American Mining Hall of Fame inducts three

The 21st annual American Mining Hall of Fame awards banquet, sponsored by the Mining Foundation of the Southwest, will be held at the Sheraton Tucson in Tucson, Ariz., on Dec. 6.

Each year, several inductees are honoured by the American Mining Hall of Fame committee and the board of governors of the Mining Foundation. This year’s featured speaker is an inductee himself — Thomas O’Neil, who recently retired as president and CEO of Ohio-based Cleveland Cliffs Mining Co. The Hall of Fame will also induct James Boyd (1904-1987) and Thomas Walsh (1850-1910) as representatives of mining heritage.

Boyd was a former director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, vice-president of Kennecott Copper, and president of Copper Range. Walsh discovered a rich gold telluride vein in Ouray, Colo., which later became the Camp Bird gold mine.

Also, medals of merit will be presented to Stanley Dempsey and James White. Dempsey founded Royal Gold and the Denver Mining Finance Co., wheras White is the co-founder and chairman of Modular Mining Systems. The medal of merit recognizes outstanding individual technical and professional contribution to the mineral industry.

The Industry Partnership Award will be presented to Aker Kvaerner, an engineering and construction company. The award recognizes contributions made by companies, organizations or individuals in partnership with mining.

Thomas O’Neil

O’Neil recently retired as president and chief operating officer of Cleveland Cliffs Iron Co. and Cliffs Mining.

Prior to joining Cleveland Cliffs, he spent 10 years with Cyprus Minerals and its former owner, Amoco Minerals, where he served as vice-president of engineering and development, vice-president and general manager of Cyprus Sierrita Corp., and vice-president of South Pacific Operations in Sydney, Australia.

Before joining Amoco, O’Neil was a professor and head of the department of mining and geological engineering at the University of Arizona, where served for 13 years. He is now president of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) and was elected to the National Academy of Engineers in 1999. He is also a director and chairman of the American Iron Ore Association and a director of the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum, as well as the Mineral Information Institute.

O’Neil holds a bachelor of science degree in mining engineering from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, a masters of science degree from Pennsylvania State University and a PhD from the University of Arizona. He specializes in the theory and practice of mineral economics in mineral development and operations. He is the co-author of the textbook Mine Investment Analysis, published by the SME.

O’Neil received the William Lawrence Saunders Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) in 2003, in recognition of distinguished service in mining (other than coal). He had previously been awarded the Robert Peele Award from the SME in 1970 and was elected AIME Henry Krumb distinguished lecturer in 1982.

James Boyd (1904-1987)

Boyd was born in Kanowna, Western Australia. He received a bachelor of science degree in engineering and economics from the California Institute of Technology in 1927, and a masters of science in geophysics and subsequent PhD in geology at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo., where he subsequently taught until 1941.

During the Second World War, he served on the Army and Navy admonitions board as well as the war production board, including a term as executive director. In 1946 Boyd became dean of faculty at the Colorado School of Mines, and in 1947 he was appointed director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines.

Two years later, he became vice-president of exploration for Kennecott Copper. In 1960, he became president of Copper Range Co. and would later serve as chairman. In 1971, he was appointed executive director of the National Commission on Materials Policy, and was subsequently appointed chairman of the Materials Advisory Panel of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment.

During his career, Boyd received awards from American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum Engineers, and from California Tech and the Colorado Mines.

In 1967, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Boyd served as a director of Detroit Edison, New Jersey Zinc, Felmont Petroleum, the Copper Development Association, and the International Copper Research Association.

Thomas Walsh (1850-1910)

Walsh was born in Clonmel Cty., Tipperary, Ireland. He apprenticed as a millwright and later became a carpenter.

At 19, he migrated to Massachusetts, then on to Golden, Colo., where he worked for the Colorado and Southern Railroad for two years.

In 1874, he joined the gold rush in the Black Hills of South Dakota and met Smokey Jones, who offered him a half-interest in his Deadwood prospect. On the advice of experienced mining friends, Walsh turned down Jones’ offer, only to discover it had become the resource-rich Homestake gold mine. This was a lesson he would never forget.

In 1877, Walsh bought the Grand Hotel in Leadville, Colo., married, sold the hotel, and moved to Denver. By then, he had developed a keen mining intuition and decided to move once again, to Ouray, Colo. High above Ouray, in the Imogene Basin, there were a number of “barren” silver claims. It was there in 1881 that Walsh recognized a rich gold telluride vein in an old tunnel on the Gertrude claim. This would later become the famed Camp Bird gold mine.

In 1902, the mine was sold to a London syndicate for cash, ore and stock, and Mr. and Mrs. Walsh, at the behest of John Hayes Hammond, moved to Washington, D.C. and became national and international celebrities. Walsh’s daughter, Evalyn, married media baron Edward Beal McLean, then-heir to the Washington Post and Cincinnati Enquirer. Eventually the couple became co-owners of the famous Hope diamond.

Walsh represented his country at the World Exposition in Paris, at the request of the U.S. president.

While owner of Camp Bird, he saw to it that his miners were compensated better than most unionized employees. Before he died, he endowed the town of Ouray with a well-stocked library and a sum of money for a community hospital.

Stanley Dempsey

Stan Dempsey is the founder of Royal Gold and the Denver Mining Finance Co. He is currently chairman of Royal Gold and president of Denver Mining Finance.

Royal Gold provides an innovative method for investors to gain access to the precious metal markets through the acquisition of mineral royalties, whereas Denver Mining Finance acts as a merchant banking service for the mining industry.

Dempsey began his career as an independent mining operator and in 1960 went to work as an engineer for Climax Molybdenum Co. (before taking a leave of absence to attend law school). Upon graduation, he continued his association with Climax and rose through the ranks in the legal department of AMAX, which had bought-out Climax.

Beginning in the mid-1960s, Dempsey organized an environmental compliance group for Climax and gradually developed the concept throughout the AMAX organization as he rose through the ranks. Dempsey later became responsible for AMAX’s interests in Australia, Papua New Guinea and parts of Indonesia.

He practiced law between 1983 and 1986 and formed Royal Gold in 1987.

Dempsey’s efforts in the area of environmental compliance have had great influence. His personal relationships with local and national political leaders on behalf of AMAX, the Mineral Information Institute, and the National Mining Association have made a noteworthy contribution to the credibility of the minerals industry.

James White

White is the co-founder and current chairman of Modular Mining Systems. He founded the company in 1979, and it has become renowned for its mine management system. Based in Tucson, Ariz., Modular has regional offices in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Indonesia, Peru, and South Africa. Beginning with the development of an innovative mine haul truck dispatching system, White helped develop a mine management system known as IntelliMine.

In 1996, Komatsu America International purchased a controlling interest in Modular and enabled the company to expand its product lines. Modular now employs an autonomous (driverless) haulage truck system.

White received a BSc in chemical engineering at the University of Delaware and a masters and PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin. He began his technical career in 1968 as a senior project engineer working for Rohm and Haas Co., a large chemicals and plastics manufacturer. He resigned as head of its research computing centre in 1971 to join the University of Arizona, College of Mines, as an associate professor of chemical engineering.

He quickly began applying his computer knowledge to the mining industry. In 1981, he left the university to head up project engineering at Modular Mining Systems.

White is a director of the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum and a member of the engineering advisory committee of the Arizona State Board of Technical Registration.

The Mining Foundation of the Southwest was created in 1993 as a result of combining the Mining Club of the Southwest and the Mining Club of the Southwest Foundation. In 1983, the Foundation inaugurated the American Mining Hall of Fame to honour significant contributions to mining.