R. Gene Dewey (1940 – 2023)

President and CEO of Molycorp

Retired Mining Executive

2023 Medal of Merit Recipient

R. Gene Dewey was born in Sewickley, PA in April of 1940. He graduated from the University of Arizona with a BS degree in Business in 1961. After a short stint in the steel industry, he joined Kennecott Copper Corporation in AZ at the Ray Mines Division where he held positions in accounting, operations, and maintenance.

In 1967 he relocated to Molycorp, Inc’s new open pit molybdenum mining operation near Taos, New Mexico.  In 1969 he worked with Fluor Utah to design a computerized DCF-ROI program. He was instrumental in implementing an innovative cost accounting system as well as establishing a component rebuild and replacement system for the mining equipment.

Dewey became the General Manager in 1974. In 1976 he was promoted to VP of Mining and Exploration and transferred to the New York office. In 1977 Molycorp merged into Unocal Corporation. In 1979 he relocated to Unocal’s office in California, was promoted to President of Molycorp in 1985 and to VP of Carbon and Minerals in 1991 with responsibilities for world-wide mining and exploration, graphite operations in Texas, operations and marketing of Unocal’s calcined coke, green coke, needle coke and solvents.

He was the principal liaison for Molycorp in their partnership with the world’s largest niobium mine in Araxa, Brazil. Molycorp was also the only producer of primary rare earths in North America from its mine in Mountain Pass, California.

He retired in June of 2000, bought a 47-foot cutter rigged sloop and sailed it from Ft. Lauderdale to Trinidad in 2001 and back in 2002. Since that time, he and Lynne have been sailing around the world a few weeks every year.

Dewey was a member of the Board of Directors of the American Mining Association and the National Mining Association from 1986 to 2000. He has been a member of SME since 1969 and has served as the Los Angeles section chairperson. He is a founding member of the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum, a member of the Mining and Minerals Education Foundation and The Mining and Metallurgical Society of America.

In 2015 he and his wife Lynne started a foundation at the Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources at the University of Arizona.  R. Gene Dewey passed away on August 17, 2023 in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

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