Letters to the editor Managers must be masters of their trade

In reply to Douglas Smith’s letter (T.N.M., Oct. 15/90) on mine management, I would like to note that metallurgists, maintenance engineers and others have at times made very good mine managers. Indeed, compared with earlier this century, non-mining personnel have found it far easier to enter mine management positions, largely because of a steadily increasing proportion of technically less onerous open pit operations. But the dice may still be loaded, for two simple reasons. First, mining is not “only one facet of a firm’s activities”; for a working mine, it is a central function without which all else is redundant.

Second, good mine managers, particularly of underground mines, must be masters of their own trade and more than jacks of several peripheral trades. This ability develops from spending working lives in and around mines. That may not be the case for other mine-employed disciplines not similarly and wholly tied to a single industry.

Possibly because of competition within their graduates’ own field and the diminished importance of underground mining, mining schools everywhere have been complaining of declining enrollments for at least three decades. Worse, part of the output seems to remain in mine engineering, without seriously seeking the leaven of practical experience in production.

This is the real problem of the failing mines mentioned by Mr. Smith. Several reviewers have observed a common factor, a shortage or a plain disregard of the particular mining expertise needed for underground gold mines, at all employee ranks from management down. Resurgent demand has obviously taxed what — except in Ontario and Quebec — has become almost a dying trade.

About two decades ago, the business schools were putting out a line: “Anyone can manage something without knowing anything about it, as long as he knows about management.” I had previously thought this idea to have been discredited, but maybe I was wrong. Hugh Taylor Professional Engineer. North Vancouver, B.C.