The SAMSSA Hall of Fame recognizes management leaders who have developed and provided mining advancing technologies and/or products and services that have improved the efficiencies of mining globally and domestically and have built or assisted in building companies in Northern Ontario that have proven to be successful.
The leaders in the mining supply and service industry have proven that mining is only as efficient and productive as the quality of products and services provided from mining supply companies. Over 400 Northern Ontario mining supply and service companies can boast of their historical influence in mining camps worldwide and their significant employment opportunities for skilled personnel making this sector larger in number than all direct mining and refining jobs in Northern Ontario.
SAMSSA and the Mining World congratulate the following inductees into the SAMSSA Hall of Fame: Fred Castron, Cast Resource Equipment Limited and Conrad C. Houle, Chairman and CEO, Tracks and Wheels Equipment Brokers Inc.
Fred Castron
The son of a blue collar mine worker in Penticton, B.C., Fred grew up in the 30’s and 40’s with limited formal education but he developed a fondness for numbers and a willingness to learn which would later serve him well as a young partsman working in the warehouses of Blackwood Hodge Equipment Limited.