Rhea Lydia Graham

Rhea Lydia Graham (born August 11, 1952) is an American retired geologist with a background in environmental consulting and engineering geology and was made the last director of the United States Bureau of Mines, as well as the first female as well as African-American director, by President Bill Clinton and the United States Senate in 1994.

Early life Graham was born in Terre Haute, Indiana on August 11, 1952. While majoring in geological oceanography at Oregon State, she presented her thesis on April 11, 1977, titled “A Paleomagnetic Study of Recent Sediments in the Santa Barbara Basin”. Her thesis, approved by Jack Dymond, involved testing the sedimentary environment in the Santa Barbara Basin to see whether domizing effects on the magnetic grains dominate the paleomagnetic record.

Career Mining career After graduating, Graham worked as a geophysicist at Exxon Company in Houston, Texas from 1977 to 1978. She then worked as an engineering geologist for CH2M Hill in Portland, Oregon from 1978 to 1983. The National Academy of Sciences also recommended her specifically for the position of Director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines.

She was the first woman to hold this position since the conception of the organization 84 years prior.

Later career After serving as Director, she returned to New Mexico. She specialized in water resources management with the Sandia Pueblo. She designed and coordinated outreach and collaboration for completion of the first State Water Plan. She then served in the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in California. She coordinated a number of technical studies and coordinated with the U.S. Department of the Interior on a proposed settlement agreement of removing four dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and California. Then, she returned to New Mexico and worked on one final water resources management project. She worked on a voluntary operating agreement for New Mexico's largest storage reservoir.

In 1996, under Graham's direction, the U.S. Bureau of Mines published the second edition of the “Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms”. This revised version updated the terminology which was needed due to the many changes such as technological advancements and environmental regulations, which have occurred since the first edition of this dictionary was initially published in 1968. Other contributions during her time as the Director for the U.S. Bureau of Mines include the publication of a report in January 1995, investigating the reliability of the smoke detectors used in mining, titled "Evaluation of Smoke Detectors for Mining Use".

Graham has co-authored the following scholarly papers:

“Environmental Policy Law : Problems, Cases, and Readings” “Wasting away - An Exploration of Waste: What it is, how it happens, why we fear it, how to do it well, by Kevin Lynch” “The Complete Guide to the Hazardous Waste Regulations, 2nd Ed.”