Plato Malozemoff (born Platon Alexandovich Malozyomov, Russian: Платон Александрович Малозёмов; 1909–1997) was a Russian-American engineer, manager, and businessman.

Early life and education

Malozemoff was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on August 28, 1909, and immigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area as a child.^[1] Malozemoff was raised in Oakland, California.^[2] He attended the University of California, Berkeley as an undergraduate and did his graduate studies at the Montana School of Mines, where he studied under metallurgist Antoine Marc Gaudin.^[3][4]

Career

Unable to secure an engineering position after earning his master's degree, Malozemoff held jobs provided by the Works Progress Administration.

In 1945, Malozemoff took an entry-level engineering position with the Newmont Corporation in Colorado. Quickly rising up the corporate ranks, Malozemoff became president of the company in 1954. At the time it was valued at $147 million. He expanded it into a $2.3 billion firm via acquisitions and international expansion by the time he left in 1986.^[5] He was inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame in 1994.^[6]

The UC Berkeley College of Engineering has since established a named professorship in honor of Malozemoff, the Plato Malozemoff Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.^[7][8]

Plato Malozemoff House, New York

Personal life

Malozemoff and his wife, Alexandria, had two children. He died on August 8, 1997, in Greenwich, Connecticut.^[9]

References