The SME Annual Meeting, MINEXCHANGE 2024, ended yesterday afternoon with the SME Awards Celebration. For the first time this was open to all registered delegates so there was a great turnout at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown, where a multimedia awards presentation was followed by a final networking reception.
Among all the award winners I was particularly pleased that Peter Amelunxen was the recipient of the prestigious Antoine M. Gaudin Award, Peter was the first winner of the MEI Young Person's Award in 2011. He is now Senior Vice President Technical Services at Capstone Copper, Canada, sponsors of the next six MEI Conferences. Peter tells me that his Antoine Gaudin Award nomination was for work published in three papers given at MEI's Flotation '13 and Flotation '17 conferences in Cape Town and subsequently published in Minerals Engineering.
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| With Peter and his 2011 and 2024 awards |
Peter joins some great mineral processors who have been past recipients of this award, including MEI flotation consultant Prof. Jim Finch (1997) and Prof. Doug Fuerstenau (1977), the only person to have been awarded the International Mineral Processing Council's Lifetime Achievement Award and the Distinguished Service Award. Prof. Fuerstenau was a student of Antoine Gaudin, who died in 1974, and later a colleague.
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| Doug Fuerstenau (right) with his brother Maurice (left) and Antoine Gaudin, shortly before Prof. Gaudin's death in 1974 |
Prof. Fuerstenau was also the recipient of the Frank F. Aplan Award in 1990, and his brother Maurice in 1999. I was extremely pleased to receive an email from Prof. Fuerstenau when he heard that I would be this year's recipient, and after congratulating me he said "Frank Aplan was a close friend dating back to 1947 at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, where we both majored in metallurgical engineering, he class of 1948 and I class of 1949. Frank was five years older than me, and as a result he spent the first half of the 1940s in the US Army. Our careers were intertwined in relation to Montana School of Mines, MIT, Union Carbide, and even Penn State. He would have been more than pleased to know that you are a recipient of the Aplan Award".
Prof. Aplan died in 2020 at the age of 97 and I met him only once, when he attended Minerals Engineering '94 in Lake Tahoe (posting of 26 September 2014).
I was nominated for the Frank F. Aplan Award by Dr. Rob Dunne, semi-retired consultant and former adjunct Professor at both the University of Queensland and Curtin University, Australia. Thanks are also due to those who supported the nomination: Prof. Tim Napier-Munn, former director of the JKMRC, Australia, Prof. Cyril O'Connor, of the University of Cape Town and former Chairman of the IMPC, Dr. Ronel Kappes, of Newmont Corp., USA and Prof. Corby Anderson, of Colorado School of Mines, USA. Rob, Tim and Cyril were unable to be in Phoenix, but I was pleased to be able to thank Corby earlier in the week and Ronel at the awards celebration.
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| Thanking Corby and Ronel for their support |
I have to admit to being overwhelmed by the response that I got at the networking session where the awards were displayed on tables and winners were encouraged to spend a portion of the evening at their assigned table to receive people who wished to offer congratulations. All that was missing was the presence of Barbara, Amanda and Jon, who couldn't make the long journey to Phoenix, but without whom I wouldn't have been at the celebration last night.
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| With John Marsden, chairman of the forthcoming IMPC, and Courtney Young, a former Antoine Gaudin Award winner |
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| With former Antoine Gaudin Award winner Osvaldo Bascur |
Looking at the list of previous recipients of this award, with its citation "for his extraordinary contributions to the art and practice of mineral engineering over his professional lifetime" I felt humbled. There are many famous names there, including my old Camborne School of Mines colleague Dr. Dave Osborne, who really kick-started my career by inspiring the writing of Mineral Processing Technology, which led to Minerals Engineering journal and eventually MEI (an interesting story documented in the posting of 10th August 2015).
Many thanks to all those who came to speak to me last night at the awards celebration, which brought to an end a fine week in Phoenix. The report on my personal experiences at the SME Meeting will be published on March 10th.
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Congratulations Barry, this is a well deserved award - from Malibongwe Manono, Cape Town, South Africa
ReplyDeleteMany thanks Malibongwe
DeleteIt was an honour and a privilege to be invited by Rob to support your nomination. Thoroughly well deserved - to say the least!
ReplyDeleteI remember hosting Frank Aplan at UCT in the 80s - he came out here with Dick Klimpel. I particularly recall taking him to a very well known shop in Cape Town (still in existence) at which one could rather cheaply buy semi-precious stones and jewellery, etc. He bought a very large ashtray made from malachite - very beautiful piece! I asked Frank why he was spending money on an ashtray since he was a non-smoker. He said this was a great sample of malachite which he will grind down when he returns to Penn State and use it for research!! Wonderful man!!
Best wishes - see you in Washington in Sept/Oct.
Cyril O'Connor, University of Cape Town
Thanks Cyril, and also for the great story!
DeleteWarmest congratulations to you, Barry, for receiving yet another major award recognising the significant contributions you have made to mineral processing. I also knew Frank Aplan, and like of his colleagues at Penn State at the time, they were pragmatic and goal focused, as demonstrated by Cyril's recollection. Best wishes. Jannie van Deventer
ReplyDeleteMany thanks Jannie. Much appreciated
DeleteCongratulations again Barry! Truly deserving. My first course in mineral processing was with your 6th Edition, which I still keep on my bookshelf and use once in a while!
ReplyDeleteMany many congratulations, Barry, for the well-deserved honor.
ReplyDeleteRegards
Nikhil Dhawan (IIT-Roorkee)
Many thanks Nikhil
DeleteCongratulations Barry - further deserved acknowledgement of your achievements in creating a valued global community of mineral process engineers
ReplyDeleteMany thanks, Richard, much appreciated
DeleteMy comments about my oldest friend, Frank Aplan, and the Aplan Award does show how friendship and professionalism can interweave over the decades. At an Engineering Foundation Conference in Florida, I announced to the meeting and to Frank Aplan (who was there) about the establishment of the Frank Aplan Award. He had no prior concept that it was being established. He was the first recipient and I was the second.
ReplyDeleteFrom your review of earlier blogs, I remembered that we had a paper at the Tahoe conference. There was some complication that prevented my from going so instead of my being able to be there, I had a senior graduate student (Art Abrado) who had been a lecturer before coming to Berkeley for a PhD and he presented out paper on precious metal uptake on activated carbon.
Again, I was really delighted when I saw that you were the 2024 (maybe designated the 2023 by SME numbering) recipient of the Aplan Award!
Doug
Douglas W. Fuerstenau, University of California Berkeley, USA
Thanks for this, Doug. I remember Art Abrado at the Tahoe conference. I hope that you can make it to Washington for the IMPC. It would be great to see you.
ReplyDelete