METS

Whittle an icon of mining

NEARLY 40 years ago, at a Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME) event, an American mining engineer told an incredulous computer programmer and one-time physicist from Melbourne his mine optimisation software wasn’t going to cut it – certainly not in the US of A. “My granddaddy showed me how to mine, and that’s good enough for me,” Jeff Whittle recalled hearing all those years ago, and added: “Now you can’t argue with that.”