Robert M Buchan is a Scottish-Canadian mining engineer, businessman and philanthropist. He founded Kinross Gold

Kinross Gold

Kinross Gold Corporation is a Canadian-based gold mining company with a gold production guidance of 4.5 to 4.9 million gold ounces by 2015. Kinross owns mines and projects in Canada, the United States, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Russia, Ghana and Mauritania, employing approximately 7,500 people...

 in 1993. It is now the 3rd-largest gold mining company in North America.

Brought up in Rosyth

Rosyth

Rosyth is a town located on the Firth of Forth, three miles south of the centre of Dunfermline. According to an estimate taken in 2008, the town has a population of 12,790....

, Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...

, Buchan graduated with a degree in Mining from Heriot-Watt University

Heriot-Watt University

Heriot-Watt University is a university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The name commemorates George Heriot, the 16th century financier to King James, and James Watt, the great 18th century inventor and engineer....

 in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 in 1969.

In 2009 he gave £6 million to his Canadian alma mater, Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario

Kingston, Ontario

Kingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located in Eastern Ontario where the St. Lawrence River flows out of Lake Ontario. Originally a First Nations settlement called "Katarowki," , growing European exploration in the 17th Century made it an important trading post...

, to fund mining education. In September 2010 it was announced that Buchan was donating £1.3 million to his Scottish alma mater, to fund their work sustainable energy engineering

Energy engineering

Energy engineering is a broad field of engineering dealing with energy efficiency, energy services, facility management, plant engineering, environmental compliance and alternative energy technologies. Domain of Energy Engineering expertise combines selective subjects from the fields Chemical,...

, the largest donation the university has ever received from an individual. He has also donated £650,000 to help establish the Whitlock Energy Collaboration Centre at Carnegie College in Fife.

Career

Buchan retired as president and chief executive of Kinross Gold Corporation in 2005, going on to found Katanga Copper, the developer of one of the world's largest copper deposits. He retired from Katanga Copper in 2007. He remains executive chairman and director of Allied Nevada Gold Corp, a gold mining firm that operates the Hycroft mine and has a large number of prospective exploration claims in the state of Nevada

Nevada

Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

.

Buchan is a director of the Buchan Family Foundation, a philanthropic body.