James V. Thompson was a mining and metallurgical engineer for the Dorr, Humphreys and Kaiser Engineers Companies from the 1940s to the 1990s. Thompson was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1915 but later moved to Denver, Colorado at the age of nine. He completed high school in Denver and entered the Colorado School of Mines in 1934. He graduated with a degree of Engineer of Mines in 1940 and immediately left for the Philippine Islands to work for the Baguio Gold Mining Company during WWII. After the war, Thompson worked as a research engineer for the Dorr Company (1945-1948), a metallurgist for Humphreys Companies, (1948-1956) and a project engineer for Kaiser Engineers (1957-1990). In this interview, Thompson discusses his early education, family history, WWII internment in the Philippine Islands, developing a manganese mine in Blythe, CA, Tata Project (Jamshedpur, India), Bong Mining Co. (Liberia), El Teniente Mine (Chile), DOCEGEO (Brazil), research on mischmetal, zinc batteries for electric-powered vehicles, tiles for space shuttle, burying nuclear waste, magnesium production in Norway, his time as an independent consultant for Powderhorn Titanium Mine, CO, and Real de Buenavista Mine (Mexico) and his assignments in Brazil.