Jason Begger

Government Affairs and Community Relations

Jason Begger has 20 years of public policy, government affairs, communications, public affairs, and management experience. He has worked extensively in the energy and mining industries, having worked on issues with utilities, coal, gold and copper mining, oil and gas production, energy export terminals, solar and renewables, and carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS). As the former Executive Director of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority under Wyoming Governors Matt Mead and Mark Gordon, he has a unique understanding of the energy markets, transmission infrastructure and export capabilities. He started his career working for the late U.S. Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) and later staffing the House Agriculture Committee and House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee for former U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg (R-MT). Following his work in Washington, DC, Jason served in roles with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, Rio Tinto Energy America, and Cloud Peak Energy.

Jason serves as the Managing Director of the Wyoming ITC near Gillette, Wyoming, leading the project through the development, construction and now operations phases; partnering with Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Tri-State Generation and Power Cooperative, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and the Wyoming Municipal Power Authority. The ITC is now the largest facility of its kind in the western hemisphere, hosting CCUS technologies from all over the world, including the final round of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE. The ITC has relationships with global CCUS leaders, such as the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC), the International Carbon Capture Test Centre Network, the Japan Coal Frontier Organization (JCOAL), Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Membrane Technology and Research (MTR), Air Liquide, TDA Research, Gas Technology Institute (GTI), the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources, the University of Kentucky, and Columbia University.

Robert W. Schafer

Exploration, Geology and Development

Robert Schafer is a registered professional geologist with over 35 years international experience exploring for and discovering mineral deposits, four were producing mines including the Briggs (over one million ounces) and Griffon gold mines in the Western United States and Birkachan (over one million ounces) gold mine in far east Russia, and identifying, evaluating and structuring business transactions globally having worked in more than 80 countries. Mr. Schafer is the 2020 to 2021 president of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME). He is also past president and board member of the PDAC, past president of the CIM, and past president of the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America. He was a member of the board of governors for the U.S. National Mining Hall of Fame and the board of directors of the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame. He is the first person to hold all of these leadership roles in both the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Schafer is the recipient of the William Lawrence Saunders Gold Medal from AIME, as well as the prestigious Daniel C. Jackling Award and Robert A. Dreyer Award from SME for technical achievements and leadership in the mining industry during his career. He is a fellow of CIM, SEG and SME, and a certified director under ICD. Mr. Schafer has been an executive with Hunter Dickinson, Kinross Gold and BHP Minerals. He is founder and chief executive officer of Eagle Mines Management and is member of the board of directors of select mining companies.

John Schloderer

Exploration and Geology

Over 35 years of international mineral exploration experience and mineral property evaluations including 25 years with the BHP Billiton organization and 3 years with Gold Fields. Involvement with projects from conception to grass roots exploration to feasibility drill out. As BHP exploration manager for Eastern Europe I conducted exploration programs and property evaluation for BHP in Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Turkey, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden, and Finland with a copper and gold focus. I was a member of the exploration team on the drill-out of the Escondida porphyry copper deposit, Chile. Served as the General Manager on the resource definition drilling of the 4.0 billion tonnes Reko Diq porphyry complex (0.51% copper, 0.27g/t gold), Pakistan and  managed the scoping and pre-feasibility study on Gold Fields Taldybulak copper/gold porphyry resource, Kyrgyzstan (453 Mt @ 0.40g/t Au, 0.16% Cu, 0.01%Mo).

John Wells

Metallurgy

John is a graduate of the Royal School of Mines, 1967, achieving a degree in Minerals Engineering. He also has a M.A. degree from the University of Sheffield in Business Administration. 

John's career therefore spans 53 years, all of which has been in the Mining Industry. It has been split between both Operating  and Engineering/Consulting companies. He has worked for  Anglo American, Goldfields, RST(Zambian Copperbelt) and Barrick, where he was Director of Metallurgical Development. John has worked for Bechtel, Fluor and Hatch, in North and South America. For the last ten years he has worked as an Independent Metallurgical Consultant.

The majority of John's experience has been in Copper and Gold, ( with occasional work in other Base Metals, Tin, Iron Ore and Uranium ).Copper and Copper-Gold projects that he has been associated with include Escondida, Chapada, Cuajone, Toquepala, Pascua, Agua Rica, Sierra Gorda and Mantos Copper. In recent years, John has directed many testwork programs for clients, designed Copper Concentrators and authored many 43101 reports. He is the author of more than 15 technical papers, most of which relate to Copper and Gold processing.

Yani Roditis

Mine Engineer / Project Management

Mr. Roditis has more than 30 years of International experience in Mining Engineering. He served as President and Chief Operating Officer with Sandspring Resources, where he oversaw the feasibility work. He was Vice President Operations with Teranga Gold, where he contributed to the optimization and expansion of the Operations in Senegal. He served as Vice President Projects and as a Chief Operating Officer with Gabriel Resources. Prior to these positions Mr. Roditis had an 11 year career with Barrick Gold Corporation, where he gained extensive engineering, environmental permitting, mine development, construction and operating experience through a number of positions at Barrick’s development projects, operating mines and closures in the United States, Peru, Chile and Argentina. The majority of his experience is on open pit, gold and copper deposits. Mr. Roditis holds two Master of Science degrees from the University of Arizona, and a Bachelor of Science degree on Mining and Metallurgical Engineering from the National Technical University in Athens, Greece.

Lucas Hekma

Project Permitting

Lucas Hekma is a licensed civil and geotechnical engineer with over 30 years of project development experience in the resource extraction, energy and infrastructure sectors. He brings cross-discipline project development expertise stemming from a diverse career in geotechnical and environmental consulting as well as the global engineering and construction business, including ten years with Fluor Corporation. Mr Hekma is versed in the technical aspects of mine and infrastructure development, having led multi-specialty project teams and advised mining project and facility owners worldwide. As an independent consultant, he specializes in delivering permitting, environmental regulatory compliance and sustainability management solutions to project developers and operators in the mining and minerals sector. Mr Hekma has helped secure regulatory approval and compliance of major mining projects and facilities in multiple jurisdictions, in several cases overcoming initial regulatory adversity under a variety of challenging environmental and community circumstances and achieving positive project outcomes.