METS

Whittle cuts an iconic figure

At a Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME) event nearly 40 years ago 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 this week recalled hearing all those years ago, and added: “Now you can’t argue with that.”