GAC® Service Awards
Distinguished Service Award - Citation
2007 Distinguished Service Award Recipient
Dr. David Lentz of the Department of Geology, University of New Brunswick
The Geological Association of Canada (GAC®) is pleased to announce that Dr. David Lentz of the Department of Geology, University of New Brunswick, has been selected for a 2007 GAC® Distinguished Service Award. The intent of the Distinguished Service Award is to recognize individuals who have made "an effort above and beyond that which could be termed exemplary". One word seems to crop up repeatedly in any description of David Lentz, and that word is "dynamo". His history of voluntary service can be traced back to 1985 and could fill many pages, but in the interest of brevity only the high points will be mentioned here.
David Lentz has made many outstanding contributions to GAC®'s Mineral Deposits Division (MDD) and to GAC® as a whole, and continues to do so. Most of these have been connected in one way or another with annual GAC® conferences, particularly in the organization of short courses and field trips. Anyone who has organized a short course that involves soliciting contributions from a group of authors and publication of a short-course volume, is well aware that such a task is a formidable undertaking. As Short Course coordinator from 1994 to 2000, Dr. Lentz reinvented the Short Course model, moving towards publications that were of broad interest to the geoscience community and at an affordable price for students and professionals alike. He organized and edited the very popular Alteration and Alteration Processes Associated with Ore-Forming Systems and oversaw the publication of GAC® Short Course Notes Volumes 12, 13, and 14. At the 1998 joint GAC®-Mineralogical Association of Canada (MAC) meeting in Quebec City, he organized the MAC Short Course on skarns, and the extremely popular Special Session on Mineralized Skarn Systems. At the St. John's 2001 meeting, he helped coordinate the successful Special Session on Sedimentary Geochemistry, which led to publication of the popular GEOtext 4, "Geochemistry of Sediments and Sedimentary Rocks", edited by Dr. Lentz.
Dave has organized and led numerous GAC® field trips, including U-Th-REE deposits in the Grenville of southern Ontario (Toronto 1991 meeting), and several excursions within the Bathurst Mining Camp for the Ottawa 1997, St. John's 2001, and Halifax 2005 meetings. Dave co-organized & co-chaired part of the MDD-sponsored North Atlantic Mineral Symposium Special Session at Halifax 2005, and co-led a field trip to gold-bearing intrusion-related deposits in southwestern New Brunswick. To complement the MAC Symposium on Alkaline Igneous Systems that he co-organized for Montreal 2006, he also organized and co-led a field trip to the local Monteregion Hills alkalic complexes.
Before most of us started seriously considering defragmentation of the geological community, many of Dr. Lentz's activities were leading in that direction. From 1999 to 2004, Dave took on the role of co-editor, with Steve McCutcheon, of MDD's quarterly Newsletter The Gangue. During this time he led the way in transforming the newsletter into a powerful national communication mechanism in the mineral industry. As President of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) Geological Society, he helped to build a relationship between MDD & CIM with The Gangue as a centerpiece. Since 2005, Dave has served as a member of the Prospectors and Developers Association (PDA) Student Affairs Committee, where he helped to build significantly greater ties between PDA and GAC® to their mutual benefit, and of course to the benefit of students. Not to be overlooked among his altruistic endeavours are his scientific achievements, which were recognized in 1999 with the awarding of MDD's William Harvey Gross Award, presented annually to an outstanding young economic geologist.
David Lentz is a leader and contributor extraordinaire within the geological community, and is well known as a person we can count on to carry out many, often thankless, tasks. Within MDD, his voice continues to provide insight, knowledge and vision. The example that Dave sets and the commitment he demonstrates, especially to his students, has inspired others to volunteer their time and effort, ensuring that GAC® remains a vibrant organization. Dave promotes mineral deposits geoscience through GAC® and MDD, but thanks to his efforts on behalf of students in other organizations, such as PDA and internationally in the Society of Economic Geologists and Society for Geology Applied to Ore Deposits, he is one of the strongest promoters of GAC® worldwide. For sustained and outstanding volunteer service over more than 20 years in a wide range of capacities, Dave Lentz is a truly deserving recipient of the GAC®'s Distinguished Service Award.