Vale executive receives honour – by Star Staff (Sudbury Star – March 8, 2013)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

A senior Vale executive in Sudbury has received the second annual Women in Mining Canada National Trailblazer Award. Samantha Espley, Vale’s general manager of mines and mill technical ser vices for its Ontario operations, was honoured during this week’s Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada conference in Toronto.

“I am humbled and honoured to receive this prestigious award from (Women in Mining) Canada,” Espley said in a release. “Mining has allowed me to have a challenging and rewarding career, and I think it’s incumbent on female professionals to promote mining as an attractive career choice to the next generation of young Canadian women.

“I look forward to seeing more women occupy senior management roles in our industry through the work of WIM and other industry partners.”

Espley graduated 25 years ago with an engineering degree. Since then, she has held a number of positions, including for the former Falconbridge Ltd. (now Xstrata) at its Quebec and Sudbury operations. She joined the former Inco (now Vale) in 1990, where she has held roles of increasing responsibility.

As GM of mines and mill technical services, she leads a multi-disciplinary group of more than 200 mining and mineral processing engineers, geologists, metallurgists, technologists and other technical staff supporting Vale’s mining and milling operations in Sudbury.

She is a past-president and a founding director of WISE Sudbury (Women in Science & Engineering), a past member of the board of trustees for Science North, a long-standing member of CIM and has been an executive member of the CIM Sudbury Branch.

She is a newly appointed board member for the Bharti School of Engineering at Laurentian University.

In her personal time, Espley has a passion for horses and has completed several special interest courses through the Equine Sciences program at the University of Guelph.

Her husband, Marc Boudreau, is the president and CEO of BESTECH. Together, they have raised four children — the eldest two (Amy and Eric) are pursuing science and engineering degrees like their parents — while the younger two (Kate and Miranda) are excelling through high school in a specialized science and technology education program.

For the original version of this article, please go to the Sudbury Star website: http://www.thesudburystar.com/2013/03/07/vale-executive-honoured