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, 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 base and precious metals 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 is a lawyer with more than twenty years of international experience in structuring and implementing multi-jurisdictional mergers, acquisitions, public equity and senior project debt financings, primarily in the junior mining sector, both as outside legal counsel and as a director and senior officer of a number of junior mining companies. Prior to 1996, Frank was with Smith Lyons, a law firm. He subsequently joined Eldorado Gold Corporation as Vice President, Legal Affairs and then in 1998, entered private consultancy. Among other things, he is currently serving as Secretary and General Counsel of Gabriel Resources Ltd.

Helmut Wöber, Director
Helmut earned a degree in mining engineering and economic geology at the Mining University of Leoben, Austria. His career began with positions at United Keno Hill Mines Ltd., MacDonald Consultants Ltd. and Uranerz (Australia) Pty. Ltd. From 1975 through 1990, he was with Chevron Resources’ Mineral Division, ultimately as Manager of Engineering and Development with responsibility for development and production geology at all of Chevron’s operating mines and development projects world wide. Following his tenure with Chevron, he entered private consultancy through which he carried out reserve and resource estimates, capital and operating cost studies, reviews of feasibility studies, economic evaluations, and conceptual mine and infrastructure development plans for a variety of senior and junior clients. Helmut recently retired from his position as President of Panoro Minerals Ltd., a TSX-V listed company with advanced assets in Peru.