At the conclusion of the MINEXCHANGE 2023 SME Annual Conference & Expo in Denver, CO my term as SME President will come to a close, but it will not, by any means, bring an end to my support for SME. It has been an enormous honor and a wonderful experience to be so involved in our Society this past year and to help keep the Society moving forward in its role as one of the best, if not the best, mining professional society in the world. Throughout this year I have had the opportunity to gain a broader understanding of why our Society is so strong and commands the worldwide respect it does. It starts with the strong Colorado-based management teams that participate in all we do and who effectively manage not only MINEXCHANGE, but numerous other specialty meetings as well as frequent meetings held by our Sections. However, the quality of our meetings and the major strength of SME are the hundreds of members who volunteer their time and share their expertise. I attended many of these meetings this past year and the collective body of knowledge presented regarding our industry was amazing. Volunteer members are also the backbone of the management of our sections, standing committees, divisions, and the board of directors. They commit their time and skills to ensure each of these groups advance their areas of responsibility and in so doing advance SME. Their dedication to SME is outstanding. Over the years, I have attended SME Section meetings in many states and have benefitted from presentations and mine tours. But what really stood out for me this past year after visiting several more sections, was the recognition that SME’s sections, which of course are commonly located in areas of mining that provide the foundations of modern living, are the face of mining to the nearby communities. With the growing importance of ESG, stated another way, our sections are the face of mining to our stakeholders.
During this past year, one of my goals was to reinvigorate economic geology/exploration programming and activities at MINEXCHANGE. This is not to say that geologic programming does ...
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