Maptek founder Bob Johnson isn’t a household name – but his mining legacy is immense

Bob Johnson stands accused of a massive tax fraud but was once the toast of the mining world – his innovations even helped save the lives of 33 trapped miners in 2010.

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When 33 miners were trapped underground in Chile’s San Jose mine back in 2010, the rescuers picked up the phone and called Adelaide’s Dr Bob Johnson.

It’s a measure of the esteem with which Dr Johnson is held in the global mining community.

While Bob (Keith Robert) Johnson is by no means a household name on the streets of Adelaide, in worldwide mining circles, he’s nothing short of a legend.

Back in 2010, the clock was ticking on getting the miners out from underground. Rescue shafts needed to be drilled, but they had to be drilled in the right spot.

It was Dr Johnson’s Adelaide-based mining technology company Maptek to the rescue.

Six days after the mine collapsed, Maptek’s Chilean team - which was working on nearby large copper mines - was called in to create the three-dimensional model of the complex underground workings at the mine site.

The model helped pinpoint the drill sites for the rescue shaft that finally helped bring the men up to safety after 69 days underground.

Dr Johnson said at the time, he received the call for help on August 11, 2010.

“We lined up the spot to drill, and got it in one,’’ Dr Johnson said. “We needed three holes to start the shaft, and it only took one attempt at each.’’

A Maptek geologist witnessed the first contact with the trapped men, picking up a handwritten note from the miners, which was attached to a drill bit that had broken through into the underground refuge.

Dr Johnson began his career as a pioneer in the use of computer software for the modelling of underground commodities resources back in the 1970s.

 

Chilean miner Luis Urzua (gestures alongside President Sebastian Pinera after reaching the surface from the San Jose mine, near Copiapo, Chile on October 13, 2010. Picture: AFP Photo/Hugo Infante

 

He had gained an honours degree in applied geology in the late 1960s and went on to get his PhD.

He founded Maptek - now based at Glenside - in 1981, and remains a shareholder. 

That company has gone on to become an undisputed global leader in its field, claiming to employ hundreds of people around the world with offices in the US, Chile, South Africa and Russia.

Simply put, the company’s Vulcan software allows mining companies to take their exploration data, and build an accurate three dimensional model of the resources - such as copper or coal - which lie below the earth, allowing them to mine them in the safest and most economical manner.

Maptek now offers at least 10 different products, including lasers which can map open cut mines in real time.

The esteem with which Dr Johnson is held is reflected in him being inducted into the International Mining Technology Hall of Fame in 2015 - an award collected by his son Peter - and in 2010 being named an named an “Innovation Hero” by Sydney University’s Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering

Dr Johnson has also led a number of listed companies, including Adelaide-based Havilah Resources which two years ago fended off a $100m bid from Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance to take a majority stake in the iron ore and copper explorer.

That company also spun out an energy company, Geothermal Resources, and a uranium company, Curnamona Energy at one point, however Havilah itself remains the main game, with those outfits now absorbed back into the parent company.

 

Maptek founder Bob Johnson and Technology Industry Association (TIA) chief executive Steve Adcock.

 

Dr Johnson put more than 10 years’ work into Havilah, before abruptly resigning in late 2013.

It was a move which took the local resources community by surprise, coming as it did just a few months after Dr Johnson led a spirited defence of the company, which a group of investors were trying to snatch control of.

Dr Johnson said in August of that year that the bid to take over the company was “pretty seedy” and that investing in Havilah Resources was a “long journey” towards the development of a new mining company.

Then in November 2013, he abruptly resigned from the company he had spent more than a decade patiently building, and had so recently fought to keep control of.

“Bob has stepped aside to allow Havilah to engage a different skill-set in order to focus on the next stage of its development as it becomes a mineral producer,” the chairman at the time Ken Williams, said.

In 2018, another boardroom stoush emerged.

Someone was pushing to have Dr Johnson’s son Peter put on the board - that someone, he himself confirmed at the time, was Dr Johnson.

The bid failed, and video of the previous Havilah annual meeting, shows Dr Johnson expressing his dissatisfaction that his shares were excluded from voting.

He remains the company’s largest shareholder, however without any control over how the company is run.

Company records show he remains a director of at least nine companies registered in Australia, including Statsmin Nominees which owns the headquarters of Maptek.