2008 Hall of Fame

Barbara A. Filas is a third generation miner, a second generation mining engineer, and a licensed professional engineer. Her grandfather emigrated from Finland to work in the copper mines in Bisbee, and her father, Carl Appelin, worked in those same mines from the age of 15. Like her father, Barbara earned her Mining Engineering degree from The University of Arizona.

Filas started her career in the underground coal mines. She joined the coal industry shortly after passage of the Federal Surface Mining, Control and Reclamation Act. At the time, this new law shifted emphasis toward obtaining permits for the coal mines and preparation plants she had been working for, which resulted in her unplanned specialization in the environmental and compliance aspects of mining. In 1987, Filas left a soft coal market to apply her environmental expertise to the booming gold mining business in Nevada.

In 1989, Filas opted to leave active mine operations to join the Denver-based consulting firm Knight Piésold and Co. to specialize in permitting, compliance, and the preparation of international social and environmental impact assessments, action plans and management systems.

Her consulting work has taken her to six continents for projects in coal, metals, and industrial minerals. She is currently President of Knight Piésold’s US operations and serves on its global Board of Directors.

Filas has volunteered thousands of hours to the mining industry. She has worked with the World Bank, mining associations, regulatory authorities and other interest groups to influence the direction of laws, rules and guidance documents to assure that the industry remains politically and economically viable into the future.

Through her active involvement with the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration Inc. (SME), she has served in numerous positions and committees. Notably, she was instrumental in helping to create the Environmental Division in 1997, the Student Mentor Program in 1999, and served as the Society’s 49th President and its first female President in 2005.

Paul Hodges has had over fifty years of service to the mining industry. Hehas a degree in Mining Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and is a registered professional engineer in Arizona . In his career he has served in all capacities from laborer to locomotive driver; from General Manager to Director in underground mines and open pit mines, in North America, South American and Africa . He has mined copper, lead and zinc, molybdenum, uranium, arsenic and diamonds. His responsibilities have covered exploration, project startups, operations management and financing. He has worked for Anaconda, Asarco, RTZ , St. Joe and most recently, Compaňia Minera El Indio.

While with RTZ he was directly involved in or consultant to the Palabora Mining Company in south Africa, the Rossing Uranium Project and other exploration projects in southern Africa, the Letseng-la-Terae diamond Project in Lesotho, Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, Lornex in Canada, Cerro Colorado in Panama, Udoken in the USSR and Coed-y-Brenin in Wales.

In his career, Paul has held a number of executive positions. He has been Director of Mining Operations, Rio Tinto Management Services, President of Anamax Mining Company at Twin Buttes, Arizona and President of Compaňia Minera El Indio. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of AZCO Minerals and has been a director of Lac Minerals Limited. He is currently a consultant to the mining industry.

Out of these career experiences he developed the expertise for which he is best known - the design, development and operation of open pit mines.

Samuel Peter Heintzelman was a soldier, speculator and promoter and one of the few hardy, spirited pioneers who made a substantial contribution to the establishment of Arizona’s mining development. He was born in Manheim, Pa., in 1805, and after graduating from West Point in 1826, was cited for gallantry during service in the Mexican War.

Heintzelman arrived in the Southwest in 1850 as a major in the United States Army, with the mission to establish Fort Yuma. From that position became involved in all aspects of the settlement of what was then the Northwest frontier of Mexico. In 1856, he asked for and received an extended leave from active duty, and was successful in promoting the necessary capital for the organization of the Sonora Exploring & Mining Company, one of the earliest and historically most significant companies formed to exploit Arizona’s mineral resources at the Santa Rita and Cerro Colorado Mines in the Santa Cruz Valley. From his position of president of the company his journal entries from August, 1858 to January, 1859, provide invaluable insight into the difficulties that faced Arizona’s first mineral entrepreneurs.

In 1859, Samuel Colt, the arms manufacturer, rescued the company from bankruptcy, and took over the presidency as Heintzelman resumed active duty in the army.

With the advent of the Civil War, Heintzelman received a commission of colonel and was quickly promoted to brigadier general. At the First Battle of Bull Run he fought with his usual valor, suffering a wound while vainly trying to rally his broken division in a rout of Union forces. He remained in divisional command throughout fall 1861 and winter 1862 and was promoted to major general. His remaining service was undistinguished because of his natural caution and penchant for magnifying the difficulties before him. He was characterized as a stern man of blunt speech and abundant energy. He retired from the army in 1869 and died in the District of Columbia in 1880.

Richard Alexander Fullerton Penrose, Jr. was born in Philadelphia on December 17, 1863, the 4th son of Dr. and Mrs. Richard Alexander Fullerton Penrose. He entered Harvard at the age of 17, graduated Summa cum Laude at the age of 21 and was awarded a doctorate at the age of 23. His career as a geologist was inspired at Harvard by Nathan Shaler. Following graduation, he worked as a field and mining geologist, as both an employee and consultant, and published papers on projects in Texas, Arkansas, and Colorado. He taught for a brief period at Stanford before starting the most critical years of his career.

Between 1891-1903, Penrose established his credentials and was to amass the beginning of a fortune that he augmented continuously through the remainder of his life. His studies of gold at Cripple Creek, CO. resulted in co-authorship of two U.S. Geological Survey papers with Whitman Cross in 1898. He was sought by W.H. Emmons in 1896 to study the Telluride region of Colorado with the U.S.G.S. but he had earlier chosen to accept the offer from T.C. Chamberlin in 1892 to become an Associate Professor in the first faculty of geology at the new University of Chicago.

He continued his consulting and field activities while remaining at Chicago as Professor of Economic Geology until 1911. He was a member of the first editorial staff of the Journal of Geology.

In the 1890’s he carried out intermittent consulting in the southwest through the next 5 years and in 1895 made a deal to acquire the Commonwealth mine in Pearce, AZ for $50,000 in gold. In 18 months the mine produced a net of $1 million and over the next 4 years it netted $6 million. When the ore stopped paying $100,000 per month after 5 years of production, Penrose sold his interest for slightly less than $1,000,000.

During these years in the southwest, Penrose had developed high skills in administrative ability and established a warm friendship with Herbert Hoover and over a period of ten years through the turn of the century, his contacts in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah and his influence on the mining industry are marked and important. His geological and business decisions on mining properties influenced corporate patterns for the next century on deposits in Arizona from Globe to Santa Rita and ultimately, Bingham Canyon. In 1901 he and partners organized the Utah Copper Company, in which he deferred election as president but served as a Director with D.C. Jacking as general manager.

He was the first President of the Society of Economic Geologists and funded and designed the Penrose medal for that society in 1923, and he funded the Penrose Medal for the Geological Society of America in 1925-26. He left a bequest to SEG for continued publication of its journal and a bequest of nearly $4,000,000 to both the GSA and the American Philosophical Society. His generosity was unmatched in his time.

We honor his memory and recognize him here as a pioneering Economic Geologist, an entrepreneur, an extraordinarily successful business man, a teacher, a philanthropist, and a benefactor of three of the nation’s major scientific and professional societies.