 This is an interview with Roland A. Bergman, it's taking place August 26th, 2015 in Toronto. So, would you start with these basic questions? Could you tell us your name and age? Okay, my name is Roland, I've had a Bergman and I'm now 80, 70 years old. Where were you born? I was born in Tallinn, Estonia, which is quite a long way away from here. Can you tell us what your parents did? My parents, my father was an export import business in Estonia and then we moved in, left Estonia because of the Russians and were evacuated into Germany. I see. I spent all the war years there. As a child, what did you do to pass your time? Well, as a child, I really enjoyed shipbuilding, shipbuilding engineer and I worked quite a bit of models on shipbuilding and this has interested me very much. Also, I was quite involved in reading and sports. But what sort of ship did you build? Were these wooden ships or were they models? They were model ships. I see. And I went sailing with some friends. We just very enjoyed boat. Did you have an early passion for the world of science or metallurgy or engineer? I was interested again as I said, very much interested in science and one of the things was my target to become a ship design engineer. I didn't know anything about metal again at that stage of my life. I see. What about your early schooling, grade school? Okay, I have a quite good variety of schools which I have tended to. I started off finishing off my public school for Europe and Estonia. Then I continued my high school in Germany and about, I think I told what word, 12 to 15 schools depending on your books, that's a refugees. And then finally graduated in Northern Ham, which is in Northern Germany because of the ability to. And then I decided to advance my education. And I started to study metallurgy at the Rheinrich-Perspieler Technische Uschle in Ostern. I see. Which I found very, very interesting. What interests you about it in particular? I was interested in the process metal, the recovery of metal, the refining of metal. That was my main interest rather than the metallurgy. I see. What languages did you speak as a student? Well, I started off as a historian. Then I started, I spoke German, then German. And then eventually I think I learned a little bit of English. How did you eventually move to the University of Toronto? Well, there was a bit of a story to it. I had intended to finish my studies at Assam, but then my family had previously come to Canada, ran into problems, and so I decided to come to Canada. I worked for a year at Inko, and then I decided that it was time that I continued my studies. So I talked to Dr. Pigeon, and he said, well, I can enroll you in your second year, but that's the only chance you have if you don't pass that year out. So I found the first few years quite difficult with English, but things improved quite a bit. And finally I did graduate with honors in the Bachelor, and then also as a Master of Arts in Metallurgy. So can I ask what you did at Inko during the time you worked there? I worked in the smelter first, and then I talked to the management that said, well, I have some background in Metallurgy, so they transferred me to the research and pregnancy. And we did both sorts of surveys within the company. And then I'm from Palo Plans. Well, after the first year, I also spent two summits with Inko. Okay. And that's what it was like working at the smelter at Inko? Kind of atrocious. You had a mask, a wear a mask that keeps the acid too out, and some days you just couldn't see what you were writing because the smoke was so, so, so strong. There were fields when there was a synthetic acid. Was it difficult for you to transfer from working in the mail, I suppose, to working in the research lab? How do you convince them to? No, actually I worked in the smelter, not in the mail. No, I didn't have any problems at all. I think the program was quite good to work with, and the projects that we had were interesting too, kind of dirty, but it's all good. I enjoyed it. I thought that was class research rather than baby research. What did you do your, your master's research on? I've written it on, in fact, remember, on, I can't remember right now. And then you moved on to a doctor, is that right? No, there's a master's. And, no, I think I ran out of money. I intended to go for a doctor, but I didn't. And then what, what did you do after university? After university, I looked around for jobs, I don't know if I found a metallurgical company in the States, and also from Falkland, which I decided to join Falkland, which because I felt I'd be sitting here at a Canadian university, and therefore I think I should give a preference. And I joined Falkland, which nickel mines at that time, at the research laboratory in Richmond, Ontario. You, do you remember your, your first day of work at Falkland? Yes, I do remember it, but clearly, yes, I think having been in plants were things that kind of rough when I walk in the research laboratory. People were very friendly and very intelligent, and the sophisticated, well-converting all of a sudden, rather than such, horrible work. Could you, could you describe your, your work with the Falkland Bridge Research Laboratory? This one, this, but, but you work at the Research Laboratory at Falkland Bridge? Yes, I, I worked on a, quite a large number of projects, I think as I came along. One of the main projects was the development of the Falkland Bridge Nickel Trosses. It was quite a long development, and it contained quite a number of very new elements, and that was the reduction of the ore in a shaft furnace, and it's a length of reduction, and then it ended up with a high smelting density operation to produce a 40 percent ferro-nectar, I don't think we've had it done before. And we went to quite a number of stages, laboratory work, power plant work, and in the middle of the Republic, and finally as a start-up of the, of the plant in 1997. So, did you, did you travel often for your work? Yes, I did. I traveled a fair bit, because Falkland Bridge had operations in February, so the February from Falkland Bridge, from the lab, and also traveled a fair bit to the very primary in Norway, Nickelberg, and also to the Dominican Republic, so it was the main location of the Falkland Bridge operation. I see. Did you have to experience other academic or professional cultures in your travel? Hey, yes. At one time we visited Mitsubishi in Japan, and then I took a lot, the way people worked there, which is quite different from myself. I think it was a very, very strong command from down, from up down. Everybody, that's about to, so, to, to, still to the tension. I hope you watched somebody at the gas station in the morning, they all end up like little soldiers. That's quite a different touch, an interesting touch here. Again, I think we also traveled to Germany quite a bit in the game. That's a different touch here, much more structured than the Canadian structure. Everybody seems to know its place, and I certainly enjoyed working in Canada, much more than I would have enjoyed working in Germany. Did you get on well and you're re-knowing the language? Yes. So the Canadian workplace you find relatively unstructured or just more... No, I think because it wasn't structured at all, but I think it was, the structure was a little loose, nothing. People more flexibility to work was one another. Command didn't come from high up. I think you could interchange ideas with other people, and therefore I think you could come up with an answer, that's more quickly and effectively then, if somebody says, what do you do with this? But don't ask any questions. So what caused the Falconbridge research awards, or were you closed ultimately? I think money, primarily. We had a new president, and he decided to close just with everything, to save the company from going under. He closed the lab, he closed the best possible outside of the files than the Falconbridge head office, and books, until we had a really hard time, they don't have to think about some information, but that was best done practically overnight. I see, was that a disappointment to you? It was a great disappointment for me, and I took her to your retirement about two years after that. But I still did a lot of consulting for Falconbridge, and then not only for the committee, probably, but also towards an assessment and treatment of secondary materials, materials that contain cobalt and pressure metals. And again, this involves the tremendous travels through Britain, Australia, and various different places. Could you describe, maybe in some detail, your work as a metallurgical consultant? Yes, in the first place, in the Dominican Republic, more or less supervised the work which you were actually doing, and then a development work. That was not my responsibility. Most improvements can be made, how can they're made, and then selected up to the proper people to come in to do the work so that the company could run more efficiently. But there was a new process, and it's quite a number of improvements were made through the growing of the process. So that was one of the functions. So I was involved in smelting operation, reduction operation, yeah, collusion operation, and so on, but that made my life very, very interesting. And I enjoyed being in the Dominican Republic. Nice country, nice people. And the plan was quite a long distance away from Santa Domego, and a place called Bonava. Then I did work with Ontario Hydro. There, the function was to try to reduce the energy of smelting operations like the luminous filters, which are very, very high-energy consumers, also take a crack at some other operations. Then I got involved in the evaluation of the Guatemala operation. Somebody wanted to buy it. And so I was called in as a majority consultant. And then I was called also in by the US government in Oregon, where somebody was trying to nickel plant, building a nickel plant as a whole property, and made all sorts of claims. And I was brought in as a technical consultant to see what he said. Didn't make any sense at all. So I think the court came to a point where he was shot up just like that, so there's a few things about that. So as a consultant, you had connections throughout the industry to engineers and scientists, and you would link people together, is that right? That's correct, yes. And that made life interesting. I think that's not working on your own, but working with people. I think working with people is so important. And not having people work with you, but have people work with you. May I ask what Ontario Hydro's interest was in the Dominican Republic? No, nothing in the Dominican Republic. This one does separate this year. Okay. I think they wanted to see whether the elected plants that use electricity could be made more efficient. That's what's very interesting at that stage. They built an electric plant and then a power plant, different operations, different plants, and that's what they're... I see. So was it a model plant that you were visiting? No, it was actually a commercial plant. We had a model electric plant where some of the tests would be done, but then we also went into the actual production plants. Was that work successful that it results in? Yes, it was fine. It was quite successful. You described the growing up of the process that took place over your career. Could you give us some details about what took place? The focus. Okay, actually that was quite an involved process because first of all, this came with samples with a high in iron, low in magnesium, and our charge was to develop and improve the parallel process. So we nearly completed that and then we came back and said, well, actually the order is different. It is low in iron but high in magnesium. So the only thing you would use was a snuffing operation. So we then started working on developing the parallel process. I think the first thing wants to work on the selective production in the shaft for us. And this was really initiated by our vice president, F. R. Archibald. He said, well, you have to do anything. You could tend to reduce it in there. But as a furnace, if you want to get selective production, you have to have a shaft for us. So before you could do that, you have to go out and be able to go into your order so that you can go through the shaft for us. And then the added control, the atmosphere, you just get the right reduction because the target also was eventually to produce a high-grade charcoal. Most of the other people could use a little over 80%, 60%, and our target was to produce metal with a 40% metal. And so this was the first part in the lab. Then we built a power plant in the Dominican Republic, which went through several stages. And finally, I think that the last push was to look at the elastic furnace development. We worked with Hatch and we were able to design a furnace that has a double the power density of the regular furnace. And that made the process feasible instead of using four or five elastic furnaces, you were able to just use three elastic furnaces because that was a high power density that could be used for the furnaces. And also the full current energy of the ore. What was the technology that led to these more efficient furnaces? I think it was some predictions made by Hatch that yes, it could be possible. And then we took over the power plant and actually cracked up the power as much as we could. And some said yes, they could get the power and ended up flat. But it was only kilowatts per square meter, fondant, right, fondant, and kilowatts per square meter, which was a very, very high power density. Was it exceptional? It was just destroying the furnace. Was it exceptional for the time? It was very successful, almost unique. I see. Could you, so as I understand it, after the research laboratory at Falkenbridge closed, you had some relationship with the University of Toronto, was that right? Yes, I did. I became an academic professor. And I taught courses both at Falkenbridge, I'm sorry, at the U of T. I taught courses at McMaster and at Queens. And I also was a founding member of the Centre for Chemical Process Biology. I don't know if you've heard of that. The idea was to get industrial members to PhD in the Centre. And then we asked professors to submit research projects. So then we selected the projects and then we got them to funds that matched by answer or by the government. So instead of getting $37, I ended up at $60,000. And we had a very close involvement with people like Hedge, like Falkenbridge, Hinkle, and Stanford, and Chemico, and so on. So that was a very, very nice project. But then eventually, I think, I retired, started years to over after me. And then I think the industry seemed to lose interest. I think it was a very, very successful career to get quite a number of quick projects going on. Could you describe some of the successful projects that went through the Centre? Do you feel that your previous connections to industry helped you? Very, very definitely, very definitely. So because I knew the pre-planned industry, I was able to do the project. But I also had the support of Walter Crowe, of course, he died. And so that was my type of problem. Do you feel that many people who teach metallurgy at university have an industrial experience or should have? Depending on what they teach. You could teach. So do you use metallurgy? Yes, I think it's good for them to have a better use of experience, because you don't want to take this on the wall and not see the examples of how this information can be used. It's not as effective in the teaching operation. In a very good professor, Dr. Gutigar, who died that, unfortunately, he had worked at the Salcom Bridge, he had worked in the Dominican Republic, and also at the Salcom Bridge. And he became one of the top professors after Dr. Pigeon. And so the professor had to learn. Also had some industrial experience. Now, if you're going into different fields, like town or crystals, they're probably going to be so much easier. That's really good. It's just not more of what we're making of that work. I understand that Professor Pigeon was a foundational figure in creating metallurgy, of course, as a famous professor. He was also the inventor of the Mendeezer, Pigeon by Deezing process. I'm impressed with that. And he was responsible for you becoming enrolled as an undergraduate? Yes, he was the one I went to. He talked to me, and as I said before, he said, Yes, you can join because he has studied before. But I can't give you credit for the three years he has studied. Thank you, credit for one year. But if you don't pass that year, you might as well go on with that. Very audible. I'll go on with what I have here. Do you have any particular personal memories of Professor Pigeon? Oh, yes. He was in the Marvel's character. And when he called, I asked, he was saying, Why has he been putting salt on the road? Because the salt won't help us to cook. Then he got also involved in the big construction of cars. He got very, very much interested in it. But we're very interested. The other thing I remember to do is, he was on the blackboard. He started writing quite big and then it pretty much disappeared after a while. But he must have been thinking very, very, very, making you feel that you're on the surface of the sand. No, I like that the patient. I kept close contact with him until he died. One thing I was curious about, I've noticed that the Department of Metallurgical Engineering has, the name has been changed in materials science. And I wonder if this reflects a broader change within the discipline? I think to reflect, initially, back in the 50s, it was best to extract different physical metallurgies. And that's nothing more. But then, I think, the Department started working at different materials, like carbon and plastics and so on. And this decision was made to change this department of materials science and engineering. So that was also material here. We said to each other, I have a bad bubble. You're working in there, but I think it's shared because it is a very big but broad spectrum now. Looking at, for instance, implants and the bones, those things are being done. And then none of the questions are quite flat. In fact, it's a battery investigation. But you gain materials involved in that. So yes, now I have proof of a change now. What are some of the challenges that you face over your career? Well, the first thing I think to come to groups was a language. That was, for one, one of the most difficult things. Challenges, yes, looking at different projects and finding how they can be solved. And then follow up with the approach of the work on the Portuguese Earth, which was better. And this is what I remember as being very, very important as I think that you have to focus and understand what the problem is so that you can find a solution for the problem. What was the most difficult project that you've had? I think the most difficult project was really the one something to do with the Republic because there were so many novel features from mental process to reduction to nothing and refining. So it was quite a challenge. Every step was a major challenge. Have you ever worked for a particularly dysfunctional organization? No, I have, thank God not. What's the fondest memory that relates to your work? I think the fondest memory really is the other people I work with. The good people and the lab close in the 86th. But a group of people who were living in Toronto or even the farthest places, they always made for lunch and just before Christmas. That certainly gives us as a lab as close possibly to the managed type community. And this is something I enjoyed. I think I felt very strongly that you have to be able to work with people and also accept their opinions and not just the shelves that I've worked with here. I think you have to make the feeling that they were also part of the team wherever they work. And I think this is where you can make control of it. May I ask what sorts of things do you discuss with your own full-converged colleagues who still talk about work and Miller Jean, that sort of thing? Yeah, we don't do much work anymore. I think we're still a little out of place. What did you do? Some of them are still working, I see, the younger people. But most of us are kind of old folks. How present or absent were women in your field throughout your career? We had quite a number of women in the laboratory. Geologists, one of the geologists, he has a number of engineers, 22 engineers. So the total of four women we had in our organization. So there was no problem that chief chemist at one time, or the assistant chief of the spectroscopist, was a woman, very, very competent, so still signed. Well, no, we didn't have any problem. We tried to all speak for the best people. How has the discipline of metallurgy changed over your career? Discipline at school? Yeah, I think metallurgy has changed quite a bit over the years. I think it used to be a fairly pragmatic approach. I think now people are using a lot more theory because now the students are theory. You can do a lot of work, you can do a lot of modeling, which you are not able to do. There you have, in the past, you have to do experiments. Start the experiments. This way you can probably do one or two experiments, then you can model the operation. So I think three field programs have been made. It's not the same as it was before. I mean, that's difficult because it's important now, all sorts of problems that might bother you. Maybe you can't look at it, not the practical, and the practical side can give you the amount of research. And maybe you had to go to an x-ray machine, took a film, which took maybe an hour and then two hours to analyze what the structure was, but I think that will be much faster and much more precise. Do you remember how and when computers entered the field? He had a fellow who bought a micro program. He actually was the one who introduced computers into the lab. He didn't have to make computers at that stage. It was seven early days. What were they used for? The ones that you did have? Yes. Oh, yes, he said he did. If there's another computer, he couldn't do it. He was so attracted to it in mineralogy from awesome tools. I see. And very, very knowledgeable, very smart. He lost a lot of advice when he was working at the minesprout. He had prepared the sample and the sample exploded most of it. Chart. But his eyes were telling him because it's fantastic, by the way. So your work was occasionally dangerous in the lab? Yes. He did it. And then, no, no, we did this. They had materials that they could potentially give us problems. They're trying to make sure that we have all the safety precautions that are on, but things can happen. How has your own work affected industry in Canada? I think primarily through the teaching of the people. I think probably the bigger thing was that someone had been calling me out, thank me for all of that, but for training the empathy for the family. And this is, I think, probably the biggest contribution. Otherwise, a lot of the work that was done, a lot, a lot, a lot of the counseling, that's direct or crazy, I'll say, and then they even probably, it was working, certainly, work was done also in the February operation. Do you tell me students have reoccurred? I have prior to that, my students, yes. I just ended up teaching three courses, and then I decided it was too much of a challenge. Do you still keep in contact with some of your students? Two or three years, I do. Some of them, one of them, yes. One of my really good friends, he just died very clearly, originally, of pain cancer. But no, I don't keep in contact with some of them. In some of the entries I've conducted, in counter of the view that industry-sponsored research and training has declined in Canada over the years, do you share that view with them? I'm afraid I should share that view, because I think we had much more support in the past. And now, at the top three, that's wrong to talk to the students and to the professors to get any funds. I think it would be very desirable if the government would sponsor research and perform an organization of industrial members that could scrutinize and select what project they should be supported rather than only government people coming in. But that's what I would like to see. Are there other countries that do that sort of thing? Well, collaborating between government industry and academia? I think in Germany, they're doing it quite well. Yes, there's a very close relationship between academia and industry. So, beyond your teaching, what do you feel your biggest contribution to the advancement of metallurgy in general would be? I think training of people. Okay. What would you say are the major Canadian contributions to the advancement of your field? What would be either your or other Canadian contributions to metallurgy? Or also contribution of others? Yeah. Okay. I think certainly the number of some, I think the four which nickel as fast as possible, certainly a big contribution. Getting a result is to make the plan more efficient. That's a big change from what they had before. Like last year, although the earth made the operation much more effective and also working as a co-operation. There's some operation, tremendous improvement from what was there in the 50s. That visit the plan once three or four years ago and it creates a clean operation. And also, I think one of the big contribution is the ankle carbonyl refining process, which really is a tremendous contribution, making it very accurate in the goal. And one application because it can only, you know, it can make five problems. It can make all sorts of different shapes. So that's a major contribution. Chemical, this chemical, I don't think that made any real contribution. Steel companies, I think they're all pretty well down the aisle right now. Yeah. They started off very nicely. And one, actually, one contribution that has been made was by the fact that anti-introduction of oxygen, it could bring it towards oxygen. Oxygen can bring it towards oxygen, which is a variety process of steel. This is probably one of the big innovations. We'll try it in linse, down the aisle. And then the first plant that was built in North America was at the classroom. So who'd you say was your greatest mentor over your career or had the greatest impact on your life and career? Well, again, the impact I had was to learn how to work with people here was one of the biggest impact. And I had observed before I started working all people, working with people. And then with the people I worked with, I really started understanding that, yes, you have to respect people, you have to work with them, and not dictate to them what they should be doing. Was there any one person who was particularly helpful to you? Yes, exactly. Two persons. One of them is SR Archibald. He used to be the vice-president of the department here at Falkenbridge, right? And then Phil Swarnell, he was the director of research at Falkenbridge. Those are the really people who have had a tremendous influence on me, pitching them away too. But those are the people from the company. What are the most important lessons that you've learned in life? I have to say, that's the main question. What are you proudest of, man? What are you proudest of? Yes. Sorry, what are you proudest of among your accomplishments? What makes you... I think the process is developed in terms of Falkenbridge, that's one of the major ones. Is there anything else that you would like to discuss or to add? No, I'd like to say that I have very much enjoyed working in the middle of the industry, working with the people, and doing useful things. And now I feel that this is a nice memory and a message. Do you feel that Metsoc continues to give you a way to be involved? I'm not long involved. I used to be involved quite a bit in DMS, Metsoc, and different advisory committees. That's it. But now... Do you keep up to date on the field? I read Metsoc, he'll make a leak, yes. Yeah, it's so interesting. Actually, it's interesting, but I'm no longer in a position to be doing anything useful. But I can still remember some of the things from the good time I had. No, I don't forget that I went into the fields of the Falkenbridge. Because people feel the very narrow field, but it isn't. We got involved in so many different aspects of science. From hot to cold, from black to wet, and everything. Just about mathematics and physics and chemistry. Your name? Well, thank you very much for bringing to the interview. It was very interesting. Well, I hope I told you the story. Absolutely, yeah. I appreciate your time. Okay.