Gilles L'Espérance, metallurgist engineer, is one of the major Canadian experts in materials engineering. He invented several new methods of characterization of materials and has perfected new materials. The research center (CM) 2 that he created in 1986 is a model of that kind in Canada, grouping together some 225 university researchers and more than 75 businesses in various sectors. He founded a Quebec industrial consortium on the metallurgy of the powders that gave birth, among other, to Précitech inc., the principal manufacturer of metallic pieces by this procedure in Quebec. Prolific author and lecturer in demand, he directs each year twenty to thirty major research projects. In the 20 years of career, he trained close to 50 students to Masters or to PhD.