Jeff Hapeman, Miner/Photographer/Internet Presence
Jeff is the most recent addition to the Oceanview mining team, joining the group in May of 2012. His interest in minerals and gems goes back to his boyhood. Currently he is completing his MSHA training to be certified as an underground miner.
In addition to drilling, mucking and picking out gem pockets in the mine, Jeff handles the Internet presence for Oceanview Mines, LLC. This meshes well with his professional background; outside the mine Jeff is a technology executive, having served as a Chief Technology Officer at several large global companies in the last ten years.
Jeff's education is as a scientist. He studied to get a PhD in Molecular Evolutionary Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but left before finishing his dissertation to start an IT company. He took his Masters of Science as a consolation prize, but has remained active in scientific endeavors as personal passion.
Jeff sold his company after six years and spent the following four years working for a large national accounting firm, running their IT consulting practice and internal IT operations. In 2007, he and his family moved to southern California where Jeff has been very active as a technology executive and entrepreneur.
Jeff is also an avid photographer, having started out with his first SLR camera when he was only ten years old. He photographs nature and landscapes. This passion led him to rekindle his interest in pegmatites when in 2011 he stumbled over the Blue Lady Mine while pursuing a rare wildflower to photograph. In researching southern California pegmatites he came across the Oceanview Mine, and not long after he was allowed to join the mining crew.
Jeff applies his photography skills by photographing specimens for the mine and documenting the mining process. While there is a long history of pegmatite mining in southern California, there are few photos to document the process. You can see his photos regularly on the Oceanview Mine Facebook page, and the bulk of the photos on the various Oceanview Mines, LLC websites were also taken by him. The two photos of Jeff on this page were taken by fellow miner and photographer Phil Osborn, who also documents much of the process underground.
You can see more of Jeff's photography online on his Flickr pages: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhapeman/. He also maintains a blog and personal website where he writes reviews of camera equipment at http://www.digitalhapeman.com.