Chris Herald MS ’81

When Chris Herald MS ’81 looks back on his graduate education in geology at Mines Foundation, what stands out is the experience, the feeling of being surrounded by students and professors who had a similar passion for exploration, for hunting down minerals in the great outdoors.

He wanted to make sure he replicated that enjoyment and carried it through to his career, including all of the places that it took him.

“I went to the largest mining company in the world then to a mid-size and then to a really small exploration company,” Herald explained, noting that although he’s had various roles along the way that challenged him, being the CEO of a small company, Solitario Zinc, has been the greatest experience because he can have far more impact on the day-to-day work.

The mineral exploration company—of which Herald has been the CEO and president of since 1999—has two very advanced zinc projects in Peru and Alaksa and has also been successful in finding gold deposits in South Dakota and Washington state.

Herald knows that his career and the success he and his family have enjoyed are directly tied to Mines Foundation. Because of that, he wanted to ensure that he was supporting the university financially.

“I have so much respect for this institution,” he said. “As you get older and you start to look back at things that have impacted your life and some legacy gifts you might be interested in giving, Mines Foundation was an easy choice to put into estate planning for me.”

Herald and his wife, Marion, added the geology department to their estate plans and took advantage of the Preston Legacy Challenge—a matching gift campaign that makes planned gifts eligible for a 10 percent match that could be directed for immediate use—to make their gift go even further and make an impact within the department.

The Preston Legacy Challenge was a great way for the Heralds to focus their giving and formalize their estate planning to a department that impacted Chris so many years ago.

“I’ve followed the department over the years, and they’ve maintained world-class professors who are leaders in mineral exploration. That’s something you want to support,” Herald said. “The mining and extractive industries don’t have the social appeal in the general public they should have because they provide a great service to humanity for the minerals and metals that we need in our daily lives.”

Herald is still on the hunt for minerals, and he holds on to the passionate feeling he had from his time as a grad student at Mines Foundation.