Chris Hinde qualified as a mining engineer (with a BSc and PhD) from the University of Wales, Cardiff. He joined Anglo American Corp in South Africa, and worked for a few years at its Western Deep Levels gold mine. He subsequently worked for two consultancy companies (in South Africa with Johannesburg-based SRK, and in the UK with Maidenhead-based Golder Associates).
Dr Hinde joined the editorial staff of Mining Journal in 1984, leaving 30 months later to join the stockbroking subsidiary of Schroder Merchant Bank as a mining analyst. He rejoined Mining Journal at the end of 1987, and was subsequently appointed a director of the publishing company.
Edmund Sides is a geologist with over 25 years of experience in mineral exploration and mining. His work has covered most stages of the mining cycle, from grass-roots exploration through to production. As well as all the usual hands-on range of geological fieldwork tasks around the globe, Dr Sides has played an active role in the development of computer-based applications for use in resource modelling and the management of digital geological databases for exploration and resource evaluation.
In his current role as principal geologist in AMEC’s Mining Services group, based in the UK, Dr Sides specialises in the incorporation of geological controls into mineral resource estimates. He has lectured widely on this topic. AMEC has more than 2,100 engineering, technical and environmental specialists working on mining projects around the world. AMEC advances projects from concept to closure, and operates from offices across North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa
Professor Phillip Crowson graduated from Cambridge in 1961 with first-class honours in economics. After ten years working as an economist in various companies in the UK chemical industry, he joined the economics department of what was then Rio Tinto Zinc Corp. He became head of department, and the company’s chief economist in May 1981, a position he held until his retirement at the end of 1996.
Mr Crowson was an invited director of the London Metal Exchange until 2000, and still chairs one of its committees. He is an honorary professor and a professorial research fellow at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee, and has continued to add to his many published papers and articles.