Jesse C. Johnson was Director of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Division of Raw Materials for 13 years, beginning in 1950 when the United States desperately needed raw material to support its rapidly expanding nuclear programs. Under Johnson’s direction, the AEC’s Division of Raw Materials incentive programs sparked a search for uranium on the Colorado Plateau and elsewhere that resulted in the greatest U.S. mining boom since the California gold rush of 100 years before. So successful were the Raw Materials Division’s programs and so plentiful became U.S. uranium reserves and production that extreme demand turned to potential oversupply. During 1957 and 1958, Johnson was forced to moderate uranium purchases by the U.S. Government.
Basic to Jesse Johnson’s success was his decision to let private industry do the job of developing a U.S. uranium industry and to encourage the industry’s efforts by establishing a series of Atomic Energy Commission buying stations and a guaranteed ore purchase schedule. This program combined with the AEC’s dissemination of information on uranium occurrences and recovery methods to make the uranium procurement program a great success.
Jesse Johnson was acclaimed as one of those rare individuals who work well with both government and industry and who receive high praise from both. Johnson steered the uranium industry through its initial period of uncertainty, encouraged the industry during its growth, did all that was possible to protect the industry when reserves kept mounting, and developed a long-range program of adjustment to assure the nation’s nuclear resources.
Jesse Johnson’s education and working experience prepared him well for his stint with the Atomic Energy Commission. Jesse graduated cum laude from the University of Washington in 1919 with a degree in mining and geology. He subsequently spent a decade doing mining engineering in the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Alaska, working as a field engineer, mine superintendent, and consulting engineer and geologist. He later did mine evaluations for Merrill Lynch.
During World War II, Jesse Johnson joined Metals Reserve, Reconstruction Finance Corp., and from 1944 to 1946, he was its chief engineer. In that capacity, Johnson had responsibility for administering the Premium Price Plan for copper, lead, and zinc; for smelting and refining contracts; and for operation of government-owned plants such as the Texas tin smelter and the Nicaro nickel plant in Cuba. In 1948, Johnson joined the AEC.
In 1961, Jesse Johnson was awarded the third Ambrose Monell gold medal and cash award for Distinguished Achievement in Mineral Technology. His citation stated: “Never in the history of mining and metallurgy has a scarce metal suddenly become so important to the defense of the free world as uranium after the successful development of atomic weapons, and never has a challenge of meeting the exceedingly great demands for such metal been so successfully met in such a short period of time.”
