MacLean announces passing of founder and chairman, Don MacLean

MacLean Engineering is deeply saddened to announce the passing of Don MacLean on Jan. 11, 2024, surrounded by his family in Meaford, Ont. He founded his namesake mobile equipment manufacturing company in 1973 and over the past five decades of growth and product development, helped to revolutionize safety in the underground mining industry globally. His legacy of safety innovation and service will live on through the employees of the company who will continue his lifelong mission of making the underground environment a safer place for miners.

Mining was a world that MacLean was literally born into and spent all of his working life in. He was a true entrepreneur, and at the heart of all his work was his love of and respect for colleagues in the industry. He grew up in the northern Quebec mining towns of East Malartic, Noranda, and Chibougamau. He hunted and fished at a young age, built a shaft headframe with friends in the back yard, and worked at surface jobs at the mine until he was old enough to go underground.

Don graduated from Acadia University in 1957 with a pre-engineering degree followed by two years at McGill where he graduated with a degree in mining engineering in 1959. While at university, he worked underground at various mines including a summer at a uranium mine in Yellowknife. In the summer of 1958, Don traveled through Europe and Scandinavia with his good friend and classmate Jim Redpath, visiting various mining sites and building a broader knowledge of mining techniques that informed his life-long interest in safety issues in underground mining.

After graduating from McGill, MacLean worked underground as a shift boss for International Nickel (Inco) at the Levack site. At this time underground mining was beginning the transition from rail-based equipment to mobile equipment. This experience gave him many insights into the problems workers faced underground and how equipment might be developed to provide a safer working environment. He moved into equipment sales in 1967 and worked at Ingersol Rand in Montreal before moving to Thornbury where he worked for JMG Engineering developing equipment for underground mining.

In 1973, Don struck out on his own to form MacLean Engineering. The company celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023, and now numbers over 1,200 employees on four continents, led for the past two decades by MacLean’s son and entrepreneurial visionary in his own rite, Kevin MacLean, CEO of MacLean Engineering, who said:

“From his time growing up in Canadian mining towns, through his own time mining in Sudbury, my dad believed in the Canadian miner. But he saw first-hand that the conditions those workers were operating under needed to be safer and more productive. He also believed that Canadian engineers and workers were capable of designing and building equipment to compete with anyone in the world. As the company grew, he welcomed the challenge to bring that safety and productivity to the world. Today, we are all saddened. But I speak for all of us when I say that I am so blessed and proud to have spent almost 20 years working with my dad to build that vision. Thank you, Don.”

A celebration of life will be held at the Georgian Bay Hotel, 10 Vacation Dr., Collingwood, Ont., on Thursday, Jan. 18, at 1:30 p.m.

Material supplied by MacLean Engineering