To: All Freeport Employees
From Josh Olmsted, President and Chief Operating Officer-Americas
Date: August 26, 2022
Miguel Palacios, Vice President-North America Smelting and Refining, will be returning to Spain and assuming a new role at Atlantic Copper effective September 1. In this role, Miguel will oversee innovation-based business development for Atlantic Copper and explore applicability and synergies of these developments for use across the broader Freeport organization. He will report to Javier Targhetta, President-Atlantic Copper.
Mark Albertsen, Manager-Smelter, will serve as Interim General Manager. He will report to me.
Mark has been with the company 43 years, starting at Sierrita as a moly plant operator. He has held various technical and leadership roles at company sites in North America and Europe – from surface and underground operations to health and safety to smelting, rod and refining. He was vice president and general manager at the company’s now-sold Chicago Rod mill and general manager in 2013 at Stowmarket.
Aaron Draper, Manager-Crush and Convey at Morenci, has been named General Manager Operations-El Abra, replacing Boris Medina who recently became President-El Abra. He will report to Boris.
Aaron started with the company in 2008 at Bagdad, where he progressed through mine maintenance roles until 2013 when he moved to Safford as Superintendent-Crush and Convey Maintenance. In 2016, he moved to Morenci as Superintendent-Metcalf Mill Maintenance and became Manager-Crush and Convey in 2018.
Before joining Freeport, Aaron was a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. While working as an hourly employee at Freeport, Aaron earned a Bachelor of Science in Technical Management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a Master of Business Administration in International Business from Florida Institute of Technology. He also has Six Sigma Green Belt certification from Villanova University.
Please join me offering your support to Miguel, Mark and Aaron in their new roles.