SME recognizes industry leaders at MINEXCHANGE 2025

By the time this issue of Mining Engineering hits your mailbox, the MINEXCHANGE 2025 SME Annual Conference & Expo will have concluded and with it, an additional 53 well-deserving SME members will be SME Fellows. The SME Fellows award is the highest honor the Society can bestow on a member. The total number of people who can hold the designation is restricted to 1.8 percent of the individual members for the Society. Thanks to recent growth in the Society’s membership, SME realized an opportunity to recognize deserving members and add to the ranks of the SME Fellows with a one-time addition of 50 Fellows this year. Fittingly, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the program. To be considered, a candidate must have been a full member of SME for at least 15 years and must have demonstrated significant and sustained contributions to the minerals industry and to SME. There must be some contributions to both the industry and SME, though significant and sustained contributions can be to either one. Contributions are not limited to SME’s national level but could be to a section, a region, a technical division and committee or as a representative of SME and the industry to the public. Outstanding contributions to the industry may be as a leader in exploration, production, manufacturing, environment, basic sciences, engineering applications, education, management or public relations. Contributions may be evidenced by patents, technical papers, educational activities or managerial contributions. Other contributions may be in the development of exploration techniques, mineral properties, mineral processes, major engineering projects, mineral-related equipment and environmental solutions. Generally, the designation (previously known as the Distinguished Professional) is reserved for just a handful of people each year, like the baseball Hall of Fame, but this does not, in any way, diminish the contributions of the 2025 Fellows Class. “Many at SME and its Board of Directors came to the realization that over many years there were many impactful, distinguished and overlooked members who were and are deserving of this award,” 2024 SME President Marc Herpfer said. “Often, such awards are driven by our nomination process that needs a member to nominate and to champion such candidates. This can sometimes cause an excellent and even an obvious deserving candidate to be overlooked because of the passage of time, or the assumption that they have already won it in the past, or that someone else is nominating them. So, in 2024, we decided for the 50th anniversary of this award to review our current membership for those worthy candidates who fell between the cracks and select 50 who best meet the distinguished criteria so that we could award “50 for 50” to celebrate this profound SME Fellow category established in 1975.” On Feb. 26, 2025 SME President Bill A. Hancock began his term — his first official act as president was to recognize and award the new class of Fellows. “There are a number of members who needed to be recognized for their stature and importance to SME and our industry,” said Hancock. “When reviewing our membership, we were surprised by the many members who had not achieved Fellow status despite richly deserving being a Fellow. We decided to add ‘50’ new Fellows to partially resolve the omission of not honoring many members who deserved but had not been so recognized.” A full list of those who earned the designation was published in the February issue of Mining Engineering and each person’s profile is also available online (https://www.smenet.org/awards/2025-fellow-awards). “Each of these people in their own unique ways have directly and positively impacted the functioning and knowledge base of our society and the exploration, mining, minerals and metallurgy disciplines,” said Herpfer. “They have made an individually important impact to the SME for the long-term benefit of its membership, our industry and the world at large (even if they may not immediately realize it in the moment).” At the conclusion of MINEXCHANGE 2025, all award winners including the Fellows were recognized during an awards celebration and each was presented a commemorative coin to recognize their contributions to SME and the mining industry. “Making consistent outstanding technical and/or managerial contributions is a hallmark in whatever professional endeavor they have pursued,” said Hancock. “In doing so, this leads to being recognized as leaders whom other professionals want to be associated with, who are supportive and who have gained the knowledge and skills others want to learn. SME Fellows are guideposts to our members with whom they can compare and measure themselves as they grow professionally.”

SME recognizes industry leaders at MINEXCHANGE 2025

Authored by: William Gleason

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