 Okay, so we're about to begin an interview with Joe Ringwald. It is September 2, 2015. We are in Vancouver and the interviewer, as usual, will be William McCray. So, could you please state your full name? Joseph Peter Ringwald. And your age, please. Oh, I'm 56. 56. Still young for going strong. Especially for this project. Yep. Where were you born? I was born here in Vancouver. Okay. And what did your parents do when you were young? My mother primarily raised the four kids. Myself and siblings. And my father was a carpenter and design, construction designer. Okay. And you as a child, what did you do for fun? What were your interests, your go-to activities? Other than sports, it was basically work. What kind of work did you do? Well, I started work for money when I was six, in construction. I'm a first-generation Canadian. My parents are from Europe. And we just had to kind of make ends meet. So, and kind of one way to get away from work was to get involved in sports. So I played a lot of sports growing up. Basically, it was school, sports, and work. Was it working with your dad mostly? Largely. Yeah. I had six, well. And he apprenticed me when I was ten, in construction as well. So, in school, when you were a child, any classes you excelled at or you were really interested in? Most of the sciences. Yeah. Math, sciences, and anything dealing with construction, woodwork, metalwork, that sort of thing. Okay. And so, after high school, what did you decide to do? Which path did you take? Well, that was kind of an interesting situation as well. His interests a little bit in postgraduate or post-secondary school. And what I ended up finding myself was working in the Navy. I needed a little bit of a change, or shall we say, my father figured I needed a bit of a change and some discipline. And I found it in the military and spent a fair amount of time in the Canadian Navy. Was there any pressure or expectation that you were going to do what your dad was doing? I think there's that expectation. Especially with all your experience. That, plus I'm named after him, and he's named after his father. So, it's a kind of line of Joseph's. And when you look at our family history through Germany, it's a very long line of Joseph's. And I think there's that kind of expectation, but I was quite rebellious, particularly in my mid to late teens. And I just kind of found myself in a bit of control through the military. And then eventually, I came back, found my way back to construction. And it was eventually my father that said, you'll go back to school. You will take engineering and you will pay for it yourself. That's the kind of guy who was. And that's what I ended up doing. But I wasn't intending to go into mining. No? So yeah, so what was your, when you first joined the university, what was your? My intention was to become an electrical engineer. Okay. I'd been working for an electrical engineering company for a short time. And that was my objective. That kind of got changed at UBC with a number of friends. And when a number of classmates were in mining, and they asked me to come out to an open house. And I was really quite intrigued with the speakers, the guest speakers from industry. Then they gave me free beer and pizza. So that kind of always helps. Yeah. So that's how I found out I fell into mining. And then I realized that I'd actually grown up collecting rocks. And I had this interest in geology and rocks most of my life. And then I stumbled across mining partly this way. But it was also on a patrol that I was with the Navy up towards Alaska. And we had to shelter from a storm. And it turned out to be a recently shut down mine. And when I was in the mining department, to hear that guest speakers for the open house, there was the picture of the mine. The department eventually gave me that picture. Because that basically was the signal, the full connection. And I've never looked back since then. I love this industry. So what was your first, what would you consider your first official job in the industry? I was hired out of UBC into a company called Lynx Geosystems, who is developing software for resource modeling in my design book. So I helped with the development of that software and the application of it starting in the 80s. And at that time, there was a very in fit part of the industry. Not a lot of people understood that. But it helped a handful of us find our way into numerous projects around the world. What do the technology do exactly? It was design for gathering data and modeling it in three dimensions graphically. So I guess in many respects, I find myself fortunate that I was part of that transition from paper or manual methods of design into the modern technology of computer systems. So understanding computers, but also the software and the development of that technology over the last almost 30 years. It was really quite fascinating to see that transition. And I think there's still people in the industry that struggle with that transition. And it helps us understand the past and the present and their connection. Okay. So could you, I guess, kind of give us an outline of your career? And from there, we'll I'll get some some questions in there. But yeah, just kind of a quick outline of your career. Well, I left links to go back and do graduate studies in what I call geomechanics, rock soil mechanics hydrology to learn more about the rock and the nature of the environment that we're working in. And then a friend of mine and I started our own company, our partnership. I eventually bought him out and started working all over the world on my own in the early 90s. That eventually led to an offer from Placer Dome. And I joined them for a number of years. And that's how I ended up meeting a number of key people that I consider critical mentors in my career in my life. I feel like Placer Dome hired was hired a lot of the people I interview in the part of the country for this project. Well, I think a lot of people recognize that Placer Dome was quite exceptional in mining. And the technical proficiency was was really at the top of the industry. That as well as what I consider that the social sensitivity to mining and the community was very strong in Placer Dome and amongst particularly the mentors that I had. So I worked with Placer until the end of the 90s when the gold price basically collapsed and Placer had to downsize. Then I moved back into consulting but I'm basically back into consulting with in consulting companies. And that eventually led to a job with a junior as an executive. And since 2001 I've largely been involved in consulting groups and juniors in management roles at Amarkt for example. And as executives and leaders in junior companies for the last almost 15 years. And it's been quite exciting. Then I have been fortunate in my career to have worked in a lot of countries and worked on a lot of projects more than a dozen have now gone into operation. So I consider my focus is project development with a slant towards the the social environmental aspects responsible mine development. So that's part of the if you want to call it the indoctrination I got at Placer Dome through that social and environmental sensitivity of what we do. Yeah especially in the 90s it was emerged and here from here as well from Vancouver especially. Yeah and that was it was I in many respects whether you want to call it the alignment of the stars or the fates it needed to come from here. Greenpeace started here in a basement so the movement and the change for the industry needed to start here in basically the same location. It's been a struggle. Some of us started this process of change in the 90s. A very dear friend and colleague of mine Alistair Kent he and I decided to take some initiative as industry professionals and we started doing social responsible industry events and that didn't go up to well with industry in the 90s. We got threatened. We had our jobs threatened. We got chastised a fair amount but we needed to follow this path. What's sorry what's the what was the kind of I guess key I was there a key event or a key moment in your life where you just you decided yeah we should concentrate a lot more on sustainable development. What was the the turning point was in 1998 there was an article in the National Post. I can still quite clearly recall this article so basically a full page in the National Post. The first paragraph or two was about a submarine tailings deposition of a project in the South Pacific and a world-class oceanographer that actually spoken out in favor of this type of disposal or storage of your like the tailings from this particular project. The rest of the page an entire page was land-based in the technology and a personal attack on that oceanographer. That's when Alistair and I realized that there's something wrong with the equation when the media and society pay attention to non-science rhetoric without paying it without trying to understand what's really going on. Yeah so we felt that something needed to be done. It still seems to be happening in a lot of parts of the North America let's say yeah for other things lately. In many respects the our society particularly the Western society is you know I love pre-speech but unfortunately people need to understand that it's also easy to manipulate people and truth is hard to find and some people have labeled me a truth-seeker. I accept the label. I have no problem in seeking the truth and digging wherever is necessary to find the whole truth. Unfortunately not many people want to put in that effort but it is important for us to understand the full truth whether it be about the mining or climate change or whatever let's find it and only then can we actually get on a path of true change rather than change for someone's agenda political power money agendas and everyone has an agenda but we need to do is find those altruistic agendas rather than be self-serving. Yeah so yeah we Alastair and I put on our first CIM event in the late 90s at dinner event it was board-cotted that led us to approach in the CIM National Council to take on a bigger event and they offered us the CIM 2002 annual conference on the condition that one of us went on to the CIM National Council so I became the district vice president for BC and Yukon and the two of us put together the organizing committee and the theme for the 2002 conference which turned out to be the first sustainable development mining conference in Canada and that eventually started to lead into this process of sustainable development corporate social responsibility and the process of change. So what would you consider having a what would you consider big successes in that domain in sustainable development? Well it's not just myself but there's a growing number of people that are paying attention to this and we recognized years ago that the change that we foresaw for this industry is probably not going to happen in our lifetime but we can begin the process of change so I think I consider that a success there's a growing number of people that are determined to change not only the industry but also the image this industry has. As I like to help people understand we're all in it together it's not us and that every human on this planet is completely dependent on mining you can't escape that and it's important that we all understand that dependency you can try to control it if you want to think of it like a drug but really what you need to do is manage the relationship around it and maybe manage our dependencies to some degree rather than always being wasteful. Look at it from not only what we're winning from the ground but what we're throwing into it afterwards as well maybe diminish to that side as well and that it all ties around mining. We call the way from Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age Information Age everything's dependent on this. Absolutely. So this is a foundation of conflict in our human society it's been that way for millennia. Here's an opportunity for Canada to take the leadership role in reconciling that conflict around our natural resources not just for us but for everybody. Maybe we'll get back to that subject a bit later but you had mentioned you know other names and how you're not the only one who's helped in this movement. Do you have any specific people that you consider mentors or or yeah mentors or people really really helped out or or pushed you in these regards. Yeah I'd have to go back to Placer Dome again that's where whether you know you want to credit them or blame those people for inflicting Joe Ringwald on the mining industry. The guy's like Jim Cooney. Jim Cooney is the father of the phrase socialized operate and I consider him a dear mentor and friend. Others Sandy Laird John Wilson the former president of Placer Dome he had the courage to start creating at the corporate level a process of change and social responsibility and sensitivity. That didn't go over well through a diminishing metal price environment. Other guys Jim Gowans was a dear friend and then he rose to a very senior leadership in the industry. Sorry. And now he just backed out of the for a barricade. Yeah yeah just stepped out. Yeah I'd like to know the reasons for it. Jim and all these people that I just mentioned there are men of incredible integrity along with that you know there's that senior level that we all consider mentors and teachers but through the journey as well there are people that I come to consider friends and whether or not you want to consider them from industry or outside of industry there are a number of people that have impact on me. You mentioned Ian Thompson and Susan Joyce they dealt greatly with that the social aspect of the industry but I'm engaged with some tremendous people that some would consider enemies of the industry like Catherine Coomans for mining watch. What an incredible mind and a passion there and I learned so much from her on what that civil society perspective is which many of us in industry gets too distanced from and we need to really pull back to our neighborhood to figure out what that is. So she helped me a great deal with and there are others within civil society in the movements and just friends and neighbors that help help us in industry come down to earth because in the end we're part of civil society too. That's not again it's not an SMA. We all have to come to terms with what we do as an industry and how we impact our neighbors. Were there and I'm sure there were but were there any jobs or projects you did in your career that you consider quite to have been quite dysfunctional? Okay there is one that well there's probably more than one but there's one that that's question holds to mind. I'm not sure I really want to get into all the details but there was one job in particular where I was the vice president and what it eventually led to was a battle on my own personal ethics and integrity and I still considered a turning point in my career in one of the most difficult times in my personal life where for months I had to struggle with the challenge here of accepting a lot of money or walking away from that and in the end for whatever reason through guidance and my faith advisors and so on and my family I decided to walk away from it and part of that my legal advisors convinced me that I had to be a whistleblower. It was very difficult and challenging time but that was a necessity and with this process of social responsibility and corporate responsibility in our industry it's still go at least sorts of behavior is still happening in industry today but it becomes personal challenges for people to face up to them and deal with them head on and I think that was also a critical challenge and change for myself that eventually led to one of those mentors asking me to take over his position on the board of directors for Transparency International Canada which is the group that represents anti-corruption for Canada. I was just about to lead into that because you were on a standards council of Canada's mirror committee for anti-bribery. Could you tell me a bit about that work? Well again I think it came down to that decision about 15 years ago well 12 years ago now to do I go the direction of that monetary or material value or in a different direction. It was a lot of money so it was a difficult decision and I think that really was a defining moment in my life to determine which path I really wanted to follow in life and that eventually door started just opening. The first was they offered to be a director of Transparency International. That eventually led to other doors including helping to create and open up the CSR Center for Excellence with the federal government and with those two relationships I was asked to join the Canadian Mirror Committee for anti-bribery and we're working on the global standard ISO that's the international standard organization for anti-bribery with the multinational group and I think it's important that people whether they chose this path in life of ethics and integrity to from an early stage where they discovered later on in life that they are the people that need to be defining these standards so that it's not a standard that comes out for a particular agenda but for the right reasons. We're we don't necessarily cater to but we I hope we're guiding global norm behavior and some respects responding to that norm behavior. Corruption is an evil that needs to be dealt with and it's not just an evil against people but also directly but also to our entire global financial institutions and wherever we see human rights challenges I can guarantee you're going to see corruption that tied together and unfortunately we have so such a great focus on human rights that we're forgetting about the corruption and we have to deal with human rights but if you get if you're just dealing with the symptoms and not the cause we may not ever ever get to solve the human rights challenges of the world and part of these human rights challenges are tied directly to our industry so let's dig deeper get to the truth and deal with it from the foundational. Do you still do you still work on that committee? No a year ago I had to resign or retire from the board of Transparency International. We are mandated to a maximum of six years on the board okay I guess now I could go back to the board but I'm actually on the expected ministry committee with Transparency International and about a year and a half ago or so we created an anti-corruption workshop that we've now presented a few times and we're expanding that workshop and hopefully presenting it further field not just within Canada but hopefully through Department of Foreign Affairs take it outside of Canada. So who's that workshop specifically aimed for? Anyone in business basically. Anyone in business okay not necessarily mining or in the natural resources. It applies to any group. We try to help people understand anti-corruption compliance and checklist we provide all this information. We have a group of presenters from legal accounting enforcement RCMP is tied in with this government is and those of us that have encountered corruption first hand I've seen corruption first hand from what I call all sectors government industry and civil society groups no one's innocent and every people may not like the statement but everybody has a price none of us are exempt from what I call the corruption continuum that starts with nepotism, collusion, corruption, bribery all the way to extortion it's all one continual and we have to understand how vulnerable we are to that because it's at the core and the root of just a bullet just whatever you believe in the bill. Do you think it's get it's a big it's an issue that's getting better? Yes the last three years in particular there have been a number of events in the world that are drawing greater and greater attention to corruption. So in part of the work that I've done the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act that came into I got Royal Assent in December and came into full force in June of this year some of us worked for years on that my involvement goes back to a member parliament almost four years ago I don't know how he got my name but he called me up and we started talking about a draft bill and that eventually led to industry and civil society working together an unusual event to come up to a common platform that we all agreed on and next thing you know the this government put it through as fast as we expected but this was in my view it was critical for Canada to take a lead role on this transparency which is part of fighting corruption but transparency in particular with the extractive industry and through that process and the and our greater one of the greatest tools that we have for fighting corruption is transparency and one of the greatest industries susceptible to corruption is the extracted industry oil gas mining whether it's real or perception in many cases perception is true we do see these things we're all vulnerable to it but somehow you got to get through this and drawn attention to it is one way to do it one of the analogies we like is mothers against drum driving when I was a teenager is okay to drink and drive basically you could have open drinks in your car and you had pulled over just put it away nowadays largely because of that civil society drawing attention to poor behavior we went through a process change it took 20 30 years yeah yeah you're seen as a pretty bad person today exactly I can drive why can't we do the same thing with respect to corruption draw the attention to it most countries of this plant this world now are doing that is corruption is big business do you think because I mean if we look at the extractive business especially do you think because is or the natural resources industry in general because it is under often under media scrutiny or just the general public scrutiny and because of very easy access to information now and the social media age do you think that's also helped yes lately yeah the people now say large because of a book that came out some years ago the world is flat and it's flat because the information flows instantly and this is actually we all need to embrace this it's a good thing on the condition that the information is at least partially based on fact and we all need to be screwed in years David Suzuki wrote an article about eight years ago with his advice to new high school graduates he's skeptical check your sources and get your information from multiple sources when we're young you have to go into the stacks in the library go through books and books to find information it was hard to get information now the information flows in support of almost any argument so that's important for all of us to be skeptical but not cynical yeah and in doing so we'll eventually get to the truth and those who are the cynics and the ones that are intentionally trying to damage the information and society will eventually be exposed I'll let the information flow now going back a bit earlier in your career as when you were you were for copper north can you right now I'm an advisor right now yeah sorry I'm an advisor to copper north okay you're an advisor I actually my primary role is I'm the CEO of selling resources okay and but that doesn't take being junior in this market right now it doesn't take a ball my time okay so I basically contract someone by time out to copper north and then one other client do you still work full-time or is it kind of a almost semi-retard between three clients right now it's almost full-time okay it's not something that I need to push for right now as an industry and whether it be a personal choice or industry choice things are a little slow yeah yeah I hear I think many of us certainly I am very concerned about the next rise in the industry well we went through in 2004 2005 with a sudden extreme activity in the industry that was difficult this next time around if it's anything happens could be extremely difficult many of us are more than a decade older doing 68 hour weeks for months on end it'll be a bit of a challenge for us older guys well need a lot of these older older guys yeah support us get through this next round yeah do you first see a next round coming sooner yeah yeah I do and you were also your project manager right for copper north right now yeah okay so I'm an advisor and project manager right there okay project in you go okay could you talk a bit about because project manager can be a pretty tough job at times can you talk about the I guess the the good and the bad or the tough and the easy or the successes and the failures of of managing a project for example the one in the UK okay whether it's in a good time or bad time project manager they're always kind of stuck in the middle and I think it also comes down to a personal choice as a project manager what do you really want to focus on with respect to the development of her project some choose to just focus on the technical in my view the technical is actually the easy part of the overall project management you have people to manage but you also have the process and people that often in traditional project development you don't recognize as other people that you need to manage and those are the ones outside the industry so project managers also need to deal with that social licensed operate and that social license operate starts playing your geologists first hit the ground whether it be from geocampo geocampo sample samples or even before then all the way down to my enclosure that's your social license path and project managers need to be sensitive to that you can have the best project in the world but if you fail on your social license you can lose the whole thing and some people have difficulty using the phrase social licensed operate these days I you call it Fred I don't care what you want to call it it's still there you still have to go through a process of not only regulatory acceptance but community acceptance for your project development it would be the same whether you're building a mine or you're building a house in a neighbor densely populated neighborhood it has impact and there are typically going to be somebody that doesn't like it so that falls on the project manager just as heavily as it does on the executives of the proposal there's also I had someone tell me who was also project manager tell me you're not only a project manager as well you could be you know you could be a marriage counselor there's there's everything that has to do with the people that work under you on the project any difficulties or yeah difficulties or stories about about the difficulties of managing the actual people especially in remote areas that can get quite tough as well I've considered myself I very fortunate in working in a lot of countries and largely I think because of the way I was brought up being a first-generation Canadian and so we say not affluent growing up relationships were are important and we and that interaction with people became important from us early on I learned a lot more when I was an officer in the military because you actually have to lead people and encourage them or motivate them to risk their lives in this industry particularly in mining which is a dangerous industry you may not have to take it that far but it is a dangerous industry and they're doing going to do things that they won't always be happy about you don't want to challenge their integrity but sometimes you have to challenge their motivations that happens not only on the ground but it particularly in the development of a project we bring change as an industry that's what we do we develop the infrastructure we develop economic stimulus and that automatically brings change and change is challenging to people which is kind of interesting because we all change every day of our lives but as an industry person to bring a rather large or significant process of change and it's hopefully a choice of change sometimes it's difficult for people to understand that and I've had to deal with that first hand with community people and media in different countries to me I find it exciting it's part of the human element one of my mentors again at Placid Home a very senior person he once said to me and he used to be very senior in Placid Home he once said that he didn't even tell his neighbors around his home what he did largely for peer repercussions amongst his friends and neighbors I thought that was a sad story yeah and then he didn't tell him what he did specifically or at all at all well and he said that if you had his choice to go back in time he would focus on the humanities courses not the science courses because that's basically the way our industry is going and maybe an over over reaction to what we're encountering and what we have been encountering for over a decade but there's some truth to this as leaders in the industry we actually have to become more social than technical the technical is actually quite the easy part these days we're quite adapted this particularly the Canadian my name is a bit more predictable and yes it is we although you get surprises you know you get Taylor's failures and and other issues that surprise you and sometimes that you can throw the engineering work at you can possibly throw at it for whatever cost yes I'm surprised we're dealing with mother nature she has some surprises up her sleeve yeah we saw yeah but the the human element is very difficult to predict and only time and communication and integrity and working with the community that's what you need now speaking of people that have you ever your line of work you ever see any social issues like whether it's violence or drug abuse or things like that or there ever any issues that affected people or yeah or even projects that you worked on boy some good questions yes to all of us I've even had a weapon in my chest about to deal with drug and alcohol abuse my own people had to remove them from site I've seen first-hand corruption and violence break out on sites one project we had a sniper shooting into the office yeah this this and it is not restricted to any particular developing mason or anything like that it happens everywhere it's the human interaction and we're at the core of human society right at the base foundation being mining and providing all the commodities for everything we seem to stimulate certain reactions and people what you do is you face it and deal with it head on as best you can some of it you can deal internally others they have to go external one of them we ended up doing a multinational police investigation including Interpol yeah these things happen unfortunately you know fortunately and unfortunately not all this information comes to light so things like that investigation never did come out because it was felt by the politicians involved as well that it was best to keep it under wraps what one of it was from the legal standpoint because we did keep it all silent and they did eventually find the fraudulent individual in the group that he was associated with but from a legal standpoint there was no financial or physical damage therefore there was no way to prosecute and in fact what we eventually learned was that it was intended for us to go public with this and the damage would actually have fallen on us because who would believe the mining industry and some perceived corrupt politician yeah even though even if we did have the truth some people just don't want to hear the truth so you wonder how many other truths are out there that are being hidden yeah which is again the sad state but right now society is is not want to hear the entire truth in many respects like exciting career I'll tell you keeping on the the the social part of things women were and this might have changed for your career but how absent or present were women in in your career throughout your career when I did my undergrad we were a larger class at UBC and we had two women in our class through the years it the growth in the number of women really hasn't grown beyond that in my view to me that's a sad state I've worked with women they've worked for me and I worked for some and in every case it's been tremendous I've hopefully I hope they consider the inventor or at least a friend some that were going through the graduate studies masters and PhDs that I follow carefully and they are now very successful in the industry and I don't think it has anything to do with my involvement but to watch them develop as professionals has been tremendous a couple of them I wish the industry would pay attention to these young women as potential board members the women that go through this the the industry in this process the ones that warrant recognition because I don't I'm not a I can remember the phrase for it bringing in a race or gender for the sake of adding the numbers or positive affirmative action affirmative action I can't agree with affirmative action but on the the converse of that don't reject somebody because their gender or the race when they have the qualifications and some women that I know put them on the board you'll get some insight that you never expected and I've worked for a couple of companies where the women on the board were actually the intelligent ones on the board and perhaps the more ethical ones so we need to open this industry up to that and encourage them to come in there I don't know if you're able to explain this but there's a I mean women in university that's increased incredibly there's there's more women than men now and it's increased more also in all this the STEM department but there still seems to be less women who go into these fields afterwards do you know why or well I suspect the suspect in our industry particularly a couple things one is it is certainly a male dominated industry and when you get into the operations there's certain carryovers from the old days in the way that men behave on site they may think it is humorous and in some cases you know other men will find it humorous but it's not always respectful not even to other men or women to step into that takes a very special one yeah it's tough right very difficult I wouldn't say it's all that different to what the women who are going through in the RCMP it's a challenge I've seen many do that and those are the women get them on the boards and help them effect the change the to this industry that it needs so that's one the other is it is typically a remote industry you have to be willing to be away and that's difficult on men and women doesn't matter what your gender is it's difficult for me I was fortunate to have a life partner my wife that it was difficult in the early years but eventually she embraced my travel so in our first 30 years we added it up I've been away 12 years so we've been apart she likes to say that's why we're still married but people have to accept that aspect of our industry even if you do in flying fly out near base wherever you have to accept that you're gonna be white and perhaps some women just have a challenge with that accepting that as a premise we're getting into this industry and working the operations even if it's for a few years working in the operation is actually important because it gives you that foundation for making decisions later on in our in your opinion are there any events this is a broader question but are there any events people inventions contributions disasters anything really that that you believe must be mentioned when talking about the modern history of the natural resources in Canada so could be today to the last 100 years or so is are there are there specific things you believe must be mentioned or discussed when talking about the subject I'd have to say from my my personal perspective there there are I think a lot of people will focus in on certain technologies whether it be the advent of the computer technology Canada is responsible for some tremendous stuff particular software that we use in resource development these years these days and there are equipment and modern technologies with remote equipment from my personal perspective I'd like to focus in on policy changes okay I think Canada is a leader in the process of change for the global mining industry from the perspective of policy so whether you call it social licensed operated corporate social responsibility transparency all of these are important to the process of change that the industry must go through we have to recognize that our industry yes we utilize technology that no amount of technology is necessarily going to get you on the ground it is how we approach the the natural resource itself and which includes the communities around it that's how we're going to eventually keep this industry going and we have to keep the industry going for the sake of global civil society because we're in a symbiotic relationship you can't look one cannot live without the other and I believe Canada is a global leader on that social sensitivity on the development of this industry and new policy and new tech and new approaches on what I like to call designing for closure which includes right from the exploration phase construction and operation with the closure and what this project is going to look like after we're done that's where we need to get to many are already on that path and already fully have it haven't integrated but we all need to be there we are temporary users of the land and we must be respectful when we're doing it yeah thank you just a fun question here you said you traveled a lot what what's been your favorite spot spots spots been to all of the continents except that Antarctica but I keep saying one of my favorite countries was Turkey yeah started in Turkey I was a late 80s early 90s my first trip in there yeah and we were I was part of the first internationally owned mining project in Turkey so we had the design group in Germany and then we moved over to Turkey in the early 90s and the curtain had just fallen I was fortunate to have been in Berlin to help knock down the Berlin wall so I got pieces of that and photos of that experience that's a story yeah that was and my father being German then truly a teenage conscript into the German army at the end of the war that had certain appeal to me and resonated well knocking down that wall but in that transition in the early 90s of the curtain coming down northeastern Turkey where we were working went through a tremendous change there was a lot of what they called the Russian markets so a lot of material is coming out of Georgia and other parts of Russia was being sold in at the in Turkey which was the footsteps into Europe so we got to see a lot of change and that was exciting it was exciting to see that process of government control to industry involvement and opening up the industry in Turkey but I thought but most of all the people were amazing these are people of incredible passion and freedom and life in themselves I never felt more alive in the free than in Turkey there's a phrase they say in July trust in God they live that every day of the life so even if you wanted to walk across the street here in Vancouver you walk across between the lights you have to worry about getting a ticket for jaywalking there you're worried about getting hit by a car right your life is in your own heads you're not worried about this law or that it'll are anything like that but if you chose to break the law the circumstances are severe there's no slap on the wrist or anything like that so you really had your life in your own hands you're accountable to yourself and everybody around not to some little rule here or law there anything like that it was real life everything and everything right there's another phrase that learned over there trust in God but tie up your camel right so live your life to the fullest and and we did there there's a brilliant people how long did you stay I was in and out for about three years okay it's really got to know the place oh yeah loved it there what what are you proudest of in life and I mean this can be a tough broad question so we can split it in half if you want to could be proudest of in life in general and also professionally and it could be more than one that's also a tough part I think I really have to tie it all together sure one family member and I had a discussion many years ago basically to illustrate some context he had really talked about how he's different at work from at home I always had a problem with that I don't like to be different at home then from work stresses are different pressures on you and your decisions are different but to me it should be true to yourself and be the same person where we are transparency so I think and it really goes back to somewhat to the way I was brought up but certainly to my military experience and my mentoring through plaster dome and the key decision I have to make the development of the the ethics and integrity which I like to stand for that's what I'm really kind of proud of the technical and the ability in this industry I love doing this but at the that ethic of where we need to go within the industry and perhaps a global society as well that's what I'm most proud of and that's what I'm most protectable it's not just about reputation you know people will attack the reputation of the best of people and I'm not saying I'm one of those but we must protect our principles as a global society I'd like to think of myself as a social capitalist I believe in the people the global village Marshall McClure as global village I believe in that we're all the same at the core of who we are as humans on this this little globe but we also have to recognize that you can't run this world on debt and to generate I'll use left right and center is not being responsible and that's not ethical so sometimes part of this equation is just being patient but you can be patient without being rude and you can work with people without having to be wealthy the same time nothing along with making money it's how you make it and how you spend it that really defines the individual last question if you were speaking to someone much younger like a student for example what would be the life lesson or the one piece of advice you could give them going forward if it was a student in in our industry particularly for the engineering students recognize that you may have got your degree but it'll take a life to determine for you to become an engineer recognize that by choosing this path to be becoming a professional engineer and it's unfortunate that in some professional engineering associations they have to mandate professional development requirements when those of us from your the started years ago you make a commitment to that when you be when you choose to become an engineer when you retire that's when you're an engineer in the meantime live and learn and never stop thank you is there is there anything else you'd like to add or share I think it's just whoever is watching to me this is one of the the most profound and important industries the world has to offer done right a mine a responsible mining operation can benefit locally and globally and it's important for all of us to recognize that this industry is at the foundation for all of us at the same time we must recognize that as global citizens we have a duty and responsibility to understand the industry and give its respect and space to deliver what it needs to for all of us to survive we're in it together well thank you my pleasure