Hakan is a Chartered Geologist with more than 25 years experience in coal exploration, coal mining geology, and coal quality. He commenced his career with Turkish Iron & Steel Works, and later in 1991, he moved to Australia and joined Australian Coal Industry Research Laboratory as coal geologist dealing with all aspects of coal mining geology, coal quality and coal petrography.
In 1998 he joined Exploration & Mining Division of CSIRO, Brisbane where he worked as a senior project geologist. He was responsible for supplying geological expertise to various coal mine projects where he created a number of computer aided geological and sedimentary models for direct application to exploration, production optimisation, coal seam gas utilisation, goaf gas safety issues and geotechnical assessment using borehole geological/geophysical logs and other available geological data by using various mining and petroleum software. Since 2002, he has worked in the UK as a consultant geologist for various clients. He provided geological expertise and evaluated coal mines and deposits in Russia, CIS, Africa, Europe, North America and Latin America.