Few modern-era exploration geologists have made the transition to company builder and mine developer as successfully as Terry MacGibbon. He applied the expertise and experience gained over a 30-year career with nickel giant Inco to build four substantial mining companies: FNX Mining, Torex Gold Resources, TMAC Resources and INV Metals.
The career achievements of Ross Beaty are as multi-dimensional as the man and the companies he founded and led over almost four decades. He is first and foremost a geologist with a passion for exploration and a discerning eye for projects with economic potential.
For more than half a century, Edward Thompson has contributed to the progress and prestige of the Canadian mining industry as an explorer, mine developer, company builder, and dedicated supporter of industry causes and associations.
John Zigarlick, Jr. was a visionary mine-maker and company-builder who left an enduring legacy in Canada’s North through innovative infrastructure development and the formation of progressive Aboriginal business partnerships.
They never discovered a single showing or hoisted a ton of ore, but Norman and Richard Pearce chronicled the burgeoning Canadian mining industry in the pages of The Northern Miner weekly newspaper for more than 50 years, holding it accountable and helping mold into one of the most open industries in the country.
The legacy Ralph Parker left to the International Nickel Co. and to the Canadian mining industry is rich, from advances in mining methods to the design and development of safety appliances and mining equipment.
Minefinders get the glory, but it is the minebuilders who get the ore. For 65 years, while others discovered and financed the deposits, John Maclsaac applied his energies to breaking the first rock, sinking the first shafts and preparing the mines for their first production.
Oliver Hall joined Noranda Inc. almost at its inception, responsible for both mine operations and exploration. His foresight and economic sense promoted the company’s rapid growth in the 1930s and 1940s to become one of the country’s greatest mining concerns.
Neil Campbell’s abilities at geological deduction were responsible for several important mineral discoveries, but it is the Pine Point mine on the south shore of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories with which he was most closely associated.
Sometimes referred to as “the King of the Minemakers” at the height of his career, James Boylen was best known for the discovery and development of the volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits in the Bathurst area of New Brunswick in the early 1950s.
