Oral Histories

Douglas Fuerstenau has profoundly influenced everyone living in the second half of the twentieth century, because, as I learned while interviewing him, everything that civilized society uses, from bread to paper to microchips, has to be made by grinding, dissolving, mixing, or separating particles. His research in the fundamental science of particles has earned him admission to the national scientific academies of the United States, Australia, Japan, Russia, and India, and he has received highest academic honors in Belgium, Sweden, Italy, China, Germany, and the United States. The University of California has given him its highest honors: the Berkeley Citation and Berkeley Fellow. In 2005 he was named to the South Dakota Hall of Fame. For nearly twenty years Professor Fuerstenau has been principal investigator and faculty advisor to the Regional Oral History Office series on Western Mining in the Twentieth Century. It is appropriate that the series finally includes his own oral history. The project grew out of conversations we had while driving to the McLaughlin Mine inauguration in Napa County in October 1985, and he and his wife, Peggy, firmly supported the concept from then on. He was a tireless and effective advocate and fundraiser for the series, urging expanding its breadth and depth to include not only academics and CEOs but also what he called “journeymen” of the field. Professor Fuerstenau was a founder and, for many years, editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Mineral Processing, which dedicated a special issue to him in 2003. The preface to that issue lists his many professional accomplishments. It is said that the first half of the twentieth century was dominated by the metallurgical research of Antoine Gaudin, and the second half by his student, Douglas Fuerstenau. He has been successful in academia and also in industry, working for Union Carbide and Kaiser Engineers and serving as longtime director of Homestake Mining Company. This breadth of accomplishment recalls that of mining engineer Herbert Hoover and, more recently, two other interviewees in this series, James Boyd and Donald McLaughlin. Professor Fuerstenau turned down some attractive offers in other areas because his real love was research and teaching. He advised an astonishing number of graduate students: 60 PhD and 65 MS candidates; he has continued to guide many of them through their later careers, as a critic of science and also a stickler for proper English. At thirty-six, he was asked to serve on the University of California budget committee; he was very young to be given this responsibility. His South Dakota childhood, with early responsibilities and a strong moral and ethical upbringing, contribute to his outlook on life, his love of music, and insistence on correct English. He is also known for his great talent as a cartoonist.