Yellowhead Mining Inc. announced Thursday that its board of directors has appointed Gregory Hawkins, the company's current chairman of the board, to also fill the role of interim chief executive officer.
Hawkins is replacing Ian Smith, the outgoing president and chief executive officer. In the media release announcing the change, Yellowhead thanked Smith for his service during his tenure and wish him success in his future endeavors.
The board is taking steps to fill the position of chief executive officer in an expeditious manner. According to the company's media release, as interim chief executive officer, and as chairman of the board since the company's inception, Hawkins will provide strong continuity in the transition period and will supervise day-to-day operations of the company.
According to a profile on the Yellowhead website, Gregory Hawkins has been involved in the mining exploration and investment industry since 1969. He has been variously responsible for the identification and/or delineation of 10 mineral deposits in Canada, USA, Chile, Ghana, Mali and Zaire (DRC). In acting as founding project consultant and/or founding director of seven public and private exploration / development ventures he has participated in or been responsible for the definition of at least one resource / reserve in every case with four cases resulting in production in the USA, Chile, Ghana and Mali. In 1990 he started CME, an international full service consultancy and contracting firm, which grew to include Spectral International Geophysics, Eagle Drilling and ATS Inc.
Ian Smith, a mining engineering graduate of the University of Queensland, Australia, has over 40 years experience in corporate, operations, and project management and consulting within the international base, precious metals and coal industries. He is a director of several public companies and is president and CEO of Santa Fe Metals Corp. More recently he was president and CEO of bcMetals Corp. that had engineered the Red Chris copper/gold porphyry project for development in northwest BC prior to being acquired by Imperial Metals Corp. His involvement with other large scale copper operations at a senior management level include the Bougainville Copper and La Caridad mines in Papua New Guinea and Mexico respectively and the Zambian Copperbelt. Smith was president and founding partner of one of North America's most successful mining industry consulting companies until purchased by Canadian interests in 1995.
Yellowhead Mining's proposed copper-gold-silver mine at Harper Creek would be located about 10 km southwest of Vavenby.