The Sustainable Minerals Institute Podcast
Oct 6, 2026 · 28 min · 8 segments
SMI Director Professor Rick Valenta talks to founding SMI Director Don McKee about the early days of the Sustainable Minerals Institute, which officially began in April of 2001.
Rick ValentaHost
Today I'm sitting here with, with, uh, Don McKee, the inaugural director of, of the SMI, which was established in, um, or announced, uh, and officially began in April of, of, uh, 2001 after a Queensland Government announcement of a $10 million grant, which is $20 million in today's money, in, uh, in 2000.
Um, go back to about 1990 or 1991, uh, there were three centers which were broadly worked with the minerals industry within the university.
There was the Julius Kruttschnitt Center, um, been established years before by Albin Lynch.
There was one called the Center for Mined Land Rehabilitation, which lived in the then Agricultural Sciences Department or something of that name.
And there was the WH Bryan Mining Geology Research Center, which sat in the Earth Science Department.
Um, the very first thing that happened was the establishment of the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Center.
And in actual fact, it was Mike Hood, who had... was then the, um, director of the CRC for Mining Technology and Equipment, subsequently to become, um, CRC Mining, who said to me one day, he said, "You know, if, if there's a topic that's there for development, it's mining safety." And so I ran with that.
Um, and what happened was a number of companies were approached to put money into a center to look at, broadly speaking, mining safety.
And I went around the country asking people, asking the big companies to put in significant dollars to establish the center.
Ab- nobody really had a clue as to what to do or how to go about it, despite the fact a lot of people had an interest in safety, obviously.
It was also clear that the industry itself didn't really know how to go about this or what to focus on.
But, so what the university offered, what we really offered, was a promise that we would find a person to run a center.
Which, which is sort of also part of the DNA of the JKMRC, isn't it? You were never, never scared in those days of identifying a problem and saying, "Well, we don't have a, an established skill in that area, but hell-
We got a lot of applicants, and Jim Joy was appointed, and what a wonderful decision that turned out to be.
Uh, Jim, um, had, at the time, he was running a risk, his own risk management business in Sydney.
Today I'm sitting here with, with, uh, Don McKee, the inaugural director of, of the SMI, which was established in, um, or announced, uh, and officially began in April of, of, uh, 2001 after a Queensland Government announcement of a $10 million grant, which is $20 million in today's money, in, uh, in 2000.
Um, go back to about 1990 or 1991, uh, there were three centers which were broadly worked with the minerals industry within the university.
There was the Julius Kruttschnitt Center, um, been established years before by Albin Lynch.
There was one called the Center for Mined Land Rehabilitation, which lived in the then Agricultural Sciences Department or something of that name.
And there was the WH Bryan Mining Geology Research Center, which sat in the Earth Science Department.
Um, the very first thing that happened was the establishment of the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Center.
And in actual fact, it was Mike Hood, who had... was then the, um, director of the CRC for Mining Technology and Equipment, subsequently to become, um, CRC Mining, who said to me one day, he said, "You know, if, if there's a topic that's there for development, it's mining safety." And so I ran with that.
Um, and what happened was a number of companies were approached to put money into a center to look at, broadly speaking, mining safety.
And I went around the country asking people, asking the big companies to put in significant dollars to establish the center.
Ab- nobody really had a clue as to what to do or how to go about it, despite the fact a lot of people had an interest in safety, obviously.
It was also clear that the industry itself didn't really know how to go about this or what to focus on.
But, so what the university offered, what we really offered, was a promise that we would find a person to run a center.
Which, which is sort of also part of the DNA of the JKMRC, isn't it? You were never, never scared in those days of identifying a problem and saying, "Well, we don't have a, an established skill in that area, but hell-
We got a lot of applicants, and Jim Joy was appointed, and what a wonderful decision that turned out to be.
Uh, Jim, um, had, at the time, he was running a risk, his own risk management business in Sydney.
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