26 April 2018

Samantha Espley has been a CIM member and working in the Canadian mining industry for more than 25 years | Courtesy of Vale. She currently works with Stantec. 

Montreal, QC, April 25 2018 – The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) is proud to announce that its new Incoming President Elect for 2020-2021 will be Samantha Espley, Vale’s former Director of the Technical Excellence Centre of Mining and Mineral Processing.

“I feel honoured to be asked to lead CIM. It’s an amazing feeling,” said Espley, who is looking forward to the learning opportunity this position will provide her. “A big question now is how the Canadian mining industry can stay competitive in the global industry. I think CIM can play a major role in that, and I’m excited to be a part of it.”

Espley has been a member of CIM since she was an engineering student at the University of Toronto in the 1990s.  She has been a dedicated Branch member in Toronto and Sudbury, serving on the Sudbury Branch executive for several years as well as a board member of CIM’s Global Mining Standards and Guidelines group.

“We are delighted that Samantha will be joining the Presidents Council along with Roy Slack, Incoming President 2019-2020. She brings strong operational and CIM experience, as well as demonstrated leadership in key areas of interest to CIM and its members, namely safety, diversity, productivity and R&D,” says Janice Zinck, CIM President 2018-2019.

Espley is very active in the mining community as a board member of MIRARCO and the Canada Mining Innovation Council and a past member of the executive board of Engineers Canada, Science North and the Sudbury branches of Women in Science and Engineering and Professional Engineers Ontario. She is the Vale industry representative with CEMI and UDMN with a strong focus on research and development projects to enable safe deep mining. Espley also gives back to her alma mater by acting as chair of the Bharti School of Engineering at Laurentian University. 

“Over her career, Samantha has been recognized nationally and internationally for her professional work and her commitment to advance the careers of other women. She is an exceptional choice as incoming President Elect for CIM, and I’m sure will make many positive contributions during her tenure to the mining industry as a whole,” said Conor Spollen, VP Technology and Development at Vale.

“I love the mining industry. It’s like a family,” said Espley. This feeling of family is particularly strong for Espley, whose father and uncle both worked in the industry. Now Espley has raised her own mining family with her son working as a heavy machinery technician at Vale and two of her daughters pursuing mining engineering.