 Okay, so we're here today with Lucky Lakshmanan. We are at the Fairmont Hotel. It is August 24th, 2015. And the interviewer, as usual, will be William McCrae. So we're going to begin with just a very simple few questions. So first of all, could you please state your full name? Vaikuntham Ayur Lakshmanan. And your age, please. 75. And where were you born exactly? Born in India. Whereabouts? In Tamil Nadu, in Chennai. And as a child, what did your parents do for a living? My father was managing an agricultural farm. He was a landlord. Okay. What was the, what did you grow? Well, my early years, I was in deep south in India, in a place called Chinnamalai. I kept calm in the tip of India. After doing my grade 12 SSLs, I moved to a place called Mumbai, Bombay. And that's where I did my education for bachelors, masters and PhD. Which was in chemistry, right? Chemistry, that's correct. And why chemistry? Well, I always felt, Bill, that chemistry is a good basis from which you can move into whether it is metallurgy or environment, process engineering, chemical engineering. A good understanding in chemistry can give you the basis to move on to various other subjects. Yeah, it's like, it's the best science base. Absolutely. And, okay, so you did all, you did bachelors, masters and PhD all in Mumbai. Mumbai. And from there, did you, was your first, I guess, official job within your career in India? Or was it in Canada? Well, Bill, my PhD was in organic chemistry using a technology called solvent extraction to understand the chemistry of various things. As I was doing, I was working before I got my PhD as a chief chemist in a company they were making in organic pigments or tiles. So that gave an exposure, using this technology, solvent extraction, making an industrial product to make glazes. So that was the beginning of my working career. Then as I did, always wanted to go abroad for further training. And got an opportunity as a post-doctoral fellow at the department of minerals engineering at the University of Birmingham in England. And my PhD work on solvent extraction and separation technology, I used to work with nuclear chemistry, radioisotopes to understand how things are happening. That gave me an opportunity to move into Birmingham. But I used the technology moved on to minerals engineering, a separation technology in extractive metallurgy. And also set up a laboratory on radio chemical laboratory at the University of Birmingham in Miles Engineering. In India, I used to get my samples irradiated at the Uppsala reactor in Siders. Went to England in minerals engineering where I went as a post-doctoral fellow for two years. Used the reactors in Aldramaston to get radiative samples to follow the similar solvent extraction technology to further understand the separation technology separations for the metals in minerals in minerals engineering. That was a career path. Using the separation technology, here I moved from chemistry to minerals engineering which is like chemical engineering. So it moved me there in minerals engineering. Then after two years, I became a lecturer at the department of minerals engineering teaching hydrometallurgy. So I moved from chemistry to minerals engineering hydrometallurgy which is like chemical engineering. Mineral engineering is a subject and it's like chemical engineering. So I taught there for three years and then left England in 1974 arrived in Canada as a post-doctoral fellow with a candidate. And they got and did see a candidate ahead of the hydrometallurgy. He was interested in the work I was doing on solvent extractions. He asked me to come here as a post-doctoral fellow for a year. So what is a post-doctoral fellow? Then moved to Noranda in Point Clare in the olden day. So I spent some time in Noranda then I used to work with Alan Ashbrook in Canada. And Alan moved to Eldorado Nuclear and he asked me to come to Eldorado Nuclear. So I moved to Eldorado Nuclear as a hydrometallurgist. So my career took me to Canada for one year. Then went to Noranda, then went to Eldorado Nuclear. When I was in Eldorado Nuclear, William, I find myself so fortunate in this God's country called Canada. Born in deep south in Tamil Nadu I got an opportunity to work in places like Uranium City, north of Lake Athabasca, in Saskatchewan, under 6th parallel working under Uranium Mine. And that was a unique opportunity for someone like myself coming into this country that I was in Ottawa but I could work at Uranium City and also worked at the Porto Plant in the Refinery. Again, it is a continuing story what was a common thread separation technologies, around extraction, nuclear industry following similar process principles whether it, you know, when you worked in Ottawa it is the same solid extraction technology to separate Uranium coming from Uranium City, the Allocate, and it's separated to make highly pure material to make reactor fuel, EO2 or EO6. So worked there for a few years. Then, you know, I had a request from Ontario Research Foundation so God did say thought it would be useful for me to go here, a good friend of mine, God did say. So I am more from Ontario, from Elder Order Nuclear which is today chemical. Well, what you see as chemical today used to be Elder Order Nuclear a common corporation that with SMDC, Saskatchewan Mining and Development Corporation together during Brian Maloney's time he put these two institutions together, companies together and formed today was one of the largest Uranium reactor fuel company Uranium mining company, reactor fuel company in the world which is involved in mining and refining, you know. So what is chemical today used to be Elder Order Nuclear and after spending few years in Elder Order Nuclear with Alan Ashbrook I moved to Ontario Research Foundation as head of hydro metallurgy section. So that was the beginning of my association with Ontario Research Foundation and that was in 1980. And Milliam, Ontario Research Foundation has a very, very rich history, you are a historian it was formed in 1926 after the World War I to increase the competitiveness of Ontario based industries whether it is mining, agriculture or you know, or forestry. The objective then was the primarily enhance the competitiveness of the major industries in Ontario and give them trained skilled manpower taking the post graduate students from Ontario based university put them in Ontario Research Foundation give them training to adapt and looking into challenges in this industry. So in 1926 Ontario Research Foundation was formed with the contribution from Government of Ontario and the Canadian exporters and manufacturers association CMA as you see today whether it was formed in 1926 and of course, Ontario Research Foundation was one of the largest you know, technology development and research organization in Canada. You know, then you had other provincial research organizations like Alberta Research and Saskatchewan Research coming later. So then I came to you know, had a group on hydrometallurgy then things took off and became a director for the metallurgy group and the metallurgy environmental and in 1999 January Ontario Research Foundation or it became Ortec. It became Ortec in 1986 because the name Ontario Research Foundation Bill the then management felt did not truly reflect because the clients were from all over the world it was not Ontario. Early days it was formed to serve the Ontario industries but as the time went on they had people from US and other places and it was not a place where people were doing research it was more on technology development and application and it was not a foundation giving out money to anybody it was doing client service whether for government or private sector. So they felt the name was not fully fitting well with what they were doing so they changed the name to Ortec. Did you play a role in that? I was a middle management person and we had clients most of the Iranian projects in Canada Ortec did a major role in developing, testing and all that so in 1985 it was the new name came as Ortec and on the 98th December in January it was privatized then premier of Ontario felt to do research and focus on universities but organizations such as this could go out and do business for industries or government on a project basis but not directly supporting with yearly contribution. So it was privatized in 1999 by a group of consortium members and a company called Body Code from England was one major company and then I was involved in bringing a couple of other people so bought the group called Process Technologies Division from the old Ortec and then this became Process Research Ortec that is the and when it was formed William our focus was not doing test work but developing solutions for clients problems and we wanted not to restrict ourselves only with Canada but also see opportunities with some developing economies so that is the story Process Research Ortec focuses on developing solutions for clients needs sometimes we do the market research and see where the problems are and then invest our own funds to develop technologies the earlier Ortec would never compete with private sector because they were getting assistance from the government so they were mandated not to compete with private sector but when it became fully privatized so this private company now fully competes with the market and not alone it develops technology on its own and takes it to the market sometimes we also invest in commercialization we work closely with universities technology is developed at universities at a small scale with the big facilities that we have we give professors from universities opportunities for beta testing, pre-commercialization, trials and piloting it happens in our facility the professors from we did a major project on polymers on nano polymer developed at University of Toronto and it was brought to Process Research Ortec where we did all the development of work beta testing, commercial testing so they could take sizeable product to test whether it is automotive industry or consumer product so they could do it so the business model is not alone that we would develop the solution because the universities need a facility where they could take it and we have we have connections and contact with financial institutions so we will introduce them to professors so they could discuss and take it to the market places so basically that is a story and we serve primarily our company Bill we serve because the mining industry goes up and down very cyclical and we have to buy our groceries so we have to use the technologies we develop but applicable to some other sectors but these process principles find usage so we move into speciality chemicals we move into environmental sectors and renewable energy but we focus on clean technologies but use Bill the same fundamental separation technologies what you do but you do the separation technologies for mining industry what you do all these industries need more and more the challenges coming from it is related to agencies clean technology becomes an area of opportunity and also the innovation on these industries Bill what I feel I have just finished writing a book which is going to be published by Springer brought a few people together on innovative metallurgical processes from concept to commissioning so it is not in mention at the university but to reach it to the market place you need innovative principles in engineering, in environment financing, understanding the market so this is a book of Bill which will come out in a month's time on innovative because these industries are highly capital intensive innovation will pick you know Canada is blessed with a lot of resources but for us to compete in the international market place we have to have a competitive advantage nobody can take the war away from us but mining the war alone is not enough we have to have competitive technologies which are environmentally also very very sustainable we need to have processes which are economically advantageous but also environmentally what types of technologies have recently been developed by process research or tech that has to do with renewable technologies or sustainable development because that is big with you guys right now that's correct we a small company we just have about 25 people and it was formed only in 1999 we have developed technology which will be reaching the market place one we developed on titanium dioxide which can be used for which has specialty coming up making paints correct, early days so that is a unique technology which is environmentally friendly we have developed another technology for nickel latrides most of the sulphide holes are depleting so looking for the oxide holes that technology which is going to be commercialized then we have developed a technology on water where these industries consume a lot of water lot of energy so we have developed a technology for cleaning of the water and the demonstration plant is currently commissioned we have formed a joint venture with a major company in India so the pilot run and peak demonstration run at 1.5 million liters per day is currently running and then the entire objective is to take it to various places so water then we are doing another one on battery for energy storage so these are some examples I always come back to clean technology and separation technology our strength we feel is separation and understanding the basis what makes separation more efficient for someone who is not necessarily an expert in separation technology what is a good example of an application of separation technology give me an example Bell on this titanium dioxide commercially it is done by using thermal processing that is what people do but many a time there are some impurities and they are restrictive what feed materials they can use to use the technologies the technology we have developed is highly selective so impurities that we may have because when you talk about paint Bell you have to make sure the impurities are very very very low because white paint you will always see the color immediately so you have to make sure that you separate your impurities efficiently and using technologies like solid extraction Bell if I said to you my early years from a PHA I started with solid extraction at the age of 75 I still find opportunity for solid extraction but my understanding on the basic chemistry helps me to look for innovative ways of using this separation technologies in chemical engineering so that you obtain a product which gets this meeting market specification so what we need on titanium dioxide is an example similarly we have come up with a technology which is separate gold gold is when you dissolve it it is only a few PPM but it is with a lot of other impurities so selectively taking the gold from each solution you have to understand it and we have found a way of selectively taking the gold out and when I say PPM parts per million taking that from a bulk solution but all the other impurities like iron and various things there so these are some again the basic understanding of what is there and the solution chemistry and then bringing in the innovative processes and marrying this understanding of the basic principles with today in today's world you have new materials of construction available so we have come a long way when I started my career in 1966-67 and I worked for Chandra Johnson which is a company making a British company today I mean 2015 we were talking nearly 50 years and the industry had come to hate so when you talk about construction, simulation, modeling you know a lot of other things available so it helps you too but what is very very important as I see it Canada is a country blessed with a lot of resources and for us to sustain and compete in the international marketplace what is very very important is having a good strength on the basics and also bringing the modern technologies like simulation modeling and computer you know enabling technologies in the digitized world and innovation for this industry to sustain innovation and when you look upon that digitized world things Apple or other guys will come the shelf life is very short mining industry when you do something the shelf life is very very long the technology and some sector what they use may be 50 years old but as you go along the regulatory conditions may be much much more tighter and the feed material you may bring today may be much more complex so you have to be able to understand what you need to do so you have to be innovative and some of these things are in a distant location where infrastructure is very poor so you may have to do that and you also have in the digitized world you can be sitting in Toronto and may be able to run a plant whether it is Timmins or Newfoundland or Northwest because young people want to have the comfort in my days when it was a uranium city there were only 3000 people so when the mine closed all those 3000 people had no other job but today you've got to fly in and fly out people from Montreal work for Agnico Eagle in Nunavut so you know 2 weeks in 2 weeks out I have many friends from the East Coast who work in Alberta So today Bill the situation has changed for me to go to uranium city during those years I used to go to Edmonton International Airport go to Municipal Airport and take a DC-3, DC-4 go to uranium city but today Bill people working there from Saskatoon they could fly into whether Key Lake or McLean fly in and fly out in our time there is no direct flight from Saskatoon to anywhere but today of course you know we have come a long way so in the digital economy Bill for our industry the resource sector you know nobody can take away our wars from underground but Canada is in a unique position where we have Bay State financial visitors there we have things like PDAC happening we have people with good experience we have civil class engineering companies like hatch in Canada so you marry all these they are uniquely in an advantageous position for us in Canada to continue to create the knowledge jobs you know so mining is not just digging a hole in the ground and shoving it and taking it out but with our unique experience we can put the whole package together you know raise the finance from Bay State to what you can we have a PDAC that you are able to bring people together then of course you have hatch engineering or some other you know I am talking about Canadian engineering BVA and other people so we can create the knowledge jobs the unique advantage they can do is resources whether they talk about mining or energy they are blessed they have got the hydropower they have got fossil they have got nuclear they have got the energy and renewable also they are getting in Canadian solar and other companies so Canada is uniquely qualified but for our industry to sustain we have to invest in innovation we lost companies like Alcumbridge, Alcan Miranda, Inco history but for us to continue to survive I strongly feel we have got good companies we still have Barrick, Sherry, Tech our own Canadian companies they are like ego a lot of companies coming up and there will be a lot more opportunities but what is very important is they have to pay attention to innovation they have to understand the digitized world and then also the human capability and help them to maintain the quality of life Canada is the enemy of the world in terms of quality of life for us to maintain that, sustain that quality of life we have to invest in innovation we have to understand the whole thing and the industry can help us creating wealth and jobs Absolutely, you think it is an issue though that the general public, I am speaking generally does think of mining as simply holes in the ground and don't necessarily understand what goes into mining for example the finance, the research all of this stuff that most people first of all might not even know exist or at least not understand I think Bill this is a very good question what you are asking we ourselves have to do a lot more go and reach out to the communities and tell them all the good work we are doing you should go to mining companies normally there are a lot of good things happening underground even automation, all the trucks are going a lot of things are happening but we are not done enough probably to go and give the message we are creating the wealth, we have to go and tell people all the good work we do and we support communities in a very distant location and we should feel very proud of what we are doing Canada is not Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal we are supporting industries in chimneys industries in Nunavut or alone life and the mining industry is keeping Canada together jobs are not always in Toronto and Vancouver mining industry is not always in Vancouver, Valdor or Agrivo Eagle when they do in Nunavut or people from Montreal all the skilled workers from Montreal go and run the gold operation in Nunavut so they are uniquely qualified but maybe we have to take the message more and more to the community and tell them how blessed we are in Canada a bit more effort from the mining perspective that's my opinion that's true because in a second there is a hiccup or something that's what the media likes, they never like to share the good things it's not as interesting absolutely, we will look at what some of the companies have done companies like Barrick started as a small company today is one of the world's best and companies like Sherry in anywhere in the world you go they use Sherry technology so we should feel very very proud of Hatch one of the best engineering companies in the world and it is not just a booking manoeuvres Hatch does also technology so we have lots of gems amongst us and we have to go and tell this to the world how good we are and how we are aggressively saying we can deliver the solution efficiently question on a completely different topic here throw your career and that might have changed how present or absent were women but you started in chemistry which is unique maybe there were more women, I don't know can you say when I went to England my association with faculty of chemistry I moved on to Menace Engineering when I went to England see during those years I used to take myself and Alan Rosalor used to take students for field trips but in the cage they will never take women underground things are changing now so barely years engaging you know women in some of these department but things are changing even the university population you see a lot more women coming into engineering faculty you know many years back there was not the case so things are changing and also now you have got people from different parts of the world coming that also is giving you different perspective of how things are happening you know Peggy Witte who hired me to come to Anta Research Foundation you know she was a metallurgist and ready but not enough women women are say 50% of the population of women but that is not totally reflected in natural resources what are you proudest of in life let's say in your professional life if there's a few that's ok as well probable whether it's a great achievement or a patent or a company anything well two things I would say Bill one is getting a Ph.D in chemistry from Bombay University when I became a lecturer in house engineering in 1972 at Birmingham University I felt you know somebody coming with a chemistry degree from a foreign university getting recognized for in English that was something then the second thing Bill I failed is you know in Canada how Canada is very welcoming people coming from elsewhere and I was able to put together a team of people and form this company a small company but still the opportunity came and that company today is in the field of innovation for the knowledge economy so somebody who got off the boat in 1974 in this country has come a long way to participate in creating wealth and giving jobs so giving back to the community that I failed Bill is pretty rewarding Canada is one of the very few countries in the world where it could be doing and I also make it a point when I hire people new immigrants give them work experience then they can go anywhere they want then of course some of the other things what is happening now Bill using your technology whether it is you see these companies going to be producing titanium dioxide or nickel or water these are all things that you continuously passionately chase innovation and the innovation to make solution but these companies have to run, make money and happen that is a story but it is a process so till all these companies commission and run I cannot say anything but it is an opportunity to take it to the market what happens afterwards is do you still work full time you guys in these fields don't like to retire as long as you can continue to engage and be productive that is very important it is a private company and if you cannot fully keep yourself engaged and make it productive then you should just get out and tell how it is happening Alex McLean is director of my company so people like Alex he is an amazing guy very nice guy I interviewed him as well also I interviewed him with Alex it gives me an opportunity to meet his students what you have taught a few times now you have taught in Birmingham as well is there a specific class or a thing that you like to teach that really stays with you see in the area I focus on separation technologies separation technologies whether it is primary role or secondary with separation whether making a product or separation to make water clean or some solid materials on toxic so it is a separation technology but whether it is for environmental purpose or course and you know you know after on to the class I was doing environmental management second separation and if you were to speak to someone much younger like a student for example what would be the one piece of advice or life lesson you could give them right now about their professional future one thing I would say is you have to be a good team player you have to be very communicative the skills you learn in the university gives you you know a job but how you move on your job depends on how efficient are you in communicating and be a team player so you know one advice I would give to anybody is make sure that you work with people understand people and make the project a success you know enough that you are an Einstein but it should be more like Grisky working with people receiving the park and scoring so the team is winning you know I always compare tennis and hockey in tennis, McEnroe may be winning it is only McEnroe but when you go to hockey or basketball it is a team sport you have to have good feet so the guy can score put the puck so what is very important in today's world is soft skill is very important you need to have a strength in your mind but you also have to be a good team player cooperation very important thank you, is there anything else you would like to add or share something thank you very much thank you