Laura Berra

For more than two decades, Laura Berra has worked at Skelly and Loy, Inc., a Terracon Company, as a project manager. Today she serves as senior mining engineer and manager of the company's mining engineering service group. Her responsibilities include preparation of new non-coal surface mine permit applications and revision applications and preparation of mine and reclamation plans for aggregate producers across Pennsylvania and in surrounding states. She also oversees due diligence investigations, property valuations, reserve studies, market studies, and NPDES permitting.

Many of these projects have involved depth revisions or lateral expansions and have included overseeing a wide range of services varying from environmental investigations, importation of reclamation fill, cultural resource analysis, groundwater modeling, and erosion and sediment control design. Many of these permitting actions have required the design of reclamation plans and the calculation of reclamation bonds including costs for such items as backfilling and earthmoving, drilling and blasting, selective grading, revegetation, tree planting, pond removal, and demolition of structures. She has worked to develop a positive relationship with the regulators and serves as a liaison between mining companies and regulatory agencies.

Berra received her Bachelor of Science degree in Mining and Minerals Engineering from Virginia Tech in 1996 and went on to receive her Master of Science degree, also in mining and minerals engineering, from Virginia Tech in 1998.