We had very sad news yesterday from Canada of the death of John Starkey, the founding President and Principal Consulting Engineer of Starkey & Associates, the name behind a number of the most successful grinding circuit designs in the mining industry.
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| John and Donna Starkey |
Over the last 25 years Barbara and I, and Jon and Amanda, have become great friends of John and his dear wife Donna, and despite being separated by over 3.500 miles, we have kept in touch by email and phone, and regular meetings around the world, particularly in Cape Town, where Starkey & Associates has been a regular sponsor of MEI's comminution conferences, and at SME Meetings in USA and memorably in Falmouth.
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| Dining in Cape Town, 2018 |
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| Barbara with John and Donna in Denver 2013, and with me in Phoenix in 2020 |
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| Visiting Falmouth in 2018 |
John Starkey graduated as a mining engineer in 1961 from the University of Toronto. He had wide experience in mines and process plants, his career including work at Kam Kotia, Kidd Creek, and INCO mines and mills. He worked at Kilborn (now SNC Lavalin) for 12 years designing the Gays River, East Kemptville and Quintette process plants. From 1964 he worked in SAG mill hardness testing as pilot plant engineer for A. MacPherson’s projects.
John founded Starkey & Associates in 2000 and the company is now a global leader in ore hardness measurement, and grinding circuit design and optimisation, particularly for SAG mills. He invented and co-developed the SPI and SAGDesign tests which are both widely used in industry today for the measurement of ore hardness for AG and SAG mill designs. His mission has always been to capture for clients the rich benefits of SAG milling technology, to help them find the most economical way to grind their ore.
In 2017 the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum awarded John the CIM Fellowship for his "outstanding contribution to the mineral processing field". He also became a CIM Distinguished Lecturer, in recognition of his "remarkable contribution to comminution design and practice", and as such spoke at CIM Branch and Student Chapter meetings across Canada, as well as being a frequent lecturer globally at universities, teaching the fundamentals of AG/SAG grinding mill operation and design. In 2021 he presented a keynote lecture at Comminution '21, MEI's only online comminution conference.
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| The CIM Fellowship Award in 2017 |
As well as being an outstanding engineer, John was a very popular person with many friends and colleagues worldwide, as shown by the selection of photos below.
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| John and Donna at Comminution '12, Cape Town, with Arkady Senchenko and Anna Shevtsova |
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| Salt Lake City, 2014 |
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| Comminution '14 Cape Town |
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| John (5th left) with Comminution '14 delegates, hiking Table Mountain |
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| At 77 years of age, John was MEI's oldest ever Table Mountaineer |
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| Denver 2015 with Spencer Reeves |
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| Comminution '16, Cape Town, with Peter Radziszewski, Brian Loveday and Spencer Reeves |
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| IMPC, Quebec City, 2016 with Jon Wills and Dave Meadows |
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| Comminution '18, Cape Town with Felicity and Nick Wilshaw |
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| Comminution '18, Cape Town, with Erik Spiller |
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| Denver 2017 with Jenna Hedderson and Hans von Michaelis |
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| With Physical Separation '19 delegates at the Chain Locker, Falmouth |
A recording of John's memorial service is available. On behalf of us all at MEI, deepest condolences to Donna and the family. You are very much in our thoughts.
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I was sad to hear this. I worked for John as a summer student at Minnovex in the mid 1990's and we worked closely after I joined Minnovex full time, and we kept in touch ever since. He was a great person and an exceptional metallurgist, and he will be missed by all who knew him. My sincere condolences to John's family.
ReplyDeleteGreat post and summary of an exceptional career, Barry! Thank you for immortalizing John even more.
ReplyDelete- Jenna Hedderson
Thanks Barry for the nice post - John deserved it. He will be greatly missed
ReplyDeleteThis is indeed very sad news. I knew and worked with John in the mid 1990s at the Mining Association of Canada (the now-defunct MITEC experiment), in the very, very early days of his promoting the SAG and hardness tests for which he became famous. I knew then that there was great potential in his ideas, but it was very difficult initially on to get the industry to believe in them. He came very close to going under, but fortunaely was able to persevere, and I was/am very glad that he succeeded so well. The insustry will miss him greatly.
ReplyDeleteSad to hear , a try icon who will be missed.
ReplyDeleteSuch a pleasure to have known John and Donna over the years, he will be missed not only by his family and friends but also by the metallurgical industry. John has been a huge influence on grinding processes and a font of knowledge for the industry with all his years of experience. A lovely man.
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