Mr. van Alphen has had a long and successful career building exceptional value for shareholders. He has been directly responsible for raising $200 million in the last 10 years and has been closely associated in financing an additional $800 million.
Directors
Henk van Alphen
Director
Early in his career, Mr. van Alphen founded and operated a number of service-related companies, beginning with a line cutting operation in northern BC and culminating in a drilling company (Hydracore) which was founded in 1985 and is still in operation today. In 1991, Mr. van Alphen founded Pacific Rim and travelled extensively throughout South America, acquiring the Taca Taca, Diablillos, and Aqua Rica projects under his leadership. All of these projects have developed into significant deposits and/or high value M&A transactions. Mr. van Alphen laid the foundations for the organization to become a successful South American based resource company, peaking with a market capitalization of $285 million under Catherine McCleod’s leadership.
From 1994 to 1999, Mr. van Alphen served as Vice-President of Corriente Resources Inc., during which time he acquired a number of assets for the company including Taca Taca, which had been relinquished by Pacific Rim. Corriente also acquired Mirador, which ultimately sold to a Chinese group for 680 million.
Upon leaving Corriente, Mr. van Alphen founded Cardero Resource Corp. in 1999. Cardero became a successful exploration company, with multiple high-profile exploration projects including the Baja project in Mexico. In 2003, Cardero purchased the Pampa de Pongo iron deposit from Rio Tinto for $0.5 million, which was a counter-cyclical investment at the time. Following $3 million of expenditures, Cardero sold it to a Chinese company for $100 million cash in 2009. Most recently, in 2010, Cardero acquired a 120 million tonne metallurgical coal asset in BC and in less than three years of exploration, grew it to be more than 5 times larger with a positive pre-feasibility study.
Mr. van Alphen founded Wealth Minerals in 2005 and has served as President, CEO and Director since that time. In 2006, he began spinning out key acquisitions into public entities. He was a co-founder of International Tower Hill (ITH) Mines in 2006, placing undervalued Anglo Gold assets into a public vehicle. Mr. van Alphen served as Chairman of ITH for 5 years, leading the course as the company went from a $0.60 IPO to more than $10.00 per share and a market cap of $800 million. Trevali Mining was another successful spin-out, which, under the leadership of Dr. Mark Cruise, has grown to be a zinc producer in Peru, with a Canadian operation due to begin production in 2015. Trevali has raised more than $400 million in the market over the past few years and the company’s market cap is currently around $200 million.
Gordon Neal
Director
Mr. Neal has more than 35 years experience in governance, corporate finance and investor relations. He founded Neal McInerney Investor Relations in 1991. Through marketing more than $4 billion in debt and equity financings, the company grew to be the second largest full service Investor Relations firm in Canada with offices in Vancouver, Toronto and Los Angeles. Clients included; BCE, Nortel, Bell Canada International, Bell Mobility, Clearnet, Intrawest, Canaccord Capital, BMO Nesbitt Burns, and Blackberry (RIM). Mr. Neal was VP Corporate Development at MAG Silver Corp. where he provided capital market strategies and solutions to the board.
He is currently VP Corporate Development for Silvercorp Metals Inc. Mr. Neal has served on the board of Falco Resources, Balmoral Resources, Americas Petrogas, Rockgate Capital, and Xiana Mining. He has raised more than $500mn for resources companies since 2004. Mr. Neal graduated from Dalhousie University with a B.Sc. in Biochemistry. 1977. He has also served as a member of the Dalhousie University Senate and Board of Governors.
Stefan Schauss
Director
Mr. Schauss has over 20 years of executive management experience in the battery manufacturing industry, in recent years in the commercialization of battery technology for mobile and stationary large scale energy storage assets. He has also served in Sales and business development roles for several companies in semiconductors, integrated circuits, and other electronic goods.
Mr. Schauss is currently an independent consultant, and prior to that, he was head of sales for Gildemeister Energy Storage GmbH, Austria, which was a world-leader in the development of vanadium redox flow batteries. Mr. Schauss has a MSc. Physics from The University Mainz, Germany.
Xiaohuan (Juan) Tang
Director
Mr. Tang is an environmental engineer who most recently served as General Manager of Jinzhao Mining Peru (“Jinzhao”) and was responsible for the successful permitting of the 2 billion tonnes Pampa de Pongo iron deposit, Arequipa, Peru.
As General Manager of Jinzhao, Mr. Tang was responsible for the development of the Pampa de Pongo project; one of the largest iron ore deposits in Latin America. Over a period of 4 years, Jinzhao completed extensive infill drilling programs, environmental impact assessment (“EIA”) and a bankable feasibility study. Acceptance of the EIA by the Peruvian authorities in early 2015 is a reflection of his leadership in the company. Prior to Jinzhao, Mr. Tang worked at Standard Bank London and Shanghai for structured mining project financing. Prior to Standard bank, he was a consultant for the British Foreign Office South American Group and Peruvian think-tank Macroconsult. He also completed research work at UN-ECLAC in Chile and has been involved in mineral exploration in Colombia and Honduras.
Mr. Tang was originally educated as an Environmental Engineer with a Bachelor in Engineering (B.Eng.) from Tsinghua University in China. He subsequently received a Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) in Environmental Engineering from Imperial College London, a Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Environmental Politics from the University of Oxford, and most recently a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) in Environmental Economics from the University of Cambridge. He is also a member of the Chatham House, a British think tank created for the analysis of international affairs, and the Inter-American Dialogue, an organization which engages a network of global leaders to foster democratic governance, prosperity and social equity in Latin America. Mr. Tang’s language skills include his native Chinese Mandarin, fluent English and fluent Spanish.
David Lies
Director
Mr. Lies is an entrepreneur and private equity investor with a focus on the real estate and manufacturing sectors for over 40 years. From being an executive in the real estate division of Inland Steel Development Corporation, Mr. Lies led the leveraged buyout of the division and managed its operations for over 30 years with multiple developments and projects.
In private equity, Mr. Lies organized the buyout of Ryco Graphics, an industrial equipment company, managed a business’ turnaround by tripling revenues and substantially increasing profits, and finally exited from the investment in five years. Presently, Mr. Lies manages a portfolio of high growth potential companies across several sectors including the natural resource space. Mr. Lies has a BA from University of Notre Dame in business and an MBA from University of Chicago.