In each issue of The Alaska Miner, we recognize a member of our Alaska mining community. This issue we are interviewing long-time Alaska miner Rich Hughes. Faces of Mining
Rich Hughes
BY LEE LESCHPER Who was your mentor in this industry and what did they teach you that remains true today? I think that I had two mentors, one in university and one initially at work. Harve Nelson, PhD, professor of Mining Engineering, UNR, Mackay School of Mines, taught me humility, great mining technology, and the ability to seek and use infor- mation. He was a great guy. Dale Brown, General Foreman, Kennecott Copper, Ruth Pit, Nevada — a fantastic guy with lots of tolerance, knowledge, and patience. He was an incredible lead to the industry. What brought you to Alaska? I was born in St. Helena, Calif., in 1938 and raised on my grandfather’s farm/ranch in Potter Valley, Calif. I be- came interested in mining through a high school chem- istry course. I studied mining engineering at the Univer- sity of Nevada, Mackay School of Mines and graduated in 1960. My first job was with Kennecott at Ruth, Nevada.
I married my high school sweetheart, Virginia Strick- ler, in 1957. We have three great kids and now have seven grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. In the interest of ex- panding my experience to include underground min- ing, I was enticed to leave KCC and take a position with New Idria Mining & Chem-
ical Company in southern California at the New Idria mercury mine. I then returned to the University to obtain my masters but became involved with an intense gold exploration program in Nevada. This led to the eventual commissioning of at least two gold mines in the state. I have held a number of mining / resource extraction positions and have done a lot of consulting on an essen- tially independent basis. I joined the Anaconda Company in 1965 at Yerington, Nev., then left to run Milchem’s barite mine/milling operation at Battle Mountain, NV for a short stint. Anaconda enticed me back in 1969 to work at the Berkely Pit in Butte, Mont. I rose through a num- ber of positions to General Manager of the Butte Opera- tions in 1975. A headhunter attracted me to join Rio Tin- to’s Rossing Uranium Mine operation in Southwest Africa (Namibia) as General Manager in 1975. I worked there for a couple years then returned to the states to take a man- agement position with Exxon Minerals at their Douglas, WY uranium mine. I was transferred to Houston, Texas, to take on Exxon’s Pinos Altos, N.M., project in 1977. I always had a life-long dream to live in Alaska and do my own thing. I had that opportunity in 1981 with the great jobs provided at Prudhoe Bay in the oil patch. I joined ARCO Projects in June 1981 at Prudhoe and lived in Anchorage. I retired from ARCO in 1987 and began my own consulting service. I have consulted for a number of individuals and companies and have had great experi- ences operating projects and mines in the state. I joined Valdez Creek Mining Company in 1988 and worked at their large placer operation on its namesake creek in the Alaska Range. This effort lasted two years. I returned to consulting and provided that service to a number of small operators, but mainly consulted for Cook Inlet Regional’s North Pacific Mining Company in Anchorage on the Illinois Creek project and others. I also had a significant contract with AMAX Gold to transfer Sleeper and Wind Mountain, Nev., projects to Alaska to determine feasibility here. I joined Ryan Lode Mines, Inc. in 1993 to operate the namesake project on Ester Dome. Ryan Lode is a high- grade vein system and was the first successful heap leach operation in an Artic setting in Alaska. The intent of this project, succeeding the initial mining and heap leaching,
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Hughes at the 2014 AMA convention in Fairbanks.
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The Alaska Miner
Spring 2023
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