Dimmell new PDAC president

Former Noranda geologist Peter Dimmell is the new president of the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada.

Dimmell, who won the PDAC’s Distinguished Service Award in 2002, succeeds outgoing president William Mercer.

Dimmell was first elected to the PDAC board in 1995 and is the first of its presidents to hail from outside Toronto. He was born in England.

After attending the University of New Brunswick from 1965 to 1969, where he was the president of the Bailey Geological Society, Dimmell joined Noranda and spent the next 17 years there. He later jumped ship to Lacana, which was later bought by Homestake in 1992. Since then, he has been a mineral exploration consultant, working internationally and throughout eastern Canada.

Dimmell has been a long-time volunteer in the industry. He was a member of the New Brunswick Prospectors & Developers Association from 1982 to 1986, serving as president for one year, and later became the PDAC’s New Brunswick regional representative.

In 1989, when he moved to Newfoundland, where he still resides, he became the regional representative for that province.

Dimmell joined the PDAC board in the mid-1990s, and when second vice-president Dennis Prince of Falconbridge died suddenly, he volunteered to take his place.

In other news, long-time PDAC volunteer Patricia Dillon has been elected by the PDAC board as its second vice-president.

Dillon has been a director of the PDAC since 1993, chair of its education committee, and a member of several other committees. She helped establish the Mining Matters educational program.

Born in Toronto, Dillon graduated from the University of Toronto in 1974 with a bachelor of science degree, specializing in mining. After receiving her bachelor of education degree in 1976, she went on to teach science to grade 9, 10 and 11 students in the greater Toronto Area, while working for Teck in the summer.

She has worked for the company since accepting a full-time offer from Teck in 1979. She is now the manager of corporate relations for Teck Cominco.

Serving on the PDAC board is a new slate of directors elected or re-elected at the association’s annual meeting. They include: Jon Baird, Lynda Bloom, Donald Bubar, Joe Hamilton, Colin McKenzie, John Paterson, Mark Smith, Karen Sutherland and Herve Thiboutot of Toronto; Normand Champigny, Andre Gaumond and Anne Slivitzky of Montreal; Al Doherty of Whitehorse, Y.T.; Albert Schafer of Salt Lake City, Utah; and Ian Thomson of Vancouver.