As any long-term member of SME knows, our standard rotation for SME’s annual meeting is to hold it in Denver every other year, and then rotate to Phoenix, Salt Lake or other cities the years in between. Holding an annual conference and exposition away from SME’s hometown of Denver is usually a risk to attendance, as most meetings in Denver break records from previous meetings held in the Rocky Mountain capitol. This year in Salt Lake we are on track to have over 6100 attendees with a sold out expo of 803 booths. The last time we were in Salt Lake in 2008 we had total attendance of 4149, which is even higher than the 3155 we had in Salt Lake in 2005. To be certain, we have about outgrown the Salt Lake market for our annual meeting. Unless the city makes significant investment in conference hotel space, SME may skip Salt Lake and look towards another favorable city to be in our standard meeting rotation.
We also have a very strong technical program this year with over 700 papers presented over the course of the three day event, plus eight short courses, and exciting field trips including one to Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Bingham Canyon copper mine to view the world largest landslide. Further, we are proud to announce at the annual meeting the newest Boy Scouts of America merit badge, Mining in Society. SME and the BSA worked closely for over ten years to arrive at this moment in time where we will host BSA executives to hand out the first mining merit badges in history to local Salt Lake City scouts. Lastly, the keynote session brings together an unlikely mix of industry, environmental groups, social care organizations and the World Bank to talk about, Community Engagement: Building Partnerships for Mining. The common theme that each organization shares is to ensure a social, economic and environmental balance in the development of mines worldwide.
Please make plans to attend SME’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City and experience all SME has to offer as Your Global Mining Resource!
