Gordon Walker

Background

About Gordon Walker

I've been working in the mining industry since the early 1980's, starting off in Mine Control Labs (MCL) and as a Metallurgical Shift Supervisor at mines in Canada's North West Territories for Terra Mines and for Noranda at their Gordon Lake gold mine. In 1984 I moved to Toronto to run X-Ray Assay Laboratories'(later SGS-XRAL) precious metals department, then moved into BD and developed an on-site aqua regia-Au lab in the Canadian Arctic and helped established a new lab in Rouyn-Noranda Québec. In 1991 I moved to Turkey to start a new SGS laboratory there. In 1993 I moved to France to start a MCL at Eltin and Orion's Mines d'Or de Salsigne near Carcassonne and to develop a Hub & Spoke system of labs in Europe (Turkey, France, Sweden), French West Africa (Guinée, Mali), Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Guyane Français (French Guyana). In 2001 I joined ALS Geochemistry and moved back to Turkey, becoming the first ALS employee in Europe. My mission was to 'Put ALS on the map in Europe'. Since then I've overseen what has been ALS's fastest growing region for over 20 years. We now have a network of ten labs in Europe, three in North Africa, four in Russia and eight in Central Asia and we continue to grow quickly. This network has included numerous MCL's or commercial MCL's; Izmir, Turkey (Eldorado Gold's Efemçukuru gold mine is the anchor client), Kinross's Tasiast Au mine in Mauritania, Kirkenes iron ore mine in northern Norway, First Quantum's Cobre las Cruces SX-EW MCL (ALS's first) and the Penouta Sn, Ta, Nb mine in Spain, Bjorkdal gold mine in Sweden, Altynalmas's Pustynoye, Akbakay, Dolinoye and Zholymbet mines in Kazakhstan as well as Polyus's very large Natalka mine in the Russian Far East. Now it's time for a new challenge, in part as our daughter who is Czech and Canadian, but who has never lived in either country. In mid-November I'll be entering a one year Garden Leave with ALS and in September 2022 our daughter will go to Canada to start university.