David L. Kanagy

CEO and Executive Director of the SME (Retired)

2026 Medal of Merit Recipient

Kanagy, winner of the Medal of Merit award, has served as the executive director and chief executive officer of SME since 2004.  His tenure has been marked by significant growth and innovation making it the world’s largest mining-related professional societies. With a keen financial sense, he was able to add value while cutting excess to expand the Society in every measure. One of his first accomplishments as the executive director was to streamline the SME Boad of Directors from 29 members to nine, making it much more effective. Kanagy also helped to create advanced programs including OneMine.org, the world’s foremost online mining research library. The current estimate is that OneMine.org has over 112,000 documents and 2 million pages available for research.

Under Kanagy’s guidance SME established the following:

The Minerals Education Coalition which was created by merging MII and GEM to form a stronger K-12 mining and minerals outreach program.

The SME Government and Public Affairs Committee which included hiring a Committee Director who travels to Washington D.C., on a regular basis to meet with congressional staff and provide technical information about mining and minerals.

The SME Congressional Fellowship.

The World Federation of Engineering (WFEO)-SME Task Force on Sustainable Mining, a global task force that focuses on capacity building in developing nations.

The SME Foundation, which is the funding organization for special projects within the SME, e.g. Miners Give Back, Academic Career Development Grant, the PhD Fellowship Program and the re-establishment of the Mining in Society Merit Badge for the Boy Scouts of America.

Kanagy enhanced legacy programs and increased collaboration with international organizations. Kanagy demonstrated visionary leadership and was willing to make the hard decisions for the betterment of the Society while remaining open to new ideas and opportunities. Kanagy is the recipient of prestigious awards, including the Colorado Society of Association Executives’ Professional of the Year award and the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America’s Gold Medal award. He has a B.S. degree in industrial education from the University of Maryland, an M.S. degree in technology education from Eastern Illinois University and is a certified association executive by the American Society of Association Executives.

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