SPE's Parent Achieved Its Own Lasting Legacy
Authors: Donnelly John 
Published: February 2015

SPE's parent organization has its own significant history and has made many valuable contributions to industry as well. The society that eventually gave birth to SPE was founded in 1871 by 22 mining engineers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The American Institute of Mining Engineers (AIME) would become the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers in 1919 and the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers decades later.

AIME was one of the first engineering societies established in the US and is known as an Engineering Founder Society, along with professional organizations representing civil, electrical, mechanical, and chemical engineers. The goal of AIME is to "advance and disseminate, through the programs of the member societies, knowledge of engineering and the arts and sciences involved in the production and use of minerals, metals, energy sources, and materials for the benefit of humankind." One of its most important legacies has been in the numerous technical papers it published from almost the very beginning of the organization. In the mid-1980s, the four divisions of AIME—The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society, the Association for Iron & Steel Technology, the Society of Mining Engineers, and SPE—became separately incorporated organizations. These organizations make up AIME's membership. Today the memberships of the AIME member societies total about 100,000.

Petroleum's Rise

At the time of its founding, the commodities of most interest to AIME members were coal, iron, lead, salt, gold, and silver. It would be years before petroleum rose to significance, according to the book Centennial History of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers 1871–1970.

"The petroleum industry was still an infant, although the famous Drake well, near Titusville, Pennsylvania, had been discovered 12 years earlier. The chief market product was kerosene to burn in lamps, for [Thomas] Edison's first incandescent electric bulb was 8 years in the future.

"The light fraction from petroleum known as gasoline was something of a nuisance, and the refiners produced as little as possible. The devising of a horseless carriage was in the minds of various inventors, but the use of gasoline as its source of power was given scant consideration, and the few who toyed with the idea of a flying machine fueled with gasoline were visionary dreamers. Duryea's gasoline automobile came in 1892, and the airplane became practical about 20 years later."

Hoover and Carnegie

Among the most famous members of AIME were Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the US, and well-known philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Hoover, a successful mining engineer and consultant whose career included work in the US and Australia, gained fame heading up US relief efforts after World War I. He served as AIME president in 1920. In 1921, he accepted a post as US Secretary of Commerce. He served as US president during 1929–33. His grandson, Herbert Hoover III, has been an SPE member for 50 years.

Carnegie was chairman of the Committee on Arrangements for the AIME fall meeting in 1890. In 1904, he gave USD 1.5 million to the institute—quite a sum at the time—for the construction of a headquarters in New York City. The building was dedicated in 1907.

As membership needs and specialties grew, AIME's divisions eventually took on more responsibility. Its four societies, including SPE, separately incorporated in 1984. Today, AIME's corporate headquarters is located in Littleton, Colorado. SPE has maintained a close relation-ship with AIME through the years. Many SPE presidents have served terms as AIME presidents as well.