A growing trend in the area of artificial intelligence is the development of software that simulates the decision-making process of human experts. The purpose of this paper is to advance the use of available tools from the area of artificial intelligence, and in particular expert systems, into the field of mine ventilation management. The authors have developed an expert system (i.e., a smart manager) that controls the operation of a mine ventilation network. The expert system is rule based and hence can be (independently) enhanced in an incremental fashion. It serves as a smart interface between the monitoring and control components of a mine ventilation system.