In Memoriam: Stephen Joseph Navin IV

Steve Navin (June 14, 1938 to Oct. 12, 2023) was a mining engineer originally from Canada.  He was raised in a number of places, including several memorable years in the Bahamas where he learned to fish and where his father was a doctor in the British Colonial Service. 

He worked as an engineer’s helper in an asbestos mine when he was 15, and a miner in Uranium City when he was 21.  He graduated with a technical degree from the Haileybury School of Mines in 1961 and was a registered P. Eng. in Ontario, Canada.  He first started working for Patrick Harrison Construction (Harrison Western Construction), where he worked on a potash mine in Moab, Utah.

He later went back to school at Colorado School of Mines (which he affectionately called the “Royal School”) and graduated with a degree in Engineer of Mines in 1968.  He returned to worked for Patrick Harrison Construction in Thompson Manitoba as well as mines and tunnels in Colorado, Minesota, Illinois, California, Utah, and Arizona.  He joined the Parsons Corporation Mining Division in 1980 working on the Los Bronces Mine (Chile) and White River Oil Shale Mine (Utah) before becoming a lead Construction Manager for the Parsons-Dillingham JV on several segments of LA Metro Redline.  After leaving the Redline, he was Technical Director for Underground Construction for Parsons contributing to the designs of the Point Loma Tunnel Outfall, South Bay Ocean Outfall, and Marcacomapocha II (Peru), and managed construction of Southern Nevada Water Authority’s Lake Mead IPS No. 2, and the Chattahoochee Tunnel.  He was a charter member for the Disputes Review Board Foundation.

Steve enjoyed his retirement and with a bit of consulting afterward from 2000 onwards.  Fishing was his passion, as was enjoying time with his friends and family, reading, going to the horse races, casinos, and dining. He is survived by his wife JoAnne, three children (and one preceded), seven grandchildren, a great grandson and a great granddaughter, and sister Norah and twin brother Frank.