Fine state of affairs.

Community leaders in mining, construction, health and sciences, tourism, and other sectors presented a series of state-of-the-union addresses at the Sudbury: today and tomorrow conference in October.

Parvis Farsangi, Falconbridge Ltd.

The days of discovering the next huge nickel ore bodies of 50 million tonnes or more in the. Sudbury basin are likely over, says Parvis Farsangi, general manager of Falconbridge's mines/mill business unit.

So with their reserves expected to be depleted by 2008-09, the company has set about going after smaller, high-grade deposits, while struggling to keep their operating and employee benefit costs under control.

About a year-and-half ago, Falconbridge changed the focus of their reserve development project by stopping their search for the next big mega-ore body, simply "because we haven't found it for the last 25 years," Farsangi says. Instead, the company decided to concentrate on smaller deposits, of five million tonnes.

"We have a few exciting ones and there are more coming," says Farsangi, mentioning their Onaping Deep project and Fraser Morgan, a smaller ore body of three million to four million tonnes.

In order to pursue these ore bodies and others, such as Nickel Rim South, near the Greater Sudbury Airport, Falconbridge management and union executives have been focusing on finding greater efficiencies, working to shave about $24 per tonne off its mine and milling costs for new mines.

Falconbridge has also engaged in some breakthrough projects by concentrating, on "operational excellence" with some rapid tun nelling processes to get down thousands of metres to the ore much faster.

However, benefit costs, Farsangi admits, out of hand," and although Falconbridge wants good employee benefits on the $56 million it annually pays out, it will strive to bring administrative costs under control.

Farsangi explains there are a multitude of changes and challenges facing the company, and although change is never easy, co-operation with labour is vital if Falconbridge is be sustainable.

Dr. Roger Strasser, Northern Ontario Rural Medical School

No bones about it, health care is an important issue on the minds of Canadians right now, says Dr. Roger Strasser, the founding dean of the Northern Ontario Rural Medical School, and a time of change presents opportunities for new developments and approaches.

Strasser, with his background in rural medicine in Australia, is heading up the joint venture between Lakehead University and Laurentian University, expected to be a corporate legal entity within a month.

A proposal outlining the business case of the medical school is now at Queen's Park providing the government with the information needed to make the funding allocation.

Until the money comes through in the next couple of months, Strasser, as the school's only faculty member, has begun the search for other senior academic physicians, whom he hopes to have in place. by year's end.

The medical school "will be a school like no other," he says, grounded in the North with features incorporating the region's cultural distinctness and specializing in the treatment and research of the area's illnesses, injuries and clinical challenges.

In fostering, relationships with school boards, they will be seeking medical school applicants likely to thrive in the northern environment and hope to encourage high school students to visualize themselves as potential future physicians

By drawing upon his experience in rural Australia, Strasser seeks to implement a community-based medical education plan by placing students with rural and family practitioners to gain real world experience.

Communications and the use of information technology, such as videoconferencing, will deliver the same access to education as if students were attending a major hospital.

Already Sudbury recruiters find it easier to attract physicians to the area because of the medical school, and the institution itself should provide 100 direct jobs across the region and many more in hospitals, universities, through research and new enterprises.

Ron Arnold, Dalron Construction

Local builders see great potential for their industry, particularily if Sudbury catches on to some emerging trends and opportunities in the retirement and vacation property sector and prepares for them.

"Things are good and getting better," says Ron Arnold, president of Dalron Construction.

Locally, the homebuilding industry is already robust with the number of building permits issued this year by the City of Greater Sudbury expected to top out at 300, says Arnold.

He presented hopeful expectations for 2003 and beyond, predicting that prices for high-end homes and waterfront properties should climb as major employers such as Inco continue to hire new people and retirees return home.

Arnold notes that new homebuyers are different from those of a few years ago. About 50 per cent of the homes they are building are sold to incoming young professionals, such as teachers, doctors, engineers, geologists, miners and police officers.

"We're seeing the results of new growth. Whereas five years ago, everybody was cutting back. What we're seeing is just about everybody is in hiring mode."

The cottage construction sector also holds great potential as more southerners search for vacation properties north of the French River. That migration should eventually lead them to Sudbury, and the city should be ready to market themselves as a vacation spot.

Looking at the community's demographics, Arnold says Sudbury has not fully recognized the wealth of opportunity in the retirement industry. Currently 1150 Sudburians are employed in the long-term care sector with many others working in assisted living and other home-care support roles, he says.

"Our expectation is that over the next five years that will probably double so the retirement industry will be one of the larger employers in the community," says Arnold.

Many new homeowners are Sudbury retirees who have relocated from warmer climes of British Columbia and Florida, and the community's focus should be on promoting the city as a good place to retire.

"That creates a lot of jobs for younger people."

Richard Walker, RePower Canada

With the federal government pushing Kyoto, RePower Canada views itself on the forefront of an attractive energy alternative in wind-generated power, says Richard Walker, who serves on the fledgling company's board of directors.

Using Sudbury as its North American base, RePower Canada is the Canadian subsidiary of a German parent company that is establishing a wind-power technology manufacturing facility in Sudbury as part of a 90-job joint venture project with some local partners. Walker says the growth rate of wind energy globally is expected to increase 32 per cent over next five to 10 years.

RePower, which is active in the German market as a developer of wind parks, foresees opportunities in the near future to do the same in North America having launched a globalization strategy with Sudbury as its manufacturing centre.

They are working with the City of Greater Sudburyas one of the city's partners on its 50-megawatt project development and have further cultivated a relationship with Science North for their upcoming Dynamic Earth project.

They also intend to tap into the collective brainpower of Laurentian University researchers to develop new technology for turbines installed in cold climate environments.

In the job market, Walker anticipates there will be plenty of spinoff opportunities for local companies specializing in engineering, marketing, research and development, tower manufacturing, installation, service and maintenance.

Dr. Magdy Basta, Neureka Research Corp.

Like the biotechnology industry itself, Neureka Research Corp. has experienced phenomenal growth in the development of a flourishing health and science cluster in Greater Sudbury.

Since starting from scratch as a small enterprise four years ago with only one clinical trial, Neureka has grown to conduct 63 trials in 2001, dealing with more than 30 pharmaceutical companies and handling 880 patients.

Specializing in clinical research and biotechnology, Neureka has a clearly defined mission statement to develop a new type of business in the health and sciences sector.

Neureka has positioned itself as a co-ordinating centre between the pharmaceutical industry, research institutes, hospitals and regional physicians.

"In the last three years, we've proved we can do it," says Basta, noting the company's intention to establish a new identity for Sudbury as a northern centre for biotechnology and clinical research.

Located on the campus of Laurentian University at the Willet Green Miller Centre, Neureka has expanded to 7,000 square feet of research space, and doubled the number of employees within the last year to 32 full and part-time staff. The company is in the midst of conducting clinical trials for just about every major pharmaceutical company in North America.

"There is no single pharmaceutical company or research institute we don't have at least one contract with," says Basta.

As well, they have assembled a networking team of 72 physicians in Sudbury and across Northern Ontario participating in many aspects of clinical research.

Revenues have similarly jumped from a paltry $16,000 in 1998 and $200,000 in 1999 to $930,034 to date, with an objective of $1.3 million by year's end.

Plans are afoot to expand their research clinics from Sudbury and Timmins to Sault Ste. Marie, North Bay and Thunder Bay by the end of next year.

Dorothy Cayen, Inco Ltd.

Though poised for worldwide growth with pending mine projects at Voisey's Bay and Goro, New Caledonia, Inco remains committed to Sudbury for generations to come, says its general manager of finance, Canadian operations.

Beginning in 2006, Voisey's Bay concentrate will be processed in Sudbury over a five-year or more period in an arrangement that will provide a high-quality, low cost source of feed for the mill, says Dorothy Cayen.

The world's largest nickel producer is on a hiring spree, recruiting 300 new employees a year in Sudbury to replace an aging, retiring workforce and is investing $11 million annually in new exploration programs in the Sudbury basin, its highest expenditure in 30 years.

Having celebrated its centennial anniversary in Sudbury earlier this year, Cayen says bringing new ore bodies at Totten and Kelly Lake into eventual production represent their "key to the future."

On the environmental front, Cayen says Inco has made "great strides" over the years to clean up its image on its ongoing community partnership efforts to regreen barren lands in Copper Cliff and Coniston, as well as spend $100 million to lower its SO2 stack emissions by a further 50 to 60 kilotonnes to meet a new control order limit of 175 kilotonnes.

Inco is also a stakeholder in a joint effort with Falconbridge, the city, the district health unit and various government agencies in conducting a soils study of the Sudbury area to better understand and address its "industrial legacy."

But predictions on the future depends on the fluctuating commodity markets, says Cayen.

"If anyone can tell me what the nickel price will be at this time next year, come see me about a job," she says. "When additional costs are thrust upon us, we cannot recoup those costs by raising the price of-our product."

Their best forecast is a strengthening nickel market for the next three or four years with growing demand and no other new major nickel projects coming on line except Voisey's Bay and Goro.

Ray Hirani, Vista Hotels Inc.

Putting a new face on a rundown mall to entice shoppers back downtown from the big box power shopping centres is the aim of the new owners of the former Sudbury City Centre-Eaton's property.

Ray Hirani, the mall manager of the renamed Rainbow Outlet Centre, says parent company Vista Hotels, which purchased the mall and adjoining Ramada Inn last summer, did their homework by analysing local shopping trends and soliciting community feedback to come up with a new conceptual shopping experience.

"We want to do something similar to Cookstown, with brand names at reasonable prices, and Sudbury is known as a thrift place to shop," says Hirani.

"Sudbury people spend a lot of money on retail, they're just not spending it here."

In deciding to ditch their flashy Toronto-designed renovation plans after it was mapped out following public consultation sessions, Vista hired local architect Dennis Castellan, and together they came up with a new shopping concept known as Rainbow Outlet Centre.

In deciding on a theme, they went with an interior that incorporates flags, trellises and skylights to bring the outdoors inside.

The mall's facade on Elm Street will be lined with sidewalk restaurants and cafes situated in an enlarged drop-off area designed to encourage more vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

The adjoining Frontenac Hotel property has been purchased to provide "front door parking," hopefully relieving a ongoing deterrent felt by many Sudburians from patronizing downtown businesses.

"Having people at the front (presents) a cleaner image of that brick, prison fortress and is also going to make it more friendly and get rid of some of the riff-raff that everybody associates with the old City Centre name - it's an old big box, people hanging out, bums all around. We're hoping something like this will change that."

Inside the mall, tenants will be a mixed bag of retail, professional office space, a fitness-club, which just recently opened, and "some form of entertainment complex" to cater to all ages. Vista is also in talks with two companies to bring a grocery store and pharmacy to the mall.

Combined with the renovations to the hotel, Vista is working with the city on a joint partnership for a convention centre. The second floor of the former Eaton's store has been converted into temporary convention/trade show and has hosted a number of "very successful" events, including a September women's fair.