Ronald V. Markham
Class of 1975
- President American Gold Mining Corporation
To be successful, you must be willing to put in time and effort.
Ronald Markham was born in 1928 in Toronto, Canada. His parents struggled through the Great Depression to support their four sons. At the age of 13, Markham went to work in a machine shop, earning 10 cents an hour. After high school graduation, he jumped from job to job, working on an assembly line in an optical manufacturing plant and later at a logging camp.
But Markham realized he needed to learn all he could about mining, the career path he wanted to pursue. Twenty mining firms turned him down before Cyprus Mines Corp. backed him financially. He later worked at Silver Titan Mines Ltd.
Markham co-founded Anvil Mining Corp., located in Yukon Territory, which in 1977 was the world's largest lead-zinc-silver producer. In 1981, Anvil sold the mine to Anglo American PLC, the world's largest mining company, for $400 million, a return of 125 times to the original shareholders.