Safety and Accountability.
Those would be the priorities of Marine Veteran and Mechanical Engineer Brian Matlock if Arizonans choose him to become their next Mine Inspector this November.
Credited, according to his campaign website, with six inventions at the United States Patent Office, Mr. Matlock has had extensive experience working on industrial sites on every continent except Antarctica.
If elected to become the Arizona Mine Inspector, Matlock would work to promote safety across the state in securing and safeguarding the 90,000 abandoned mines across the Grand Canyon State.
He would also foster a culture of transparency, inspection, and accountability in the office to garner community support.
Mr. Matlock graciously interviewed with Blog for Arizona to discuss his candidacy for Arizona State Mine Inspector.
The questions and his responses are below.
Please tell the readers at least two reasons you would like to run for Arizona Mine Inspector.
“Well, the first one is because I believe Arizona voters deserve a choice, and anybody who’s familiar with the electoral history of this office knows it’s been a while since we’ve had a choice.
I started this campaign a year ago in July. And at that time, I was running against Inspector Paul Marsh. Since that time, Marsh had quit and took a new job and I’m running against a different fella now. So primarily, I’m not running against anybody. I’m running for Arizona. I figured the people deserve a choice. So that’s my first reason.
And that’s based on complacency, too. Because I often think that complacency is the enemy of safety. And the reason I say that is that a lot of times folks that get hurt at mine sites, are folks like me with gray hair, become kind of complacent.But I also think that happens when the office goes uncontested and unchallenged, it’s really easy to let things just kind of slide, which leads to the second reason why I’m running. I’m running because I want accountability, I want organization, I want follow through. And that needs to be the standard on the way the office is run. The office needs to be treated as a working safety agency, not necessarily a government agency. I see the offices being a partner in safety, or a leader in safety, and sometimes a judge, depending on what aspect of the job we’re talking about, because this is an enormous job.”
Please tell the readers what are two reasons voters should choose you over your general election opponent.
“Well, I guess probably the biggest difference I think is what I intend to do in the office. When I started this campaign, I was looking at what was going on and found that things weren’t getting done. So early on, when I was collecting signatures, people would ask me that very question, ‘Hey, Brian, what are you going to do?’ And the first thing I would say is, I’m going to do something because I’m going to make things get done.
But my commitment is to establish a culture of inspection, documentation, and enforcement, which is kind of loosey-goosey when it comes to it; this is really not a punitive job. I think it’s important not only to tell folks that we’re doing the job; they need to know we’ve actually done the work, what we found, what actions are taken, that sort of thing. It’s really important for the community to be involved. The reason I say that is, I believe Arizona could have world-class mining here. But the way we do that is you have to have community support. And the way you get community support is through transparency, and they have to know what’s going on with their neighbor.
My second reason would probably be my approach to how we deal with abandoned mines.
Arizona is the envy of the world when it comes to minerals. And our abandoned mine history is a demonstration of that legacy. Back in the ‘90s, when they started the program, there were an estimated 100,000 abandoned mines here in Arizona. Since then, about 10,000 of them have actually been secured. It’s a monumental effort. But I just don’t think it’s being done good enough, particularly when I go around the state and I talk to folks that live in areas where they come across these mines. I have a two-stage approach that I want to bring to this. The first one is, and this one wouldn’t be surprising, this is what any citizen might do. I’m a backcountry user; I’m a mountain biker. When you come across a mine, at a minimum, you’ve got to let the mine inspector know that it’s there. So that the mine inspector can get out there and put up a sign that says, ‘Don’t go into the mine. Don’t shoot my sign.’
But the other step is about involving the community and helping get these things secured. And where I’m going with that is, we see lots of highway cleanup programs out there where volunteers get together to clean up the highways. When the weather’s nice, what I do, when I say the weather’s nice, that means the temperature is under 90 degrees, I go out with a team of folks that volunteer for the forestry service, and we do trail maintenance. So I want to put together a similar type of program, and this has got great traction as I talk to folks. And that is to sponsor volunteer groups to help go out and secure these mines so we don’t have to wait around. It’s a nuanced solution because it’s not a one-size-fits-all. But there are plenty of mines that we could have organizations go out there and do something. And I loosely base it on the idea that grown-ups need to work the way children need to play, and it just feels good sometimes when you go out with a bunch of friends volunteering to get the work done, whether you’re cleaning a highway, filling sandbags, or in my case even doing trail maintenance.”
What are at least two issues that we’ll be running on in the 2026 cycle? There might be some follow-up?
“I think I’m going to talk about abandoned mine safety. That’s probably one of the biggest issues. And the reason I say that is that a lot of the communities I visit are rural communities. When you get to the mining communities, obviously those that live in the shadow of the big mines, they have their concerns, which we’ll come back to. But most of the rural communities run into these abandoned mines on a regular basis. And so that’s one of the most common questions I have.What are we going to do about those? And then there are questions about why they are there. What was in there? And that sort of thing. Right. I think that’s probably one of my primary issues, not only because it gets the most traction with rural voters or voters in general. I mean, even in Scottsdale, when I talked about abandoned mines, they talk about the Dreamy Wash. There’s a couple of mercury mines up there.
The other issue is exactly what you would expect the mine inspector to say. And that’s mine safety, inspections, and accountability. Inspections are really important; mine safety is extraordinarily important. It’s important to me in the way I see the mine inspector’s role when it comes to mine safety, and it’s a big task. It’s a big topic when we talk about mine safety, because it goes anywhere from PPE, you know, wearing your hard hat, your glasses and your boots and respirator and that sort of thing to like how you handle explosives, where you store explosives, how the building, they call the building that you put explosives in a magazine, how that building is built, is part of the mine inspectors role. Dangerous chemicals and compounds like cyanide are used in processing. How do we manage that sort of thing? So that type of safety is, since this isn’t really not a punitive role, I see the mine inspector as being a partner in safety and working with, as an extension of the safety departments at the mines and working directly with the miners to make sure we do what’s best to make sure that our miners, at the end of a hard day’s work, go home without injury or distress.
Then it’s a matter of accountability. The Mine Inspector’s office needs to demonstrate to their boss – the electorate and the legislature, that the work is actually getting done, that we’re working with these miners, and we should have KPIs-key performance indicators in place so we can have measurable accountability for whether the mine inspector’s office is doing what it said it can do.”
Piggybacking off the safety aspect and the abandoned mines things, what about mines that are contaminating the terrain?
“That gets us into a broader issue of jurisdiction and particular oversight. So yeah, as part of reclamation, it is part of the mine inspector’s role to make sure that those mines are secure and safe at the end. If we’re talking about leaching off of water coming or even off of active mines, even for that matter, a lot of that falls under the jurisdiction of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, ADEQ. But this is not a diversion on my part to talk about that. Because the way I see it is, in the regular everyday duties of a mine inspector going and inspecting an abandoned mine, going to an active mine, and we see something that is, and we should know what a violation of an ADEQ policy is, that it would be our responsibility to reach out to that agency and work directly with ADEQ. Not necessarily as the one that enforces and does the mediation but basically be the representative of the citizens to go to ADEQ. I tell folks that if they were to go to ADEQ, that’s one voter. When elected and I go to ADEQ, I’m one and a half million voters going and talking to them. So I see that as part of the role of the mine inspector is to be that liaison.”
What are at least two ways you would conduct voter and social media outreach to Democrats, Independents, like-minded Republicans, and people who normally do not follow politics and current events?
“Our campaign has gone from somebody like me, who pretty much nobody knew- maybe a hundred people in Arizona knew- to actually being a very competitive race. We garnered nearly a half million votes in the primaries, which kind of gives me goosebumps to think that many people looked at my name. So the way we’ve done that, and we’re going to continue to do that, is meeting people where they are, and that’s a matter of just if we’re out canvassing, for example, in the canvassing world, you know, there’s certain doors you can go knock on. And if I’m given the opportunity, if I’m helping somebody else out, yeah, give me the Independents. I’m happy to go talk, to knock on doors of Independents. But when I’m walking down the sidewalk and I see that garage door open and there’s somebody in there polishing his car or doing whatever they do, I’m not afraid to go up and introduce myself and say, hey, I’m Brian Matlock, running for Arizona State Mine Inspector, and meet them where they are, have that conversation. I do the same thing when I’m out mountain biking. If I’m on the trail and run into a group of folk catching their breath, meet them where they are. And that’s kind of what I’ve been promoting with the folks that I talked to on my team when we’re out: don’t shy away from this because when it comes down to it, hazards and what the Mine Inspector is about is nonpartisan. I mean, there’s never been a hole in the ground that knew the difference between a Democrat or a Republican stepping into it, you know what I mean? So the big part of our outreach is just talking common sense and meeting people where they are.
Social media, that’s a bigger challenge, because we use it mostly as advertising as a way of getting our word out. But social media, as far as trying to engage others from outside, it’s more of an echo chamber than anything else. We do have people that come in and, you know, look at our site. I think, for example, I think my opposition follows me and we’re happy for that. That’s really a good tool for us just to put our word out, what’s our message, and just let them know what we’re doing and kind of put a face to a name. Sometimes it’s a little video of me talking so you get to actually put a voice to the face, that sort of thing. So it’s basically meeting people where they are through events and social media, continuing to keep it updated and recognizing that, for the most part, that’s an echo chamber, and hopefully we get some good friends to stop in to say hi.”
Is there anything not covered in the first four questions that you would like the readers to know about you and your candidacy for the Arizona Mining Inspector?
“I think I just want to reiterate the idea that I’m running because I believe the office deserves a professional, hands-on, boots-on-the-ground type of a professional leader that takes on this job and recognizes that this is an actual working job and not necessarily, one for show, it’s really has some importance to it. And recognize it’s important for people to understand that I am not a career politician. And this is the only office I’ve ever run for, and I can tell you, running for a statewide office right out of the gate is no matter how much you prepare, it’s a lot bigger than you expect.
It’s not only that experience isn’t enough. You need to have somebody that’s accountable and somebody that you can trust. I don’t have any other motives. This isn’t a stepping stone into some other place. This is Brian’s 17th and 18th holes of his career, doing what he can not only for the industry that he loves, but also for the communities that he loves as well. And so it’s my philosophy is simple: the State Mine inspector should inspect mines, protect people, enforce the law, and just get the work done. Because this job is about safety. It’s not politics. And that’s the standard I want to bring to the office.”
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