David C. Lincoln

(1925 - 2018)

2012 Medal of Merit Recipient

David Lincoln was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1925. He received Bachelors and Masters Degrees from California Institute of Technology. In earlier years he held jobs in aerospace. In the late 1940's, the Lincoln family acquired controlling interest in Bagdad Copper Company which was a 2500 ton per day underground operation. David assumed the presidency of Bagdad upon the death of his father in 1959. In the early 1950's, Bagdad converted to open pit and capacity was increased to 6,000 tons per day. Overburden was stockpiled for later leaching which began in the early 1960's. Initially the copper was recovered as cement copper by iron precipitation. The cement copper was refined on site to pure copper powder and sold for friction and molding applications.

In the later 1960's recovery of the leached copper was changed from iron precipitation to solvent extraction/electro winning. The Bagdad plant for this was the second one in the copper industry and the first one designed for long term use. It is still going after more than 40 years.

Following solvent extraction/electro winning the next development at Bagdad was to develop the large body of lower grade ore. This required expanding the size of the plant by about ten times which was far beyond the ability of the company to finance on its own. This led to merging with Cyprus Mines in 1973. Cyprus could handle the financing and in addition liked the highly cooperative culture among Bagdad employees and management. Mr. Lincoln continued as an active member of the Cyprus board until Cyprus was acquired by Standard Oil Company of Indiana in 1980. Robert Bogart had been assistant manager of Bagdad and was promoted to general manager by Cyprus. He very skillfully managed the expansion which was successfully completed. The mine has undergone additional expansions and continues as a very viable operation.

Mr. Lincoln resides in Phoenix with his wife Joan. They have four children. Mr. Lincoln is currently involved in a variety of profit and not for profit endeavors.

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