Robert B. Hicks was the Mineral King Project manager for Walt Disney Productions. He attended Stanford University, and became assistant chemist at the Lindsay Ripe Olive Company. He then served as a pilot for four years for Pan-American Airways in the Pacific and Latin America Divisions before returning to school to receive his B.S. Degree in Engineering and a Master in Business Administration from Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 1963, he started the acquisition of private property at Mineral King for Disney, and served on the project until its termination in 1978. He helped establish the Disney Wilderness Preserve in Florida.