PROFILE — Dynatec’s Dengler debunks industry-defaming myths

Copper is the “metal of the 1990s,” says Robert Dengler, chairman and chief executive officer of Dynatec International. Today the average single-family home in North America requires 422 lb. copper, compared with 230 lb. in the early 1980s, according to a recent survey that he cites. Equipped with more gadgets, a new American car consumes 50 lb. copper, up from 30 lb. a decade ago.

“We do not have a huge inventory of copper despite the recession,” Dengler told The Northern Miner in a recent interview. “As we recover, the reserve will be quickly consumed.” His contracting company seems to be shifting its focus from gold producers to copper deposits.

Last month Dynatec, with 20% partner Entrepreneur Minier Talpa Inc., started shaft-sinking at the copper-zinc Louvicourt Twp. project in Quebec for owners Aur Resources and Societe Miniere Louvem. “We will apply techniques developed at Falconbridge Ltd.’s new circular 4,960-ft. Craig Shaft to Louvicourt.” As a contracting firm, Dynatec strives to come up with cost-effective methods to stay competitive. “I attribute our ability to maintain our revenue level during the recession to the innovative ability of our staff,” he says. An avid reader of biographies of achievers, he hopes his biographer would portray him as a company builder who leaves a legacy of relentlessly upgrading the state of the art.

Born in Kirkland Lake, Ont., 1940, Dengler is married to Patricia Duchek. He received his B.Sc. in mining engineering from Queen’s University in 1965. Then he joined the contracting firm J.S. Redpath as a project engineer at North Bay, Ont., and became vice-president and general manager in 1971. He founded Dynatec Mining in 1980 with partners William Shaver and Fred Edwards. Eight years later, Dynatec International was created as a new parent company with Dengler at its helm.

Despite the current economic doldrums, he predicts slow, but continuous growth of the mining industry this decade. “Global population growth and strive for higher standard of living will result in greater consumption of metals and minerals,” he says.

To improve mining’s image, Dengler favors a Pan-Canada mining week. Last year he gave about 10 talks at Queen’s University and the University of Western Ontario to debunk myths that defame the industry.

As well, he distributes freely copies of Trashing the Planet to his staff and acquaintances a book dedicated by author Dixy Lee Ray, former governor of Washington state and recipient of the United Nations Peace Prize, to “sensible citizens who may wonder or worry what all the environmental fuss is about but whose access to facts is limited to the hyperbole of the popular media or (unreadable) technical papers.”

“Mining has left a legacy, for which we are chastised,” he says. “The new mines are not developed as the old ones. We should educate Canada via all the people directly or indirectly related to the mining industry suppliers of consumer goods, fuels, spare parts. CN Rail should help, too. Mining accounts for 20% of export and 50% of rail freight.”