Conference Memories 1963- from Fathi Habashi

Submitted by Prof. Fathi Habashi, Laval University, Canada:

I first met Albert W. Schlechten (1914-1984) in 1963 when he was the session co-chairman together with Douglas Fuerestenau when I presented my work on cyanidation at the [First] International Conference on Hydrometallurgy that took place in Dallas, Texas in January 1963 (Figure1). Schlechten was Head of the Department of Metallurgy at Colorado School of Mines and a co-worker with the Luxemburg metallurgist Wilhelm Kroll (1889–1973) when they were together at the US Bureau of Mines in Albany, Oregon. On his retirement Kroll donated funds he received from his royalties for the titanium invention to Colorado School of Mines which was destined to create the Kroll Institute for Extractive Metallurgy in 1974. When I was teaching at Montana School of Mines from 1964-67 Schlechten used to come to Butte often because he was a Montana graduate.

Photo: Albert W. Schlechten (1914-1984) [center] co-chairing a session at
International Hydrometallurgy Conference [Engineering and Mining Journal, 1963].