Key Personel

 John is a Registered Civil Engineer in Nevada, California, and several other western states and has over 40 years experience in mine design and operations. He has operated small mining operations as an owner and contractor and has designed major earthworks for mining facilities in the western U.S. and Central America. John’s primary areas of expertise include tailings dam design, heap leach pad design, heap leach operations, open pit mining, pumping system design, and mine reclamation. He has lived in Nevada since 1984 and is well known within the Nevada mining and regulatory communities. John oversees the performance of the mining group in Nevada and coordinates our activities with the principals in other offices. 

 David is a Registered Civil Engineer in Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah and California with over 14 years experience in design of civil engineering and mining infrastructure, including runoff diversion structures, sedimentation basins, hydraulic control structures, access roads, and retaining walls. His experience includes working for Leviathan Mine to design a bio-cell necessary to treat acid mine drainage. The project involved design of treatment ponds, intricate pipe networks, pump systems and control structures. Coordination with the University of Nevada Reno, various state agencies and the EPA was necessary.  

  Mr. Willis is a certified professional geologist with over 17 years of experience in the mineral exploration and mining industry. After receiving his Bachelor of Science Degree in Geology from California State University, Chico in 1987, Doug began a 7-year career with the Great Basin Exploration Division of ASARCO Inc. Doug conducted reconnaissance and development mineral exploration, property evaluations, land status evaluations and drill program supervision throughout the western United States. After 13 years in the land surveying industry, Doug joined Welsh Hagen Associates in 2008. Mr. Willis’ expertise is in the preparation of NI 43-101 Technical Reports. He has contributed to and authored Technical Reports, including Preliminary Economic Assessments and Pre-feasibility Studies, on multiple exploration and development stage properties in the western United States. Doug’s forte at Welsh Hagen Associates also includes the preparation of State and Federal mining and exploration permit applications including NEPA compliance documents, water pollution control permit applications, plans of operation, reclamation plans, notice level exploration permits and land status evaluations.  

 Carl has a Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering from the Mackay School of Mines at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has over 30 years of experience as a practicing metallurgical engineer, 22 years of which he was an associate professor teaching metallurgical and chemical engineering at Michigan Tech University and the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a registered member of the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration and has patented technologies used by the mining and water treatment industries. He has been a researcher and consultant to the mining industry since 1990. Dr. Nesbitt began working with Welsh Hagen Associates in January 2013.

Carl has been a consultant to gold, copper, and iron ore mining industries since 1990. He has consulted and managed research studies for several companies, including Barrick Gold, Newmont, GoldCorp, Freeport McMoran (formerly Phelps Dodge), Peninsula Copper Inc., Cliffs Resources, and Comstock Mining Company. He has worked on projects focused on economic and process optimization for treating ores with autoclaving, roasting, and biological oxidation prior to conventional processing by cyanidation. He has experience working with operations that use carbon-in-pulp (CIP), ADR (adsorption/desorption recovery), carbon-in-column (CIC), Merrill-Crowe (zinc precipitation), and has extensively studied and consulted to companies on ways to enhance gold adsorption on- and mercury rejection from activated carbon. Over the course of his career, he has become an expert in activated carbon uses and processing strategies. He has over 15 years of experience working as founder/inventor of a technology that manufactures activated carbon materials for desalination, metal recovery, water detoxification, and energy storage. He is also an expert in oxidation/reduction chemistry, including an expert in electro-refining and electrowinning of metals from concentrated solutions.

 Randy Martin is a Mineral Modeling and Mine Planning Engineer. He has a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering and a Masters in Mineral Economics from Colorado School of Mines. Mr. Martin has 35 years of experience in mineral modeling, mine design, process evaluation, and overall project evaluation. Well qualified in this capacity having performed in various engineering staff assignments for the evaluation of over 100 different resource/reserve models for Tetratech, RKMA, PAH, and AMAX Inc. His specialty is in the application of computer techniques to mineral engineering problems. Responsible for the development, maintenance, and training for MicroMODEL and PolyMap, mineral modeling and mine planning software systems sold by R K Martin & Associates, Inc.