Building the mining cluster: building awareness key to evolving mining in North.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: SUDBURY

The Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Services Association (SAMSSA) turned 10 years old Jan. 1, a milestone for the Northern Ontario mining cluster that brought a wry smile to the face of its executive director.

"Who said we'd never make it?" said Dick DeStefano at the association's annual general meeting on Dec. 4. "That doesn't happen because one or two people do it; it's because everybody sees value in building what we want to sell worldwide and we have to compete."

And SAMSSA continues to expand its influence. Closing out its 2012 year, memberships with the association are up 10 per cent over last year, the organization is bringing in web-advertising revenue for the first time, and there is a comfortable $46,000 surplus in the bank.

Kirk Petroski, president of SAMSSA's board of directors, said the cluster is successful because of the partnerships it's established that help bring technology to market. Innovation institutions, government agencies, financial institutions, post-secondary institutions, research and commercialization agencies all work together to foster the success of local innovations.

"The cluster has given me and many others the opportunity to build a business, to create a technology, bring it to market and, most of all, make meaning in what we do," he said.

Filling the gap in skilled trades will be integral to the cluster's continuing success, and Laurentian University is poised to play an active role in closing that gap with the establishment of the Goodman School of Mines. Laurentian announced the creation of the school last year, followed by the announcement of a significant endowment by Ned Goodman, CEO of Dundee Corporation.

But other city initiatives are also taking place.

Vicki Jacobs sought to gain support for the Greater Sudbury Learning City Initiative, which seeks to address the skills gap in the city.

There is a large number of people who are unemployed, or unemployable, leaving a number of skilled jobs vacant, said Jacobs, the initiative's chair Sudbury boasts top-quality daycare services, libraries and post-secondary institutions, but has lower literacy rates, fewer high school graduates and fewer people with university degrees than the rest of the province.

"We live in a community where you can earn a lot of money with very little education, but when jobs or technologies change, or if a career change is required, people here often have trouble adapting," Jacobs said. "Why is that? Maybe they've lost their...