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Goodman School of Mines fireside chat yields inspirational career stories
In 1991, Catherine McLeod-Seltzer and Eira Thomas embarked on journeys that would separately launch their careers in mine development and discovery. In 2015, the women celebrated together as their company, Lucara Diamonds, unearthed a softball-sized diamond in Botswana.
The third largest diamond ever discovered signified the risky but rewarding nature of their industry. McLeod-Seltzer, the chair of Bear Creek Mining, and Thomas, founder of Lucara, joined Jonathan Goodman, Laurentian University’s executive in residence, for an informal, fireside chat in Sudbury, Jan. 10.
Speaking from a couch nestled beside a tiny gas fireplace, McLeod-Seltzer shared how she accepted a job running an office for a gold company in Chile in 1991. She said the global economic climate was open and optimistic and that there was a “shiny path” in South America.
However, her father didn’t necessarily agree with her decision to head to a country that had just undergone significant political upheaval, officially shifting from dictatorship to democracy the year before.
“My father had been following these events, and he tried to talk me out of going and slipped me a gold coin in case I had to flee the country if there was a coup,” laughed McLeod-Seltzer.
It was a risk, but it paid off. She refers to the region in the early 1990s as the place where companies would “send their best and brightest as a proving ground.”
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