Richard Graeme (1941 – 2021)

Mineralogist

2024 Inductee from Mining’s Past

A native of Bisbee, Arizona, Graeme was an active collector and student of Bisbee minerals from the age of 6. He spent 55 years in the copper industry, much outside of the United States, in senior management positions. He retired as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Lumina Copper SAC.

By his early teens, he had amassed a collection of minerals and was well-known to mineral dealers and other collectors as a source of specimens. In 1959 while looking for minerals in the Cole Mine, he collected a specimen that would later be recognized as a species new to science and in 1975 was named “Graemite” in his honor.

Graeme worked as an underground miner at Bisbee for a dozen years before completing a Bachelor of Science Degree in Geological Engineering in 1972 at The University of Arizona. The day after receiving his diploma, he was promoted to Resident Geologist of the Copper Queen Branch. With the closure of the Bisbee mines, Graeme worked in a number of Western States.

He was the General Manager of gold mines in California, New Mexico and Nome, Alaska as well as a coal mine in Utah and a copper mine in New Mexico, where he was instrumental in district reclamation. He then became Vice President of Operations for Sharon Steel Natural Resources based in Denver and later Vice President of Operations for Golden Queen Mining Company in Mojave, California.  Graeme then moved abroad to work on developing mines in Ghana, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, and other countries.

He also served as Vice-President and General Manager of Gold Fields La Cima in Peru, and as Vice President and Country Manager of Gold Fields Venezuela. Prior to that, he was Vice President and Head of Operations for Gold Fields Ghana, Ltd., located in West Africa.

No matter where he was in the world, he continued to study Bisbee’s mineralogy, geology, and history while writing about all of these aspects and encouraging others to pursue Bisbee scientific research. The Graeme Family Reference Collection is the most complete collection of Bisbee minerals ever compiled and is readily available to any student interested in Bisbee minerals. In addition to the mineral suites, he and his family have compiled what is probably the most detailed history of the Warren Mining District.

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