Sudbury mining supply pioneer dies.

PositionMINING

Robert "Bob" Lipic, a pioneer in Sudbury's mining supply community, died July 4. The cause is unknown. He was 70. Lipic spent 50 years in the mining industry, mostly recently as president and CEO of Mining Technologies International (MTI), the company he sold to Milwaukee-based Joy Global Inc. for $51 million in April 2014.

Lipic won three Northern Ontario Business Awards for Company of the Year with Drillex International in 1994, as Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006, and Exporter of the Year in 2012.

He was inducted into the Sudbury Area Mining Supply and Service Association's (SAMSSA) Hall of Fame in 2008.

Born in Welland in August 1944, Lipic graduated from the Haileybury School of Mines in 1966 where he studied to become a field geologist.

He worked for mining consultants for several years, and in 1971 moved to Copper Cliff, outside Sudbury, where he worked for Ontario Equipment and sold rock bits before transferring to Smith International in 1974 for the next 10 years.

In 1984, the company asked if he would transfer to California as their Canadian division trimmed down.

Instead of accepting the offer, Lipic asked if he could buy the Canadian division. By the next year, he was able to negotiate a deal with Smith International, and in 1986 founded Drillex International.

In 1995, he bought Continuous Mining Systems, which became Mining Technologies International, or MTI.

At that time, the company had 28 employees in its manufacturing division. Through international mining equipment sales, that number expanded to 500 employees in 2012. The company made more than $100 million in revenues that year.

To pursue those international sales, Lipic travelled to more than 45 countries throughout his career, and put his own safety at risk on more than one occasion.

While travelling by car in the southern Philippine islands in the early 1990s, he took gunfire from Communist...

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