A mining engineer, Harvey S. Mudd (1888-1955) was a graduate of Stanford and Columbia Universities. He served with distinction as president of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. With his father, he founded and later became president of Cyprus Mines Corp., whose Los Angeles-based international enterprises started with the development of the copper mines on the island of Cyprus.

Harvey Mudd was a director of the Southern Pacific Company, of the Texas Gulf Sulphur Company, and of the Founders Fire and Marine Insurance Company. He was a founding director of the RAND Corporation. He was a trustee of the California Institute of Technology, a director of the Hospital of the Good Samaritan, and a trustee of the Southwest Museum. He was president of the Southern California Symphony Association for 12 years and chairman of its board for nine years.

He had a particular interest in The Claremont Colleges and served as chairman of the Board of Fellows of Claremont College—now the Claremont Graduate University and the Claremont University Consortium—for a quarter of a century. While serving in that position, he helped plan for the undergraduate liberal arts college of engineering, science and mathematics that was chartered in 1955, shortly after his death.