Jeff Whittle
WHITTLE, Jeffrey (Jeff), BSc(hons) FAusIMM FACS AO (1930-2024)
Jeff was born on March 24, 1930, in his parent’s home, “The Poplars”, in Aspull, Wigan, Lancashire. He was the son of storekeeper Herbert Henry Whittle OBE and his wife Dorothy Wanda Whittle (nee Taylor).
He grew up in Aspull and Hindley where his primary schooling was at Chapel Hill and St Peter’s Primary School. In 1939, after sitting an examination, he was accepted into the Hindley and Abram Grammar School.
In 1947, Jeff commenced an honours course in Physics at Manchester University, completing it, with Second Class Honours, in 1950. He then completed his National Service, serving with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and becoming a commissioned officer. His father had served in both World War I and World War II and had been awarded an Order of the British Empire (Military Division) for bravery in 1943.
Jeff moved to the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, early in 1953, working as an experimental physicist and in 1955 transitioned to work with the Medical Research Council at Harwell in a similar role.
He met Ruth Kendrick at Harwell where she was working after graduating from the University of London. They married on October 9, 1954 at Wantage, near Harwell, England. They had six children Robin (1955), Gerald (1957), Paul (1958), David (1960), Judith (1962) and Matthew (1970). Judith and Matthew were born in Australia.
In late 1961, Jeff, Ruth and their then family of four children moved to Melbourne where Jeff started work as an experimental physicist at the Defence Standards Laboratory. It was here that he started computer programming and found that he had an aptitude for this developing technology. In 1966, Jeff moved to work at Monash University Computer Centre, also in Melbourne, where he established and headed the Computing Contracts Group, which grew from two people to twelve. The group consistently made a profit for the University by providing computing services to outside users.
In June 1977, he formed Whittle Programming Limited and began work on a contract basis.
In an address to Probus in May 2018 he stated that in 1979, I got a job with Newmont Mining Corporation. My first task was to convert a quarter of a million lines of computer code written for an old computer to run on a new computer. This involved changes of meaning and of syntax. From what I had learned at Monash, I wrote a translator which would input the old computer code and output the new code. This was much quicker and more accurate than doing it by hand. Over the next few years I worked on a range of programs for Newmont, each of which aimed to make mining easier, and more efficient.
While at Newmont, Jeff had learned that a method had been published in the 1960s that would find the mathematically best shape for an open pit, but people had had great difficulty programming it. By the 1980s, Jeff had had about twenty years of programming experience, and figured he could do it, so he offered to write it for Newmont. However, Newmont did not want to spend the money. So, Ruth and Jeff decided to develop the program as a private venture. That was the start, and over about thirty years he wrote a series of ever more complicated programs to find the most profitable ways of doing more and more aspects of mining, not just designing pit shapes.
In 1984, Jeff and Ruth set up Whittle Programming Pty Ltd, specialising in developing and optimising software for the mining industry.
In 2000, Whittle Programming and Whittle Consulting were floated on the Australian Stock Exchange under a holding company, Whittle Technology. Whittle Technology was subsequently purchased by Canadian Company, Gemcom.
In 2003, Jeff reverted Whittle Consulting into private hands and continued to work on the Prober suite of software for mine optimisation. He was the originator of what is now the GEOVIA software. Currently, there are over 2,000 Geovia Whittle software licenses in use by mining, exploration, consultant and academic customers around the world.
Jeff was active in professional organisations and was made a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society in 2006. In June 2006, Jeff was presented the Mineral Industry Operating Technique Award (MIOTA) from the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) for his innovation in developing mining software that has changed the way the industry practices optimisation in mine design and strategic mine planning. The software is now used in over 400 companies in 50 countries. He was also made a Fellow of AusIMM.
In 2013, he was inducted into the International Mining Hall of Fame in the category of mining software.
Jeff was awarded an Order of Australia, in January 2018, for “Distinguished service to the information technology sector and the mining industry, particularly through the development of industry standard computer programs for strategic mine planning and optimisation." He was elected to the Pearcey Hall of Fame for a lifetime commitment to the Australian ICT sector, in November 2020.
Jeff died on February 5, 2024, in Melbourne, aged 93 years. He was survived by his wife Ruth and their six children.
References:
www.whittleconsulting.com.au, accessed 18.2.2024.
www.jeff.whittlefamily.id.au, accessed 18.2.2024.
