Originally published on November 04, 2025.
Jacob Crump’s decision to attend SUU—as his first step to his success as a geologist—can be traced to a young Thunderbird coed he’d been dating and would later marry.
To be sure, that’s not the first time that romance was responsible for attracting a student to the institution, but in Jacob’s case, it led him to see a new world of opportunity.
“Before SUU, I had no idea what I was capable of or that the things I was interested in could make a beneficial impact to the world,” he says. “Being mentored by my amazing professors helped me see there’s so much to learn and so many paths to take. I also grew as a leader as I served as the president of the Geo Club.”
It was a path he’d never planned on, as he says he started out as a biology major with the goal of becoming a large animal vet.
“But I quickly realized geology was more my style,” he explains. “I grew up rockhounding with my dad, and so I had a relative knowledge of rock and minerals, and after an Intro to Geology class with Professor Erich Mueller, I switched majors.”
He notes that the area of metallurgy began to appeal to him, and he accepted an offer to work a summer in an exploration geology operation in Tucson, Arizona, and the following year to serve as a summer mine site geologist in Silver City, New Mexico, and by the fall he received a full-time job offer upon graduation to work the Chino mine in Santa Rita, New Mexico.”
All that may well have been dreamlike before he enrolled here, he admits.
“I am kind of a blue-collar guy who never thought I could pass hard classes like calculus, chemistry, and physics. Although I had to retake these classes, I learned that I could accomplish hard things through determination and hard work," he says.
He does note that he practically lived in the tutoring center in his time at SUU.
His employer, Freeport McMoRan of Phoenix, is the nation’s largest copper producer, producing more than 70 percent of the country’s copper. Jacob collects daily rock samples that are drilled to record the geologic formation they come from and to estimate the copper content.
“What I find rewarding is that we play an important role in the whole mining process, and that we help direct others as to where to mine,” he says.
Jacob loves making jewelry such as bolo ties out of rocks and mineral he finds. His wife, Mariah, graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Family Life and Human Development in 2023 and the couple have a 7-month-old daughter.
Tags: Geology
