Phillips S. Baker, Jr.
Advisory Board Member
Phillips S. Baker, Jr. has served as Chief Executive Officer of Hecla Mining Company since May 2003 and joined its Board in 2001, bringing nearly three decades of mining executive experience. He took the role when silver was at a thirty-year low and inherited a company burdened by legacy environmental liabilities, which he committed hundreds of millions of dollars to resolving long before ESG became an industry focus. He sold Hecla’s Venezuelan operations — where the company was the country’s largest gold producer — and used the proceeds to take full ownership of Alaska’s Greens Creek, one of the world’s premier silver mines. Under his leadership, Hecla has grown production and cash flow around four core assets: Greens Creek, the largest silver mine in the U.S.; Idaho’s Lucky Friday, the oldest; Quebec’s Casa Berardi gold mine; and the reopened San Sebastian in Durango, Mexico.
Baker received the AIME William Lawrence Saunders Gold Medal in 2017 for positioning Hecla with the highest silver reserves in its 125-year history, and the Selwyn Blaylock Canadian Mining Excellence Award in 2023. Today Hecla produces more than 40 percent of the silver mined in the United States. He has backed a new mining method at Lucky Friday designed to make its next two decades safer and more productive, and is a leading voice on silver’s importance to renewable energy. He currently serves as an advisory board member of Gavilan Commodities, and has also served on the boards of the National Mining Association, QEP Resources, and other trade associations.
At a glance