Greg Hall's Plan B Story

Gregory Hall was in the national news as the engineer who designed “Plan B” to rescue the 33 trapped Chilean miners.  GREG spent 10 days at the San Jose Mine site after designing Plan B, one of three simultaneous drilling plans to reach the miners following the Aug. 5 mine collapse.

Greg said the drilling mission was his most difficult in 25 years in the mineral exploration industry.  Plan A was drilling an elevator shaft, which would have been extremely slow, and Plan C was an oil field rig that wasn’t really used to rock that hard, Greg said of the other simultaneous drilling efforts. Plan B, a 28-inch hole, worked, although in reality Plan B should not have worked.  Normally a 28-inch hole
isn’t drilled in rock that hard because of the number of curvatures you have to go around, Greg said in an interview. But rather than abandoning the hole and building another one, they knew as long as they followed a pilot hole that was drilled, they’d get to the miners.  And they did!  If Plan B had failed, it would have taken until December to reach the miners.  Greg owns three companies: Drillers Supply International Houston, DSI American Manufacturing in Minnesota, and Drillers Supply SA in Chile. 

While at Texas A&M, Greg was a commanding officer in Squadron 11 and on the Fish Drill Team.  He has two children at TAMU, freshman Andrew and senior Jacqueline, both in the Mays Business School.  Greg and family live in Cypress. 

WOW, Greg! We are proud of you!