To start the process of developing Mongolian managers, he hired Mongolian engineers to come work in Wyoming and sent promising students to study mining and engineering at the University of Arizona.

FORBES: Peabody Coal Is On Fire With New Deals

When he took over at Preussag in 1994, it was best known for its stodgy mining and engineering interests.

ECONOMIST: Tour operators

Congress included a few favored ones you might not think of as manufacturing--mining, oil extraction and engineering.

FORBES: Burgers, Snow and Pork

Clyde Blowers said the move was part of continuing investment in "mission-critical" engineering firms serving the oil and gas, power and mining sectors.

BBC: Clyde Blowers buys power generator Parsons Peebles

Besides its mining outfit, the company has an engineering division which makes machinery and foundry parts.

CNN: Tin Time in Indonesia

The exercise was also useful in that the data mining class includes both business students and those from the university's engineering department, among them graduate computing student Rosskyn Dsouza, who gained some new commercial insights.

CNN: Doggedly pursuing a business answer

Stephen Ball, chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin UK, owner of UK Seabed Resources, says the engineering experience of offshore oil and gas operations and the trend to rising mineral prices have now combined to make seabed mining feasible.

BBC: UK Seabed Resources joins deep-ocean mineral-mining rush