As an older member of The AusIMM, I received my 30 year Pearl Award' in June and had my 50th birthday two weeks ago, I am honoured to be here today. I thank those responsible for their confidence in me and in my ability to hopefully hold captive a broad group of individuals who are here as equals, sharing an interest, no a passion in blasting technology and associated works_x000D_
over the two days you will hear some excellent operational and technical presentations I am sure. But today I will digress; I want to talk about the importance of leadership and how it indeed can be the catalyst for success, improvement and change._x000D_
There has been much written about leadership, its principals, the charismatic leaders, the do's and don'ts and so on_x000D_
and I for one am not about to give you the Holy Grail; there are many experts with greater wisdom than I on this subject matter. What I do want to do is explore the application of this passion to examples within the world stage and some examples drawn from my experience in mining.