"The more efficient you are, the quicker you're out of business."JOHN GAMMON Assistant Deputy Minister Ministry of Northern Development and Mines Age: 64 Residence: Sudbury Sudbury, city, Canada Sudbury, city (1991 pop. 92,884), central Ont., Canada. It is the center of Canada's largest mining region, which produces much of the world's nickel and large quantities of copper, platinum, gold, silver, cobalt, and sulfur. Q Describe your perfect day. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "It's it's 1. Contraction of it is. 2. Contraction of it has. See Usage Note at its. it's it is or it has it's be ~have one that's here in Sudbury than in Toronto. My job obviously takes me down there every week, so I really relish the day where I get to be like normal people and go home to my family in the evening. "The other characteristic is the incoming mail, e-mails, telephone calls and questions from my staff presenting issues to me to resolve and when it's fairly clear what's the right thing to do and I can steer steer castrated male cattle beast over a year of age. See also bullock, buller steer. steer bulling see bulling. steer Medtalk verb a clear course, make the right decisions and give the right advice, because the resolution is very clear ... when there's a day like that, it's a very satisfying one ... "I'm looking forward to retirement in a couple of years, but right now the perfect day is one where I feel I've achieved something." Q Ever take a spectacular risk? (how did it turn out?) "In the mid '90s, we were faced with massive cutbacks in the Ontario public service and had to lay off between 40 and 50 per cent of my staff. It was a difficult time and one of the risks I took was turning my back on a hundred years of tradition about mining and the way it's administered in Ontario. We had nine mining recorder's offices scattered Scattered Used for listed equity securities. Unconcentrated buy or sell interest. around the province ... I closed all nine, had to lay off most of the staff, but I kept 25 per cent of them, centralized cen·tral·ize v. cen·tral·ized, cen·tral·iz·ing, cen·tral·iz·es v.tr. 1. To draw into or toward a center; consolidate. 2. them in Sudbury and we computerized computerized adapted for analysis, storage and retrieval on a computer. computerized axial tomography see computed tomography. all existing records, developed a computer GIS (1) (Geographic Information System) An information system that deals with spatial information. Often called "mapping software," it links attributes and characteristics of an area to its geographic location. system for the claim maps, and now we're winning international awards for the way we do it. Our information is available 24 hours a day ... updated overnight, and we ended up with a system that is immeasurably im·meas·ur·a·ble adj. 1. Impossible to measure. See Synonyms at incalculable. 2. Vast; limitless. im·meas better with only 25 per cent of the staff delivering it." Q What will keep Northern Ontario's mining industry sustainable? "The obvious answer is exploration. The more efficient you are, the quicker you're out of business ... the mining industry faces a lot of challenges that other industries don't. Exploration is fundamental, and in our ministry we focus a great deal on that front end with 3,000 active prospectors in the province, and they feed 300 or 400 junior exploration mining companies that raise speculative capital, do the drilling and pass them on to the big multinational companies that develop them. It's a flow chain that we've got to keep alive (and) it's really operating well at the moment. "The other part of the answer is value-added ..." |
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