Wednesday 9 October 2013

Happy 85th birthday Fathi Habashi

Prof. Fathi Habashi, Emeritus Professor at Laval University, Canada, is a truly remarkable man. I know many septuagenarians in our industry who have no thoughts of retirement, and quite a number of octogenarians, but few as active as Fathi, who celebrates his 85th birthday today.
His energy is boundless, and he still travels the world presenting courses and keynote lectures, and is a prolific writer of books. I see him every year at the SME Annual Meeting, where he not only attends but makes presentations, often describing his travels. At next year’s meeting in Salt Lake City he will be reporting on his travels in Turkey. Also next year he publishes a new book A Metallurgist on the Move, describing the places that he has been to and the friends that he has made in his very long life in the minerals industry. This year he has been in South America, in August at Vina del Mar, Chile, where he was guest speaker at a conference organised by extractive metallurgy students at the Catholic University in ValparaisoIn May he was in Ica, Peru, where he gave a short course on the extractive metallurgy of gold. 

In Vina del Mar, Chile
In Ica, Peru
He will be in Peru again in November to give a short course on pressure hydrometallurgy in Lima, and then in December he will be discussing the heap leaching of phosphate rock with nitric acid at Agadir in Morocco.
Even for a youngster such as me his schedule would be exhausting, so raise your glasses to him today. Fathi you are an inspiration!

2 comments:

  1. I first contacted him in 2009 when i was doing my bachelor to ask some points on hydrometallurgy subjects. Since that time, he is always kind and friendly to me as he does to all. I kept contact with him. In 2011, I organized a conference on gold hydrometallurgy in Turkey -www.min-eng.com/hydrometallurgy/reps/27.html and invited him as a guest of honor to this organization. It was a good chance to meet him face to face. Then, he kindly helped me to find a PhD position at the same university in Canada. Briefly, it is my privilege to know him. Many thanks to Fathi Habashi whom given a gifted golden life energy and to his nice wife Nadia Edward Boulos for all.
    Happy 85th birthday Fathi Habashi!

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  2. Congratulations Prof. on your Birthday! Thanks very much the MEI team for honouring such a remarkable stalwart in the Minerals industry. Prof. Fathi Habashi is really a beacon of inspiration par excellence.

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