Dean Cook

by Robert A. Perkins

For 60 years, the University of Alaska (UA) and Alaska’s mining industry benefited from their association with Dean Donald J. Cook, PE. He was dean of the School of Mineral Engineering and director of the Mineral Industry Research Laboratory for five years, besides several years as acting dean of mining and mineral schools under various organizational structures. His service to students, the university, the United States, and Alaska’s mineral industry was founded upon extraordinary hard work and dedication. 

Don Cook came to UA in Fairbanks in 1937 to learn mining engineering. He was encouraged by President Bunnell, but Cook made his way through school by working summers in the mines. During World War II, he joined the ROTC and was a member of UA’s first four-year ROTC class; commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1943. He was assigned to combat duty in Europe, landing on Utah Beach during the Normandy Invasion. He was severely wounded in the battle for Saint Lo and, despite months of hospitalization, lost most use of his right arm.

Returning to Fairbanks, he completed his B.S. in Minerals Engineering in 1947. For the next ten years, he worked for FE Company as a mining engineer, working with the FE Company’s massive gold dredges. He became a registered Professional Mining and Mineral Processing Engineer in 1952. He wrote technical articles about the dredges and gold processing. He also stayed close to UA and Dean Beistline, who ran the mining programs. With plans for a career in teaching, Dean Cook received a scholarship and teaching assistantship at Penn State’s Mineral Engineering program, where he completed his MS and PhD degrees in three and a half years. Then, Dean Beistline invited Don Cook to join the mining faculty at UA.

Joining his field and academic experience, Cook wrote several books about gold mining and processing. His most difficult academic job, however, was guiding UA’s mineral programs though administrative reorganizations in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The mining programs passed from the School of Mineral Engineering to the College of Earth Sciences and Mineral Industries and finally to the School of Mining, Petroleum, and Geological Engineering. Perhaps his most rewarding academic achievement was the relationship he developed with Taiwan’s premier Cheng Kung University’s mineral engineering programs. As a visiting professor there and back in Fairbanks, Dean Cook initiated student and faculty exchanges and research agreements that set a template for future agreements by the UA engineering programs. One of Dean Cook’s outreach programs administered a Bureau of Indian Affairs program to train mineral processing technicians from rural areas. 

A profound benefit to Alaska and its mining industry derived from changes Dean Cook initiated in the curriculum and, especially, outreach programs. Because of changes in mineral economics and environmental laws, Dean Cook saw the need for reorganizing the curriculum and the UA mining outreach to emphasize environmentally responsible mining. Alaska’s students and economy benefited from a wise approach to change. Likewise benefiting Alaska’s economy, following “retirement,” Dean Cook spent time in Taiwan as Alaska’s trade representative and as a member to the Alaska Minerals Commission. 

Among his many awards are the UAF Distinguished Alumnus of the Year in 1983 and the Alaska Miners Association Hall of Fame award. That award noted the two main recipients of Dean Cook’s efforts, miners and students. “He never turned down a miner in need of assistance.” And, “his quiet, confident manner helped many students get through the arduous course work he himself assigned.”

Image above: Alaska Mining Hall of Fame