Home > About Cobalt > Biographies
TSX.GMC
Biographies
Wade Nesmith
Chairman of the Board
Mr. Nesmith is associate counsel with Lang Michener LLP, where he specializes in corporate governance and regulatory matters. In addition, he serves as a director of several public companies including Silver Wheaton Corp. (Lead Director and Chair, Governance Committee) (NYSE and TSX), Nord Resources Corporation (Lead Director and Chair, Executive Committee) and Parran Capital Inc. (Director and CEO) (TSXV). Prior to rejoining Lang Michener in 2004, Mr. Nesmith was, from 2000 to 2003, Vice President, Strategic Development and President, Westport Europe, with Westport Innovations Inc., a BC-based, TSX-listed technology company. Mr. Nesmith is the former Superintendent of Brokers for the Province of British Columbia (1989 – 1992). Mr. Nesmith obtained his law degree from Osgood Hall Law School in 1977 and has practiced law in British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta.
John E. Sherborne
Chief Executive Officer, Director
Mr. Sherborne joined Geovic as Executive Vice President, Corporate Development in 2001, previously serving as a consultant to the Company during its formative stages, and was appointed as CEO in March 2004. Mr. Sherborne has held executive level and senior management positions in international energy and mineral resource businesses for more than 35 years. A geologist, he has a number of documented significant mineral discoveries to his credit, and has worked on six continents.
William A. Buckovic
Founder, President, and Director
Mr. Buckovic has been active for over 32 years in the mineral exploration and development business, including the discovery of several major mineral deposits. He has wide ranging experience in the energy minerals, precious metals, advanced metals and ferro-alloy metals businesses and has worked on projects in North America, South America, Australia-Asia, Europe and Africa.
Robert J. (Don) MacDonald
Director
Mr. MacDonald is the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of NovaGold Inc. Mr. MacDonald has over 20 years experience in mine development and financing. Prior to joining NovaGold, Mr. MacDonald was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Forbes Medi-Tech Inc., a public biotech company (2001-2003), De Beers Canada Mining (formerly Winspear Diamonds) (1999-2001), Dayton Mining (1991-1999) and Vice-President Finance of Granges Inc (1983-1991). During his career Mr. MacDonald has been involved in the operation or development of nine mines in North and South America, and the completion of over $500 million of mine financings and $500 million of mine merger and acquisition transactions. Mr. MacDonald is a chartered accountant, and holds bachelors and masters degrees in engineering from Oxford University.
Michael T. Mason
Director
Mr. Mason is President and Director of MBMI Resources, a TSXV listed company and Managing Partner of Mineral Services, LLC. He has more than 35 years of experience in the marketing of precious and base metals and other commodities; and is a specialist in risk management, off-take agreements and international trading. He holds a B.S. degree in metallurgical engineering and a MBA.
Gregg Sedun
Director
Mr. Sedun is an independent venture capital professional based in Vancouver, Canada. He is a former corporate finance/securities lawyer having practiced law for 14 years; thereafter, for 7 years he was the President of a private venture capital firm; and was President/CEO of Diamond Fields International Ltd., a TSX listed company, for over two years. Mr. Sedun has played a significant role as founder, director or early stage investor in a number of very successful companies including Diamond Fields Resources (acquired for $4.3 billion in the largest take over ever of a junior mining company); Adastra Minerals (recently acquired by First Quantum Minerals for $300 million); Peru Copper Inc. (listed on TSX with $65 million IPO and current market cap of over $600 million); Ascalade Communications ($40 million IPO in 2005 on TSX Exchange - revenues of US$115 million); and, Neurovir (acquired by Medigene, a leading German biotech - US$40 million valuation).
David C. Beling
Chief Operating Officer
Mr. Beling is a Registered Professional Mining Engineer with 42 years experience in mine and process development, financing, construction and operations. He was appointed as Senior Vice President - Operations in 2003 and promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in 2005 of Geovic, Ltd. He has the overall responsibility to advance the Cameroon project into production. Mr. Beling served as a chairman, President, COO, CEO, Director, and General Manager with several public and private mining companies with international projects. Currently, he is an independent director of two mining companies listed on the TSXV.
Gary R. Morris
Senior Vice President
Mr. Morris has been active in the mineral industry for the past 30 years. He has a wide range of technical and management experience in exploration, land, natural resource, and environmental remediation, primarily in the United States and Africa. Mr. Morris serves as Chairman of the Board of Geovic Cameroon PLC ("GeoCam"), a private, 60%-owned company incorporated in Cameroon.
Greg Hill
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Hill has been CFO for Geovic Ltd. and the Company since October 2007, and he was Acting CFO of Geovic, Ltd. from August 2006 and for the Company from December 1, 2006 until October, 2007. Mr Hill has also been the President of Englewood Capital, LLC a private consulting company from November 2001 to the present.
Richard Howe
General Manager, GeoCam
Mr. Howe has more than 25 years experience managing operations on four continents for British American Tobacco (BAT) plc. After setting up BAT's $250 million investment into Russia from 1994-97, BAT Russia, he served as the Chairman and Managing Director, than Chairman, of BAT in Central Africa until 2004. Since 2004, he has served as a non-executive director on both local and multi-national boards in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. Mr. Howe joined GeoCam as Managing Director and General Manager in May 2008.
Johann du Preez
Construction Manager, GeoCam
Mr. du Preez has more than 30 years experience as a construction manager, principally with African mineral processing plants and infrastructure improvements. He has overseen 18 separate projects totalling $5.4 billion, last working as resident construction manager at the Kolwezi copper/cobalt project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, anticipated to be one of the world's largest copper/cobalt processing plants.
Shelia I. Short
Corporate Secretary
Mrs. Short has been active in business administration for over 18 years. Her experience includes corporate records, SEC filing/compliance, stock plan administration, share registry management, human resources administration, bookkeeping, accounts payable, corporate presentations, and office management. She joined Geovic, Ltd. in July 2000 and was appointed as Corporate Secretary in February 2004.
Michael G. Walthall
Corporate Comptroller
Mr. Walthall provided accounting, tax, and business consulting services to individuals and small businesses for more than five years before joining Geovic in September 2007 as Corporate Comptroller. Effective November 1, 2007, Mr. Walthall was appointed Geovic's Principal Accounting Officer.
Andrew C. Hoffman, CFA
Vice President., Investor Relations
Andy has a diverse history in the financial markets, specializing for the past decade in the Energy and Precious Metals sectors. From 1996 to 1998, he worked as a buy-side analyst, specializing in small-cap companies across a variety of business sectors. From1998 through 2005, he was a sell-side analyst covering oilfield service equities at Salomon Smith Barney. Since 2005, he has managed an extensive portfolio of small to micro-cap mining equities, and performed investor relations consulting for junior mining companies. In 2007 through early 2008, he held the title of Vice President, Corporate Development, for EXMIN Resources (EXM.V), a Precious Metal mining company.