Dr Alan Bauer, head of the department of mining engineering at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ont., has died at age 55.
During Dr Bauer’s 21 years at Queen’s, he made many contributions to mining education and research, contributions which, according to colleagues, will be felt throughout the mining community for many years to come.
He was a “very good man, a dynamic man who got up early, worked hard and expected others to do so too,” says Dr Peter Calder, Dr Bauer’s successor as head of the university’s mining engineering department. “He was an educator and a father figure to all who knew him. He was an innovative person and world leader in explosives.”
His research into explosives and other mining technology included both fundamental and applied studies in such areas (to name just a few) as jet piercing, ice blasting, open pit shovel/truck scheduling, reclamation practices, experimental studies on detonation phenomena, and numerical modelling of detonations.
Dr Bauer graduated from the University of Durham with a B.Sc. in physics in 1953, worked for a time with Canadian Industries Ltd. in Schefferville, Que., then returned to school and took a Ph.D. in metallurgy in 1962, at the University of Utah.
On completion of his studies he was appointed research director at the Iron Ore Company of Canada, left iocc in 1965 to launch his own mining consulting business in Montreal, and a short time later joined the faculty at Queen’s.
Within a few years, he became head of the mining engineering department, actually at a time when such departments were in serious decline at a number of Canadian universities. Under his direction, however, the Queen’s department’s enrolment grew from a total of 15 in 1967 to 120 by 1973, and this level was stabilized and maintained throughout the 1970s, and stands at this number even today.
In 1975, Dr Bauer was honored by the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy with presentation of the Past President’s Medal “for his leadership and contribution to the regeneration of mining engineering in Canada.”
He later was selected by the Institute as a Distinguished Lecturer. He also held active membership in the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario, and in the American Institution of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers.
Dr Bauer is survived by his wife, Leila, and two sons, William and John.
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