The Sudbury mining community mourned the loss of two distinguished leaders in October – Walter Curlook and Jim Ashcroft.
Curlook, a former executive vice-president and vicechair of Inco, passed away October 3rd. Ashcroft, a former president of Inco’s Ontario division, passed away October 12th.
Born in 1929 in the Sudbury, Curlook began working part-time at Inco at the age of 15. He went on to earn an undergraduate degree in science and a PhD from the University of Toronto and joined Inco full time as a research metallurgist in 1939.
“Curlook’s technical achievements reflected his knack for converting theories and good ideas into practical applications,” according to a profile on the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame website. He played a key role in the development of a process to roast pelletized nickel sulphide to a granular oxide sinter of less than 0.5% sulphur, and contributed to the construction of Inco’s fluid bed roasting plant, a breakthrough which improved the feed for Inco’s refineries.
He was instrumental in advancing improvements to the carbonyl process, the introduction of vertical crater retreat mining and the use of automation and computer technology.
Curlook was inducted as member of the Order of Canada in 1996, retired from the industry the following year and went on to serve as an adjunct professor in the Department of Material Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto.
Jim Ashcroft, also began working in the mining industry at the age of 15, but in his native England. A fifth generation coal miner, Ashcroft went on to graduate from Wigan Technical College as a mining engineer, and left the United Kingdom for Sudbury in 1968 for a job at Inco’s Levack Mine.
During his career with Inco, he served as vice-president of mining and milling for the company’s Manitoba division and president of the Ontario division, retiring in 1997.
In retirement, he sat on the boards of several mining companies, including FNX Mining. He also served on the boards of Laurentian University, Science North and Sudbury General Hospital.
