Dr. Leith, a longtime member of the geology faculty at the University of Wisconsin and a geologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), is regarded as being single-handedly responsible for the government’s stockpile of strategic minerals and metals.​

Thanks to his persistent efforts, stocks of tin, manganese, chrome, copper, and tungsten were acquired prior to World War II, thus enabling the nation to avoid shortages during the conflict.​

His stockpiling efforts were rooted in his experience in World War I, as Chairman of the U.S. Shipping Board’s Committee on Mineral Imports and Exports. He also advised Bernard Baruch’s War Industries Board and served on the Committee to Negotiate the Peace. He observed that the U.S. was woefully short of critical minerals and metals as it entered the war.​

Leith published numerous books and reports on economic geology and strategic minerals, including World Minerals and World Politics in 1931 and World Minerals and World Peace in 1943.​

During World War II, he chaired the National Academy of Sciences’ Advisory Committee on Metals and Minerals and served as Chief of the War Production Board’s Metals and Minerals Branch. From 1944 to 1956, he assisted the Atomic Energy commission in formulating the best use of minerals in war and in peace.​

Dr. Leith planned the geologic and economic survey of the Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) region of southern Nevada. He was Professor of Geology at the University of Wisconsin from 1903 to 1945.​

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