SME recognises excellence in mineral processing

Each year the SME, at its annual meeting, presents prestigious awards to distinguished members of the mineral processing community.

I managed to attend three of the award lectures at the SME Meeting, Ron Woods (Gaudin Award), Rob Dunne (Richards Award), Dave Dreisinger (Wadsworth Award) and more information on these can be found on MEI Online.

Unfortunately I was en route to UK when the SME/AIME Awards banquet took place on Wednesday February 24th, and so missed out on two important awards. I had met up with my old friend Dave Osborne, who I had not seen for 19 years, two days previously and over coffee congratulated him on being the recipient of the Frank F. Aplan Award, for the development and application of coal preparation technologies, dissemination of knowledge through book publication, and maintaining a key global network of coal industry professionals.

I was pleased to receive the photograph below a couple of days ago, from Courtney Young, of Montana Tech, and it is great to see his family sharing in his success at the awards banquet. Prof. Young received the Mineral Industry Education Award, which was established in 1950, and is given for distinguished contributions to the advancement of mineral industry education. He is pictured with his wife Miriam, and on the left his brother Dave, and wife Sharon, with their son Nick on the right. Also good to hear that Courtney and Miriam will be in Falmouth in June for Sustainable Minerals '16.