Donald Roderick MacLean (1937 – 2024)
Founder and Past Chairman
MacLean Engineering
Don “Ducky” MacLean was born in 1937 and grew up in the northern Quebec mining camps of East Malartic, Noranda,
and Chibougamau, where his mining engineer father, Ducky Sr., was a mine manager in the 1940s and 50s.
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, Don worked underground at various mines and notably, during the summer of 1958, Don traveled through Europe and Scandinavia with his best friend and schoolmate Jim Redpath, visiting various mining sites and building a broader knowledge of mining techniques, which informed his long-time interest in safety issues in underground mining.
After graduating from McGill, Don worked underground as a shift boss for International Nickel (INCO) at the Levack site. At that 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, Ontario, where he worked for JMG Engineering developing equipment for underground mining.
In 1973, Don struck out on his own and formed his namesake company to develop innovative mobile equipment solutions to address a range of mining issues, but none more important than improving worker safety in the underground environment. MacLean Engineering celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023 and now numbers over 1,300 employees in manufacturing facilities and sales and technical support branches in six countries around the globe. Since its inception, the company has designed and manufactured thousands of underground mining vehicles for customers around the globe, including 500+ MacLean Scissor Bolters, which since their introduction in the early 1990s in Canada, have been integral in significantly reducing risks from falls of ground in the underground environment.
Don was inducted into the International Mining Technology Hall of Fame in 2014 and received the CIM Mining Safety Leadership Medal in 2023. He passed away in early 2024 and leaves an entrepreneurial success story as his professional legacy. MacLean Engineering is now a global presence with operations on four continents. Don’s son, Kevin MacLean, has been involved with the company for the better part of the past 20 years, mostly as President, as is currently serving as CEO, with four of his children, Don’s grandchildren, also now working for the company.
MacLean remains an innovation leader in the global mining industry, actively pursuing a range of electrification, automation, and digitalization product development initiatives out of its underground Research and Training Facility, the ‘Ducky Mine’, in Sudbury, Ontario. These engineering efforts are helping to shape and lead safety and productivity improvements in mining for the 21st century and beyond.
Don built the ‘first 50’ of Maclean Engineering slowly and surely, with an unrelenting focus on safety first, last, and always. This ethic has been passed on to the next generation of family leadership and employee culture at MacLean, as the company continues to forge a legacy of manufacturing excellence in mobile mining equipment for the ‘next 50’.
