OBITUARY — Roy Aitken spearheaded cleanup

Mining executive of Inco Ltd. for more than two decades, W.R.O. (Roy) Aitken died Nov. 5 after a brief illness. He was 60.

Aitken was appointed assistant to the chairman and chief executive officer last year. Earlier, he was the Jakarta-based president and CEO of P.T. International Nickel Indonesia and president of International Nickel Japan Ltd.

As executive vice-president of Inco in the late 1980s, Aitken started the company’s $600-million sulphur dioxide abatement program to clean up the environment.

He served as vice-chairman on the National Task Force on the Environment and the Economy and was a member of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

At a Vancouver conference in 1990, Aitken warned that it would be an uphill battle to convince the public that mining activities can be conducted in an environmentally responsible manner. “The mining industry successfully met safety challenges in the 1950s and 1960s,” he said. “Now is the time to meet environmental challenges.”