About · Douglas C. Larch
Thirty years in mining, on both sides of the inspection table.
I have run the equipment, run the quarry, written the citations, and answered for them as an operator. That range is what Synergy Mine Safety Solutions is built on.
About Synergy
Three decades of mining and mine safety experience.
I started in this industry in 1994 in the operator's seat of a piece of heavy equipment on a California mine site, working rotating twelve-hour shifts. Everything I have done since has been shaped by knowing what that shift feels like, what the production pressure feels like, and what a crew actually needs in order to go home whole.
From there I moved into supervision, then into regulation, serving as a safety engineer with California's Mining and Tunneling Unit and later as a coal mine inspector for the Mine Safety and Health Administration. I have written citations and I have answered for them. I have sat across from operators during citation conferences and stood beside mine leadership during inspections. Few training providers have spent time on both sides of that table, and it changes how I teach.
For the last fifteen years I have led safety from the operator's side, not just the consulting side: running the programs, sitting in the citation conferences, and standing in front of inspectors as the responsible person. That is the perspective every class gets.
30+
Years in mining and mine safety
175+
Companies advised
45
States, plus Canada and Mexico
2
Sentinels of Safety awards won
U.S. Coast Guard · 1990 to 1994
Before mining, I served four years in the United States Coast Guard as a search and rescue crewman and gunner's mate, stationed at Cape May and aboard the USCGC Resolute out of Astoria, Oregon. I qualified as engineer and crew on the 44-foot motor lifeboat and the 41-foot utility boat, graduated as honor graduate of Gunner's Mate "A" School, and was honorably discharged.
Search and rescue teaches a lesson that has stayed with me through every safety program since: the plan matters less than the people who have to execute it under pressure. That is why the training I deliver is built around the crew in the room, not the paperwork on the wall.
Proudly served. Honorable discharge.
On leadership
Safety results do not come from a binder. The programs I am proudest of were built with crews, not handed to them: a million safe work hours without a lost-time incident at one operation, hundreds of days without an MSHA reportable injury at another, and two Sentinels of Safety awards along the way. None of that happened because someone posted a policy. It happened because supervisors were trained to coach, miners were willing to report what they saw, and leadership kept its word when the schedule got tight.
That is the standard I hold training to. An instructor who has never run a crew can teach the regulation. I teach the regulation and the shift it has to survive. Miners leave knowing what the rule says and, more importantly, what it looks like on their site tomorrow morning.
Training and credentials
- Certified Mine Safety Professional (CMSP) — SME
- MSHA Part 46 and Part 48 instructor, surface and underground
- MSHA Train the Trainer
- MSHA training plan development and plan submissions
- Hazard communication, confined space, fall protection, hoisting and rigging
- Noise and dust audits, respiratory protection assessments
- DOT compliance and audit support
CMSP — Certified Mine Safety Professional
Awarded by SME (the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration), the CMSP is the mining industry's professional certification for safety and health practitioners. Candidates must meet education and experience requirements, pass a written examination on mine safety and health practice, and keep the credential current through continuing education. It is held by a small share of the people who teach mining safety, and it is the credential most often asked for in operator and corporate safety hiring.
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