Cody Sutherlin

Vice President, U. S. Operations

Coeur Mining, Inc.

2019 Medal of Merit Under 40 Recipient

Cody Sutherlin holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mining Engineering from the Montana School of Mines and Engineering. After graduating, Sutherlin began his career with Rio Tinto Minerals in 2007 and held both technical and operational roles in the company’s Talc and Borate product groups. In 2012, Sutherlin joined Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Copper Operation in Salt Lake City, UT as a superintendent of mine planning.  

On April 10, 2013, a towering wall of dirt and rocks gave way and crashed down the side of the Bingham Canyon Mine, which was described as one of the biggest non-volcanic landslides in North America’s modern history. Sutherlin worked with the mine technical team to develop a plan to recover from this massive slide, and a few weeks after the slide he was promoted to manage the entire remediation effort. 

This was a massive job that was one of the most difficult in the mining industry. Sutherlin quickly assembled a high-performance team that was successful in the remediation effort, and was able to do so faster than anyone thought possible.  The speed at which the remediation work was accomplished meant that the mine could return to full operations sooner than the original schedule, which prevented large-scale impacts to the operation and its employees. And most importantly the remediation team did all of the work safely.  At the time he was only 29 years old.  The mine is now back to normal operations mining hundreds of millions of tons per year and producing nearly 300,000 tons of copper annually.

Subsequently, in late 2015 Sutherlin was named General Manager, Site Infrastructure and Services, for Oyu Tolgoi LLC.  Oyu Tolgoi is a copper-gold mine in the South Gobi region of Mongolia which is managed and operated by Rio Tinto.   Sutherlin was responsible for logistics, electrical services, mechanical services, construction and engineering, heating, water utilities, and camp and site services.

In 2018, he went to Newmont Goldcorp in Elko, Nevada as General Manager of Surface Mining. Recently, he moved to Chicago as the Vice President of US Operations for Coeur Mining, Inc. Sutherlin continues to bring a strong commitment to safety and enjoys developing solutions to complex challenges. 

Sutherlin grew up on his family’s ranch in Stevensville, MT where he learned a solid work ethic and the ability to persevere. Cody attributes a lot of his success to what he learned on the family ranch. Cody and his wife Mindy have a young boy named Tripp and they enjoy getting to spend time together with family and friends.

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