Roger Kebble, 75, was a "fresh breath of air in a very stale gold mining industry", mining entrepreneur Bernard Swanepoel said of the late businessman on Wednesday.
"I liked him and had a high regard for him," Swanepoel told News24.
"He emphasised people, productivity and the understanding of the ore body through geology, all things that saved mines and jobs.
"[He was a] one of a kind type of miner."
Provincial police on Tuesday confirmed the body of a man found with a gunshot wound to the head in a car parked on the corner of Monterey Avenue and Upper Bebington Road in Bishopscourt was Kebble.
An inquest docket was opened.
Kebble is understood to have shot himself one month short of the 10th anniversary of his son Brett’s death.
The 41-year-old Brett Kebble was found to have died in an assisted suicide on September 27, 2005.
His father believed his son had been murdered, and in 2010 he was found not to be well enough to testify at the trial of Glen Agliotti - accused of paying the hitmen - because of a heart condition.
His attorney Kim Warren said in the decade that she had been representing him, Roger had gone from being a client to a friend.
"While Roger was considered a controversial person in public, in private he was a gentleman. I have very fond memories of him," she said.
Funeral arrangements had not yet been finalised by the family, Warren added.