Robert C. Bogart (1923-2002)

Visionary General Manager, Bagdad Copper Corporation

2016 Inductee from Mining's Past

Robert Bogart graduated High School in Globe, Arizona.  His strong background in math and surveying enabled him to get a job as Assistant Engineer at the Hillside Mine in 1941.  He then joined Bagdad Copper Company as a surveyor but left in 1944 to join the armed services.  On his discharge in 1946, Bogart rejoined the company while enrolled in correspondence courses in Civil Engineering.

After being appointed Assistant General Manager, one of his first acts was to institute long range mine planning.  More responsibility and promotions followed.  Upon the merger of Bagdad with Cyprus Mines in June of 1973, Bogart became Assistant General Manager and Vice President of the new Bagdad Copper Co.  By October 1973, he was promoted to General Manager, a position he held until his retirement.

Bogart, in his 39 years spent at Bagdad, consistently demonstrated superb engineering skills overseeing major expansions in 1973 and again in 1979. His most significant accomplishment was championing, pioneering and implementing the Solvent Extraction/Electro Winning process. Bogart successfully supervised a team to build a pilot plant at Bagdad which proved the process viable.  In 1970 a full scale plant came on stream and paved the way for this cost efficient method of recovering leachable copper to become the industry standard adopted throughout the world.  Bagdad now has the distinction of having the world’s oldest operating SX-EW operation.

During Bogart’s tenure, Bagdad always operated with the highest morale, consistently achieving optimum efficiency and productivity. In 1990 Bogart authored the book Some Talk about a Copper Mine: A History of Bagdad, Arizona.