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| Robert Hinchcliffe Position: President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Mr. Hinchcliffe worked as Chief Financial Officer of Kirkland Lake Gold Inc. (TSX - KGI) from January 2003 until February 2005, wherein the company raised over $50 million in funds to re-commission the Kirkland Lake Gold Mine and for exploration purposes. Prior to that, he worked for seven years on Wall Street as a Mining Analyst for Prudential Securities, SG Cowen, and Santander Investment, covering U.S., International, and Latin American mining companies, in addition to other sectors. Prior to that he spent 4 years working for Jordex Resources in Venezuela where he played a primary role in the identification and then development of a nickel deposit which was later sold for $65 million to Anglo American. Mr. Hinchcliffe has a M.B.A. from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Arizona (with a concentration in Mining & Geology). Mr. Hinchcliffe has over 20 years working in the mining industry, and is fluent in Spanish. | |
| David E. DeWitt Position: Director Mr. DeWitt has over 20 years experience financing public and private companies and structuring and negotiating major transactions with particular expertise in the mining industry principally in North and South America. Mr. DeWitt has held various positions with a number of public mining companies, including serving as a director and Corporate Secretary of Arequipa Resources Ltd., which was sold to Barrick for C$1 billion. Mr. Dewitt was also a founder, a principal, and a Director of Peru Copper Inc, a company that was recently taken over for C$840 million. Mr. DeWitt is a founder of Pathway Capital Ltd., a private venture capital company, and is currently a director of Bear Creek Mining Corp. and Full Metal Minerals, both are public mining companies listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. Mr. DeWitt graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1975 and a Bachelor of Law degree in 1978. | |
| Leigh Freeman Position: Director Working in diverse roles, Leigh Freeman has over 30 years working in the mining industry in different capacities. For the past six years Leigh Freeman has been working as a principal with Downing Teal Inc, one of the top executive search firms that focuses on employment needs for the mining industry in addition to working closely with companies in implementing their business strategies. Additionally, for 10 years Mr. Freeman was involved with the funding and development of natural resource projects in both North and South America. Most notably, Mr. Freeman was a co-founder and President of Orvana Minerals (TSX listed company) and helped raise over $75 million for the development of a gold mine in Bolivia. Earlier in his career he spent 10 years working for Placer Dome on both the exploration and production front as a geologist and engineer. Mr. Freeman earned a BS in Geological Engineering from the Montana College of Mineral Science and attended graduate school at Golden Gate University Business School. Mr. Freemen is on the Advisory Boards at Montana Tech and the University of Arizona. He is a Trustee for the Society of Economic Geology and is an invited speaker at industry conferences throughout North America. | |
| Ron Guill Position: Director Mr. Ron Guill, owner of the largest underground mining contracting company with $100 million in annual sales, has over 30 years experience. Mr. Guill is the owner of SMD Inc mining company which he established 25 years ago to provide underground mine contracting services. SMD has over 275 full time miners that are currently mining at eight different mines in the Western United States, and his company has grown to be the largest underground mine contractor in the United States. Current clients include Newmont (gold in Nevada), Barrick (gold in Nevada and Montana) and Unocal (molybdenum in New Mexico). Earlier on in his career he worked with Kennecott, Ranchers and Homestake, and prior to that he served as an officer in the US Marine Corp. Mr. Guill holds a degree in Mining Engineering from the Mackay School of Mines in Reno, Nevada. Mr. Guill serves as a trustee for Northwest Mining Association. He was recently recognized by NWMA with the 2006 Platinum Award for Corporate Excellence "In recognition of more than two decades of customer focused professional and innovative leadership in mechanized underground mining." | |
| Pablo Orsolani Position: Director, Chief Financial Officer Mr. Orsolani has 28 years experience in international business, spanning the United States, Japan, Europe and Latin America. Mr. Orsolani started his career as a management consultant with Arthur D. Little, Inc. U.S.A., later taking positions in marketing, planning, finance and general management in several industries, including commodities (aluminum, nickel and oil) and specialty chemicals (industrial gases, paint). Mr. Orsolani was the Chief Financial Officer of a nickel project owned by Jordex Resources, a Toronto Stock Exchange listed company, which was sold to Anglo American for $65 million. The project is now a producing nickel mine in Venezuela. Mr. Orsolani was also the President of an industrial gas company that had over 400 employees and had an investment program in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Orsolani has served as a member of the board of directors of a United States based aluminum extrusion company (with sales of $250 million), and a primary aluminum company with sales of $400 million. He was also a board member of an electric utility with 13,000 MW of installed capacity. Mr. Orsolani holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Universidad Simon Bolivar, Caracas, Venezuela; he also holds two masters' degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an MBA from the Sloan School and also a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering. Mr. Orsolani is fluent in English and Spanish. | |
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| Paul Valenti Position: Vice President of Project Development Mr. Valenti has over 30 years working in the mining industry in a number of different capacities. His principal role over the past 20 years has been both advancing mining projects towards production and also the management of operating mines. Mr. Valenti's background includes precious metal, base metal and molybdenum deposits, developed as both open pit and underground mines. The size of the capital investments for the projects that he has managed ranges from $100 million to $400 million. Mr. Valenti obtained his Metallurgical Engineering degree from Michigan Technological University. He started out his career on the metallurgical side and then switched to project management. During his career, he has directed many project feasibility studies and has extensive experience in project and construction management. During his tenure with USMX, he successfully advanced four greenfield gold projects and ultimately put them into production. Mr. Valenti also has vast experience in the permitting of mining projects in North America. | |
| Jose Oro Position: Country Manager, Colombia Mr. Oro, a Cuban native, is both a geologist and an engineer. Mr. Oro has over 25 years working in several different continents across the metal and mineral spectrum. Mr. Oro is the former Director of the Mining and Geology Department of Cuba. In addition to working with junior and senior mining companies, Mr. Oro worked in the Latin American Resource Sector for Coopers and Lybrand LLC. Mr. Oro received post graduate degrees in Remote Sensing and Geological Exploration in the Netherlands and Russia. Besides Spanish, Mr. Oro is fluent in English, Russian, and Portuguese. |
