a deliberate and strategic step forward within the underground construction industry, with investment and commitment to this community of infrastructure owners, design and construction engineers and the contractors who build the shafts, tunnels, caverns and diverse underground spaces that serve society.

Strata – Tunnelling’s Vice President Mike Rispin is a seasoned underground veteran of 38 years. He is a professional engineer with experience and expertise in ground control, construction chemicals, explosives and blasting, heavy underground mobile equipment, mechanized tunnelling and the conventional drill-and-blast excavation cycle.

He has been intimately involved over the years with the International Tunnelling Association and the Underground Construction Association in the USA; he is currently the UCA Vice Chairman and will transition to the Chairman position for a two-year term beginning in June 2021. Working closely with and under the auspices of Mike Berube, Strata Worldwide’s President and CEO, and Alan Henderson, Strata’s VP of the Americas, Rispin leads Strata into the tunnelling market segment.

Strata Tunnelling’s mission is to provide advanced products and technologies that are designed to keep working environments in tunnelling and underground construction safe and productive. This is underpinned by committed service on the job; Strata’s legacy means that the company maintains among its workforce a significant number of hands-on, underground experienced people, armed with knowledge and expertise to apply its technologies safely and efficiently at the job site. No project site is too challenging for Strata’s resources, and the company thrives on working where the action is: at the face.

In this way, Strata Worldwide occupies a “sweet spot” in the industry: a purveyor of advanced technologies, both internally manufactured and third-party sourced, with the ingrained ability to train, support and sustain the contractors who bid and build the tunnel work. Strata lives its vision of a highly valued technology and service partner for global tunnel and underground space construction, operation, maintenance and rehabilitation.

Our value proposition is of significant benefit to underground infrastructure owners, engineers and contractors. The offering, while dynamic, currently is built around three pillars:

At the heart of StrataPROTECT is the safety of people in the underground environment. Strata’s line of emergency refuge chambers offers a choice of portable steel-sided or inflatable configurations or, if a project dictates, an in-situ safe room. Strata’s proprietary HazardAvert system for proximity detection and collision avoidance is built on an electromagnetic platform providing Level 9 capability.

Strata’s representation of the CSE line of emergency and rescue breathing apparatus offers state-of-the-art self-rescuers and the Biomarine line of rescue breathing apparatus. Paired with the company’s offering of Trolex gas monitoring equipment, Strata is the ideal technology partner for safeguarding underground personnel.

StrataCONNECT comprises a variety of tools and functionality that brings state-of-the-art surface communication to the underground environment. Underground projects need voice communication, personnel tracking, data transmission and overall connectability, as these functions can help facilitate the navigation of complex challenges inherent to working in an underground environment.

The DigitalBRIDGE, DigitalBRIDGE Plus+ and StrataConnect Wireless networking options boast a variety of features which permit integration into existing network infrastructures to expand coverage and/or capabilities, including digitization of analogue systems. These technologies facilitate real-time telemetry and automation. As a network backbone, StrataConnect offers seamless coordination with the StrataProtect offerings as well.

StrataGEOTECH is centered around the actual strata of the underground working environment. StrataGeotech includes a variety of durable and non-durable technologies for areal support of excavations with shotcrete, point support with hydraulic prop elements, modification of the groundmass properties to enhance stand-up time or fill voids and control of groundwater either in groundmass or in the excavation workings themselves.  These efforts are supported by our partners GCP Applied Technologies and US Concrete Products.

Strata is also a manufacturer of lightweight 3D construction panels that are highly versatile in the building of structures and forms. Their versatility is constrained only by the imagination of the excavators.

Strata Worldwide is available for US domestic and international business customers as well as future collaborators.

Through an established international network of qualified distributors, Strata already has a presence in a number of countries around the world. The organization is committed to expanding its presence into all countries undertaking tunneling projects and is actively seeking interested parties who have the vision and credentials to travel this journey along-side it.

Strata is focused on bringing cutting-edge advancements to the community and, as such, is interested in strategically expanding its portfolio of offerings through the strength and values of the Strata platform and family of associated organizations.

Strata Worldwide is a Supporting Member of the ITA (International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association), the leading international organization promoting the use of tunnels and underground space and backed by 78 member nations. Of these, Strata already belongs to:

the UCA of SME (Underground Construction Association) in the USA

the Tunnelling Association of Canada

the Australian Tunnelling Society

Strata will continue to participate in and expand its support of such organizations consistent with the growth of its global footprint.

Strata Worldwide is committed to becoming a part of the international tunneling community, and its representatives look forward to having conversations with you and the opportunity to work alongside you in addressing the challenges of individual projects within the industry.

Tunnel On!