Management & Board

Chris Staargaard, President, CEO and Director
Chris holds a B.Sc. in Geology from The Pennsylvania State University and an M.Sc. in Geochemistry from Queen’s University. Initially, he worked in mineral exploration as a project geologist for Kennco Explorations (Western) Ltd. (a subsidiary of Kennecott Copper), Kidd Creek Mines Ltd., Homestake Mineral Development Company and Silver Hart Mines Ltd. From 1988 until joining Lithic in 2002, he was an independent consulting geologist, mainly to junior mining companies and investment dealers involved in the mineral exploration industry. In all, he has over thirty years of experience in the evaluation of mineral exploration projects in a wide variety of geological environments throughout Canada, the United States, Central and South America as well as China, the Southwest Pacific, Africa, Eastern Europe, Ukraine and Madagascar.

Frank Wheatley, Director
Frank received his Bachelor of Commerce and LL.B. degrees from the University of British Columbia. He has 25 years' experience as a Director and Senior Officer for a number of Canadian public mining companies, specializing in the areas of public financing, project debt financing, permitting of large scale mining projects and strategic mergers and acquisitions in the international minerals industry. Frank recently left his position as Vice-President and General Counsel of Gabriel Resources Ltd and has joined Talison Lithium Australia Pty Ltd. as Executive Director.  Earlier in his career, he was Vice President, Legal Affairs for Eldorado Gold Corporation.

Steve Vanry, CFO and Director
Steve is a holder of the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and the Canadian Investment Manager designation and is a member of the CFA Institute as well as the Vancouver Society of Financial Analysts. His business career includes over seventeen years with publicly traded natural resource companies at both management and board level during which time he focused on strategic planning, fund raising, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory compliance and financial reporting . In 2003, he founded Fury Explorations Ltd., a company with advanced stage silver projects in Nevada which subsequently merged with Golden Predator Mines Inc. Mr. Vanry currently provides consulting services in corporate finance, business development and merchant banking and serves as director and/or officer for a number of public companies in the mining sector.

Louis Montpellier, Director
Louis attended the University of British Columbia and received his law degree from the University of Victoria. He has been practising law in Vancouver since 1981 and since 1983 has worked exclusively in the capital markets as outside counsel to public companies engaged in international mineral exploration and mining. His experience includes the entire spectrum of corporate finance activities as well as mergers and acquisitions, corporate reorganizations and project financing. He has been and continues to be involved as a director for a number of public companies in the mining sector. In early 2010, Louis joined Exeter Resource Corporation as Vice-President, Corporate Development and General Counsel, having been a director there since 2008.