John Richard (Jack) Hoskins was born June 9, 1919 in Brewster, Washington. After graduating from the University of Idaho with a B.S. in Mining Engineering in 1947, he was employed as plant engineer and department superintendent for the U.S. Gypsum Company, Evans, Washington, mining and processing limestone into building materials. He left there in 1949 to work with ASARCO in Santa Barbara, Mexico, where he was employed as staff mining engineer and later mine shift boss and mine foremen in a one-thousand-ton-a-day lead, zinc, copper, and gold operation. In 1952 he went to the University of Alaska where he taught Mining Engineering for five years. Leaving Alaska in 1957, he continued his studies in applied mechanics, mathematics, and mining engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute under a special grant from the National Science Foundation. After completing his work at Virginia Tech in 1959, he attended the University of Utah at Salt Lake City where he completed his Ph.D. in 1962. He then moved to Denver to work as Mining Methods Research Engineer for the U.S. Bureau of Mines.He came to the University of Idaho in 1967 as Professor of Mining Engineering and the following year he became head of the Department of Mining Engineering and Metallurgy in the College of Mines and Earth Resources (COMER).
Hoskins is the author of many publications and presentations, and has worked on numerous research projects in rock mechanics, explosives, drilling and blasting, mine ventilation and health and safety. A member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, he served as Education Chairman and Program Chairman in the Alaska Section. He has also served on the Education Committee and Educational Board of the Society of Mining Engineers and was the American Institute of Mining Engineers representative to the Engineers' Council for Professional Development. He has also held membership in the American Society of Engineering Education Minerals Division, the Northwest Mining Association, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of University Professors, the Idaho Academy of Science, and the Idaho Mining Association. He has been named an Outstanding Educator of America and has been honored by the Northwest Mining Association, the Society of Mining Engineers, the U.S. Bureau of Mines Spokane Research Center, University of Idaho Mining Students, and the Northwest Mining Association. He retired from the University of Idaho in 1989.
From the guide to the Papers, 1947-1989, (University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives)
