Dustin Penn, MinE’02, has a passion for Pit Vipers, and his favorite one can deliver a strike that’s 65 feet deep and 16 inches in diameter.

For the past four years, Penn has been product line manager for Atlas Copco’s blasthole drilling equipment, which includes its Pit Viper series and automation platform.

Although he works out of offices in Garland, Texas, Penn travels the world meeting with clients — from the densest parts of the jungle to some of the highest points on Earth, and down to some of its deepest depths. As new products or options are requested on new machine orders, Penn works with the design engineering and technology design teams to get them implemented.

“You can’t imagine the environments and amount of stress that are put on the machines,” Penn says. “The design work required by our engineering group is very stringent.”

Penn joined Ingersoll-Rand’s product support group when he graduated from Missouri S&T. Two years later, Atlas Copco acquired the business and Penn transitioned into the Pit Viper series.

“You can’t imagine the environments and amount of stress that are put on the machines.”

“When I was just looking for jobs, I knew I wanted to work on the mining equipment side of the business,” Penn says. “A lot of my classmates went to work in operations in mines, where they typically spend time at a few mines. I have the opportunity to visit many different mines, which allows us to help improve the overall mining operation based on experiences we’ve had in other locations.

“At this time in my career, I have the most rewarding job that we have in our company. I’m very happy to have this job and know that the skills I learned at Rolla are the reason.”