A big loss to Canada and the United States is Marc Ruest. A graduate of Queen’s University, he’s off in a month’s time to Johannesburg to become chief rock mechanics engineer for De Beers. I wish him all the very best although I am conflicted by admiration, envy and concern. He is currently with Itasca in Minneapolis but has taken what I am sure is a good career-advancing step by going to South Africa to join De Beers.

My compliments to him and conviction that he is a loss to two and a gain to two are based on a superb presentation he made at the SME Annual Meeting & Exhibit this morning. In fact, it was magnificent; pity we did not get a video of it. It was a classic. He was confident, knew his material intimately, focused on the essentials, avoided the dull and repetitive, and was skilled in handling questions.

He did not read the slides but filled in what could ourselves read with insight, perspective, and information. The work he described was perfectly executed—he had analyzed the behavior of variously shaped, lined tunnels surrounded by stabilized in-situ materials. I do not repeat the technical information here, for it deserves full consideration in its own context. Contact him soon at marcr@itascacg.com to get the full details. But I am still in a kind of shock that the North American mining industry has not moved to keep him here. I am delighted the South African mining industry is gaining by his move, but I will be hard to persuade that there is a shortage of skilled people in the Canadian and United States mining industry when we are letting this kind of brain drain happen.

Maybe the truth lies in an observation by a retired professor from Laval, who remarked to me late this evening: “I was cross after listening to the session on mining professional shortages. I wanted to, but did not get up and say: let all those mining engineers come from Russia and Poland and there will be no shortage; the only ones who will suffer are professors who won’t have students.”