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FRANK R. MILLIKEN
1914-1991
BY NATHANIEL ARBITER
FRANK R MILLIKEN who had retired as chief executive officer
of the Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1979 and had been
elected to the NationalAcademyofEngineering (NAE) in 1975,
died at his winter home in Tucson, Arizona, on December 4,
1991, of coronary failure.
Frank was born on {anuary 25, 1914, in Maiden, Massachu-
setts, where he received his early education. Entering Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1931, he received the B.S.
degree in mining engineering in 1934.
From that year on, he began his lifelong association with the
mining industry, which was to bring him to eventual leadership
of one ofthis country's major copper producers the Kennecott
Corporation. Starting his career cluring the depression of the
1930s, he worked briefly for the Peru Mining Company in
Deming, New Mexico, as a metallurgist, before occupying the
post of chief metallurgist for the General Engineering Company
in Salt Lake City, Utah, from 1936 to 1941. He then worked
briefly as test engineer at the Utah Copper Company's Magna
Concentrator during 1941, foreshadowing his eventual long-
term association with Kennecott, its parent company. Joining the
National Lead Company's Titanium Division in 1941, his first
position was as superintendent of its concentrator in Tahawus,
New York, making this operation a model of technical efficiency.
This resulted in his becoming assistant manager of the titanium
division in 1949, a post he occupied until 1952.
133
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134
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
In that year he rejoined Kennecott as the vice-president of
mining, becoming executive vice-president ant! director in 1 95S,
president and chief executive officer in 1961, and finally chair-
man and chief executive officer in 1978 prior to his retirement
in 1979. During the hectic times for the copper industry in the
1960s and 1970s, Frank received national attention through his
astute and aggressive management policies, as well as for his
involvement in public affairs. That period, in addition to inten-
sified promulgation of strikes by organized labor, saw the nation-
alization of the copper mines held by Kennecott and Anaconda
in Chile and the beginnings of enforcement of new environmen-
tal protection regulations under the Environmental Protection
Agency. These enforcements were to drastically alter copper
smelting practice and, through the increased availability of
sulfuric acid, provide new sources of copper through the leach-
ing of low-gracle ores. Kennecott, uncler Frank's leadership and
through his support of its research department, was to play an
important role in these developments.
Another area on which Frank focused was the expansion of
Kennecott's activities into other mineral-relatecI fields, some
successful, others not. His predecessor at Kennecott's helm,
Charles R. Cox, had started this endeavor with the attempted
acquisition of the Okonite Company, a copper fabricator; the
Quebec Iron and Titanium Company; and several South African
gold mining ventures. The first ran afoul of antitrust regulations,
and the others had technical and financial problems. Under
Milliken, the major diversification from copper was the acquisi-
tion of Peabody Coal in 1966, whose sales and assets then totaled
one-thircl of Kennecott's. However, the Federal Trade Commis-
sion cletectec! antitrust implications and started legal actions,
which it eventually won in 1977. This forced Milliken to sell
Peabody for a price near one billion dollars, instead of spinning
off the shares, a move described byFortunemagazine as brilliant.
The next and the most dramatic of any of Frank's actions was
the acquisition of the Carborundum Company in late November
1977. Because of the depression in the copper industry,
Kennecott's directors had acivisec3 avoiding any expansion of
copper capacity, with Carborundum an attractive alternative.
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FRANK R. MILLIKEN
135
However, this led to a classic proxy battle, as well as a court battle,
pitting Kennecott against T. R. Berner, a veteran of such wars,
who was chief executive of Curtiss-Wright Corporation. With no
holds barred by Berner, including personal attacks against Frank,
both the proxy and legal battles were joined in the spring of
1978, with Kennecott the winner in both. Peter Grace, a Kennecott
director, said that Frank's campaign resembled his earlier ag-
gressive tactics in the 1930s as an all-American goalie on MIT's
hockey team and as a winning substitute varsity wrestler.
His election to the National Academy of Engineering in 1975
was not only a tribute to his leadership in a major industry, but
to Frank's manifold activities in the public interest as well. These
activities included his service as deputy chairman of the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York, chairman of the Federal Reserve
Board of New York, director and vice-chairman of the American
Mining Congress, a member of the Business Council, and head
of the United Fund of Greater New York. In addition, he headed
the International Copper Research Association and the United
States Copper Association. He received the U.S. Treasury
Department's Distinguished Service Award in 1965 for help in
selling government bonds. His memberships in professional
societies included Tau Beta Pi fraternity; the Mining and Metal-
lurgical Society of America; and the American Institute of
Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME), in
which he was designated a distinguished member of its Society
of Mining Engineers. Other honors he received were the Robert
H. Richards Award of AIME, the Copper Man of the Year Award
from the Copper Club, and the Distinguished Service Award
from the American Mining Congress.
One of Frank's most enduring and dedicated associations was
with MIT, which began in 1954when he became a member ofthe
visiting committee for geology and geophysics. He was elected a
member of the Corporation in 1962; he became a life member
in 1977 and life member emeritus in 1986. During these years he
served on numerous committees, both administrative and edu-
cational. The latter included the visiting committees for the
departments of chemistry, earth sciences, nuclear engineering,
and metallurgy and material sciences. A former president of the
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
institute called him "a devoted and generous alumnus, and a
trustee of extraordinary declication . . . a valued counselor to its
presidents and chairmen." In token of this he received MIT's
Corporate Leadership Award in 1976. He also received honor-
ary degrees from the Colorado School of Mines and the Univer-
sity of Utah.
S u r v i v e ~ b y h i s ~ e v 0 t e ~ w i f e 0 f fi f t y - s i x y e a r s , B a r b a r a K i n g s b u r y
Milliken, and by their two sons, Frank and David, Frank's later
years were devoted to his family, and until his health deterio-
rated, to his favorite sports, golf and fishing. He will be long
remembered as a public servant and as an engineer who fought
successfully for his company's survival, during a period when
many other mining companies succumbed to declining re-
sources, to domestic and foreign economic and political pres-
sures, and to corporate wars.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
extraordinary declication
