Roger Holmberg (Chairman), Sweden
After graduation 1972 he was working as Blasting Research Engineer for the Swedish Detonic Research Foundation (SveDeFo), performed research in many quarry and mining operations and wrote computer codes for bench, tunnel blasting and thermodynamic codes for explosives performance calculations. Roger was President for SveDeFo 1982-86. Roger has been involved as a blasting consultant in many parts of the world, for construction and mining companies and for governmental bodies. He was one of the founders of the International Society of Rock Fragmentation by Blasting (FRAGBLAST). He paid four years’ service as a Board of Directors of the Int. Society of Explosives Engineers (ISEE) and two years as President for the European Federation of Explosives Engineers (EFEE). Roger has had various positions at Nitro Nobel, Dyno Nobel, Orica and Nitro Sibir. Today he is working as Secretary General for EFEE. Roger is author and co-author of over 100 publications.
Johan Finsteen Gjødvad, Denmark
Johan holds a M.Sc. in Civil Engineering from the Danish University of Technology (DTU) from 2004 as well as a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (GDBA) Management and Organization from Copenhagen Business School. Johan works as a Strategic Partnership Manager at Sigicom, where his focus is innovation and international market, assisting Sigicom in staying a top innovative producer of hardware and software for environmental monitoring.
Johan previously worked over 12 years with a major Danish multidisciplinary consultancy. During his years as a consultant Johan worked extensively with environmental impacts such as vibration, noise and dust from various sources among others; blasting during civil works and demolition using explosives. As a consultant Johan also worked with demining around the world as well as physical protection from blasting. In additional he has been teaching in noise and vibration monitoring during blasting. While working as a consultant Johan also gained long experience with innovation and project management and development.
Since 2006 Johan has been part of the Danish Federation of Explosives Engineers (DFEE) and is presently Vice President of the organization. In 2007 he became the Danish envoy to EFEE and has since 2009 been a member of the Board.
In EFEE Johan has been Chairman of the environmental, marketing and membership committees, EFEE’s Vice President from 2011-2014 and President from 2014-2016. Johan is still a member of the Board and has his focus on the environmental committee of EFEE. Johan has been part of EFFE’s Technical conference committee since the 9th EFEE World Conference on Explosives and Blasting. Johan is also appointed ISEE director since the beginning of 2020, where he co-chairs the ISEE standard committee and the International committee apart from being part of several other ISEE committees.
Robert Laszlo, Romania
Robert, is an experienced Senior Executive & PhD student Mining Engineer, operated over 18 years (1983 – 2002) at Romanian Notified Body – INSEMEX Petrosani (National Institute for Research and Development in Mine Safety and Protection Explosion) in the field of regulatory of blasting applications, testing and certification of explosives for the use in the mining industry and civil works.
In the period of 2002 – 2018, builds and developed business activities in the field of drilling & blasting services in quarries and under-ground, civil works, special applications (i.e. blasting demolition, underwater blasting), explosive production and sales, design and consul-tancy activities linked to blasting applications.
Since 2018 he has been back at the National Institute for Research and Development in Mine Safety and Protection Explosion – INSEMEX, in the position of Head of Department Security of Explosives and Pyrotechnic Articles, being involved in all activities and national or international projects which are involved in the certification and use of explosives products and pyrotechnic articles.
Robert is part of the Romanian Association for Explosives and Shooting Engineering – ARDE, being presently vice-president of the organization and since 1995 is a founding member of the Romanian Society for Detonics and Pyrotechnics, today being member of the society’s board. In 2018 he became the Romanian envoy to EFEE and since 2021 been Chairman of the Shot Firing committee.
Effective working relationships with international business colleagues and partners across a diverse and multicultural business environment. Adept of developing and motivating high performance teams, production efficiency improvements, engineering solutions, cost reduction, achieving and sustaining business excellence and the transformation of safety cultures.
Jörg Rennert, Germany
Jörg Rennert (Dipl. –Ing. –Päd) is a German Citizen, born May 22, 1965, in Roßlau, Germany. His educational achievements include a high-school graduate in steel working for metallurgical engineering and a diploma: Dipl.-Ing.-Päd. from the Technical University of Dresden. Jörg’s professional career includes being a steelworker for metallurgical engineering in the steelwork in 1985. A scientific employee of the Technical University of Dresden in 1991. Assistant Professor at Sprengschule Dresden GmbH from 1992 to 1998. Jörg progressed to Managing Director of The Dresdner Sprengschule GmbH and leader of business fields Blasting Technology and Pyrotechnics in 1998. In 2001 Jörg became President of the German Blasting Association (Deutscher Sprengverband e.V.). In 2010 he was elected as vice President of EFEE and was the President of EFEE between 2012 and 2014. Since 2008 Jörg is the Chairman of the EU-Directives committee and since 2020 also the treasurer of EFEE.
Janeen Smith, USA
Janeen Smith began her career as a blaster for one of the large surface coal operations in Gillette, Wyoming. She was responsible for aspects of blasting operations including the use and evaluation of the pioneer high density blasting agents used in the western United States. Her next area of “hands on” experience came as a blaster and supervisor for construction blasting companies in the Denver, Colorado area. This added small diameter and close in blasting techniques to her skill set over the next several years.
She then took a position with the State of Colorado Division of Labor and Employment which expanded her knowledge of explosive regulatory compliance. Janeen conducted inspections, investigated blasting complaints/damage and oversaw the rewrite of the state regulations. Her position also involved assisting local, state and federal law enforcement agents in cases dealing with the criminal possession of explosives materials. She was elected to the ISEE Board of Directors in 2014. Janeen has served on the Executive Committee as the Secretary, the Treasurer and is currently the Vice President of Technical. Janeen currently consults and teaches via her company, J. Smith & Associates LLC. Her focus includes explosive training, regulatory compliance consulting and electronic inventory system development.
Ruairi O’Connor, Ireland
Ruairi holds a Diploma in Engineering from Athlone Institute of Technology and has almost 20 years of experience in the quarrying and blasting sector. He holds the position of Area Manager West with Irish Industrial Explosives Ltd.
Ruairi is currently serving as Hon Secretary with the Irish Mining and Quarrying Society.
