2006 Hall of Fame

Leonard (Len) R. Judd, served as President, Chief Operating Officer and Director of Phelps Dodge Corporation. He was born 1939 in Butte , MT , at a time when his father was a diamond driller in the Anaconda mines. Len attended the Montana School of Mines, but transferred in 1959 to the University of Arizona ’s new aerospace engineering program. After one semester, the Dean of the College of Mines offered Len an attractive scholarship leading to his graduation with a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering in 1962. He later returned to the University of Arizona where he completed his Masters of Business Administration program in 1968.

Len and his new bride, Gloria, journeyed to Douglas, AZ in 1961 where he began his first job in the industry working as a summer student at Phelps Dodge’s Douglas Reduction Works. Phelps Dodge was researching copper precipitate agglomeration alternatives at the time. Upon graduation the following year, the work experience gleaned that summer provided Len a basis to join Bechtel Corporation in San Francisco . Bechtel was heavily involved in the design/construction of iron ore palletizing facilities at the time. But two years later copper called once again, and Len returned to the Douglas smelter.

Over the ensuing years, Len’s Phelps Dodge vocational journey included thirteen different operational and staff positions from Playas, N. M., to New York City . Although a health issue provoked his early retirement at the end of 1991, Len continued to provide consulting services to Phelps Dodge into 2002.

In the copper recession years of the early 1980’s, Len was a major player in the development of Phelps Dodge’s ‘turnaround plan’. That plan included an aggressive commitment to solvent extraction-electrowinning (SXEW) technology, which helped to pull the company out of its recession and remains a cornerstone in the Phelps Dodge operating portfolio worldwide today. As a result Phelps Dodge became the first major copper company to adopt SXEW technology. The success of the venture has caused this to be a major technological influence in copper production in the industry across the world.

Len has served on various corporate boards in addition to Phelps Dodge including Southwest Gas Corporation, Washington Group International, United Bank of Arizona , and Primerit Bank.

Roshan Bhappu was born September 14, 1926 and received his early education at the University of Bombay in India . He received a B.S. in metallurgical engineering in 1950, an M.S. in 1951 and D.Sc. in 1953, all from the Colorado School of Mines.

He started his engineering career as a resident metallurgist for Miami Copper in Globe, Arizona . He then spent 14 years as senior metallurgist at the New Mexico Bureau of Mines. He also served as research professor and vice president for research at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. In 1972, he joined Mountain States Engineers group in Tucson, AZ to start the Mountain States R & D Division. This was spun off as a separate company in 1987. Bhappu is the founder and remains as president of Mountain States R & D International, Inc.

During the last 33 years, Bhappu has worked on hundreds of mining projects concerned with the extraction of base metals, precious metals, industrial minerals, coal and uranium and has provided special expertise in the preconcentration of minerals using Heavy Media Separation concept, heap and dump leaching, in- situ extraction of copper and uranium and projects related to environmental considerations.

Bhappu was president of SME in 1990, president of AIME in 1992 and president of the Mining Foundation of the Southwest in 2005. He was editor-in-chief of the Minerals and Metallurgical Processing journal from 1986-97 and and co-editor of the Handbook on Mineral Processing. He also has more than 100 technical articles and several patents to his credit.

Bhappu received the Van Diest Gold Medal from Colorado School of Mines in 1968 and the Robert H. Richards Award from AIME in 1983. He is a Distinguished Member and a Legion of Honor member of SME and is a registered professional engineer in the states of Arizona and New Mexico and consultant to the United Nations and the World Bank.

This year the AIME Honorary Membership was presented to Bhappu “for more than 50 years of dedication and outstanding service to the international mining industry, in academia, research and operations

Hugh Exton McKinstry was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on May 5, 1896. He graduated from Haverford College in 1917 and went to France to do relief work with the American Red Cross. He entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where, under the influence of Waldemar Lindgren, he earned a Master's Degree in 1921. During the next three years he was employed by Cerro de Pasco and devoted his work to the study of ores in the Andes under the influence of Donald H. McLaughlin, Chief Geologist of Cerro de Pasco. He returned to school at Harvard where he was a part-time instructor under Professor L. C. Graton and was awarded a doctor's degree from Harvard in 1926.

The next twenty years of McKinstry's career were characterized by worldwide travel and a variety of studies that included ores of South Africa, Australia, and Canada. He carried out many evaluations of mining properties and in 1933, he joined Case, Pomeroy and Co. in New York, and became an independent consultant in New York in 1937.

These years of travel and study of a great spectrum of ore deposits and deposit styles established an unequaled background of understanding of ore deposits during a time of expansion of the mining industry in the Americas and prepared him for teaching, the career in which he spent the rest of his life. Shortly after McKinstry started teaching at the University of Wisconsin, the nation became involved in the Second World War and he entered government service, first as Chief of the Minor Ferro-Alloys Division of the Board of Economic Warfare (1942-1944) and later as Chief of the Minerals Division of the Foreign Economic Administration (1944-1945). Following the war, he returned to his first love, teaching, this time at Harvard. He subsequently served as president of the Society of Economic Geologists and was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The decades following the war witnessed almost unparalled in the knowledge of ores that McKinstry assimilated as fast as its results appeared. It was this knowledge, coupled with his extensive background in the field study of ores that formed the background for the textbook, Mining Geology that became, and remains, a touchstone of practical knowledge on the practice of Mining Geology at both exploration and operation levels. This book, together with a generation of Harvard students, many of whom ultimately became teachers, stands as McKinstry's monumental contribution to the study and interpretation and discovery of ore deposits.

Norman L. Weiss, former Director of Milling for American Smelting and Refining Company, joined ASARCO in 1924 and retired in 1967, after 43 years, excluding a brief leave of absence with Dow Chemical.

Norman received his B.S. degree in Metallurgical Engineering from M.I.T. followed by a year at Penn State as Graduate Assistant to E. A. Holbrook and instructor in mine safety and ventilation, ore dressing and coal preparation including original research in cleaning and analysis of coals using heavy media separation.

His first 22 years were spent with Asarco where he served a number of capacities. During this period, he made many contributions to the milling of complex base and precious metal ores and was particularly proud of safety and labor management records.

Norm took a brief leave of absence as Field Metallurgist with Dow Chemical from 1946-1947 and wrote a complete report on Cerro de Pasco milling operations which resulted in significant improvements.

He returned to ASARCO in 1947 as Chief Milling Engineer of Western Mining Department in Salt Lake City with responsibility for all milling activities in the Western Hemisphere except Mexico. In 1962 as Director of Milling he assumed responsibility for all ASARCO milling worldwide, including testing, research, design start ups and operation. In this period 1947-67 he designed and placed in operation a score of concentrators and major enlargements among which best known was Toquepala, Silver Bell and Mission. He was lent by ASARCO to other associated companies for design of Triumph mill in Idaho, Mount Isa #2 in Australia, and major changes to Granby Consolidated primary crushing plant at Copper Mountain and mill at Allenby. Also, when Toquepala became Southern Peru Copper Company, he was lent to the latter in 1956 to supervise preparation of construction drawings from his earlier designs."

Norman opened an office in Tucson for consulting practice after retirement and performed advisory and design services for 50-odd mining and mine-associated firms.

Norm was a member of SME-AIME as well as Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, a registered professional engineer in Colorado, Arizona, California. He was the recipient of the Roberts H. Richards Award of AIME in 1960, Legion of Honor in 1974 and Honorary Member of AIME in 1980. His major contribution to SME-AIME includes Editor of the SME Mining Engineering Handbook and SME Mineral Processing Handbook. His final contribution to the mining library is his classic book, “Memoir of a Mill Man”.