Alumni Spotlight - Terry Mudder (CHEM 74)

Following the opportunities, and making history along the way

Terry Mudder (CHEM 74) saved the fish in Whitewood Creek, but that is only one of his impressive accomplishments in his career. He has received many awards, started his own business with his wife, wrote a handful of books and published articles, and was even the first inductee for the International Mining Technology Hall of Fame. However, he says he’s most proud of having his band inducted into the South Dakota Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.

Terry grew up in Sioux Falls to worker bee parents who instilled a solid work ethic in him. In 1974, he graduated from South Dakota School of Mines & Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry with high honors. He also holds a Master of Science degree in Organic and Analytical Chemistry and a Doctorate degree in Environmental Science and Engineering from the University of Iowa summa cum laude.

Terry and his wife, Dr. Karen Hagelstein, married in 1974 and immediately started following opportunities wherever they were. Terry’s early career focused on water management and treatment for power companies, and Karen’s focused on the health, environmental, air quality, and toxicology arena.

As their careers evolved, they found themselves back in South Dakota where Karen was offered a job as an assistant professor in the Biology and Chemistry departments. Terry’s mom sent him a newspaper clipping for a job as a bench lab analyst at Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota.

“I knew nothing about mining,” Terry recalls, chuckling. “I went up there and got a tour of the place and all of that stuff was totally foreign to me.”

But that didn’t stop him from diving in and making a historical difference at Homestake. The mine had been in operation for well over a century when the EPA visited in the 70s and ordered them to find a better way to deposit their spent ore, which at the time was being dumped down Whitewood Creek, resulting in a billion tons of tailings going down 200 miles of river system, ending in the Oahe Reservoir, and polluting a permanent trout fishery.

Terry became the first person to develop a combined aerobic attached growth biological treatment process by using rotating biological contractors. This system was the first of its kind that used bacteria to remove thiocyanate, cyanide, ammonia, and metals from process solution.

“Before this, nobody had ever piloted these treatment systems, which are now standard treatment systems, back then we were on our own,” Terry said.

Terry was able to clean up Whitewood Creek and it is now a permanently reproducing trout fishery, eclipsing the production of Spearfish Creek. Terry recalled driving away from the mine on his last day of work and seeing a little boy fishing in the creek.

“I pulled over and got out and went to ask him what he was doing. He said ‘I’m fishing. They cleaned up this creek so the fish are safe now,’” Terry said. “That, in a nutshell, is why you do what you do.”

Terry and his wife continued to travel the world, visiting three dozen countries between them, performing consulting jobs and eventually starting their own business, TIMES Limited in the mid-90s.

Through a highly successful and decorated career, Terry attributes much of his success to his wife and their desire to do good work in the world.

“We’ve strived to do quality work and make it legitimate,” he said. “We prided ourselves on doing high quality work, and we wanted to do something that made lives better.”

Through his time at South Dakota Mines, Terry remarked that he loved being able to connect one-on-one with his teachers and have an open door policy to be able to walk in to their office. That is not something you get at larger universities, he said.

Terry’s career took him down a path he had not anticipated going, but he said that is going to happen to everyone and it’s important to stay flexible.

“You have to plan in your life that there’s going to be twists and turns, you need to develop multiple skill sets because you likely won’t be in a job for 30 years,” he said. “People don’t think on day one the number of things a mechanical engineer can do, they end up doing things wildly different than they thought.”

Terry said his goal and advice to younger students is whatever you do, do it because you love it.

“Both Karen and I generally loved what we did and approached each task in our professional careers happily and ready to go.”

Terry and Karen recently visited campus for the 50-year graduate reunion and Terry remarked at how inspiring it was to see so many people in his class stand up and say that they struggled while at school.

“The school was hard; it was really hard. I was impressed by the fact that these people stuck it out and they worked hard and brought themselves back up with that South Dakota work ethic,” he recalled. “All of these people ended up working and it’s such a huge variety of industries, it’s amazing.”