Ronald Wortel, MBA, P.Eng.
Mr. Wortel has been with the company since 2006 after working as the senior mining and metals analyst with Northern Securities, where he provided equity research on 22 junior and intermediate TSX-listed mining companies.

As one of the first mining analysts to focus exclusively on the large and underserviced Canadian junior mining market, Mr. Wortel has covered over 60 names in the past nine years. This period includes work with Levesque Beaubien Geoffrion (now National Bank Financial), Dundee Securities, eResearch and Northern Securities. The coverage list includes companies involved in almost all mining sectors: gold, platinum group metals (PGMs), base metals, and diamonds with both explorers and producers.

Mr. Wortel is a professional engineer (1989) with a geological engineering degree from the University of Waterloo (1987) and an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business (1996). He worked in the consulting engineering sector with Golder Associates for seven years prior to entering the financial services sector. His work with Golder included consulting to many senior and junior mining companies. He is a member of the Mining Research Analysts Group, Canadian Institute of Mining (CIM) and the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC).

Barbara Thomae, P.Geo.
Ms. Thomae is our senior mining analyst in charge of the Western Canada region. With over 20 years of experience as a geologist in the resource sector, she has largely focused on consulting work for the junior mining sector and directly for exploration departments of senior mining companies since the early 1980s. Her duties include project management, geological mapping and report writing for base and precious metal exploration in western North America and Africa.

As a professional geoscientist (1992), Ms. Thomae is registered in the province of British Columbia and is a member of the Canadian Institute of Mining (CIM) Vancouver chapter. She graduated from the University of British Columbia’s geological sciences program in 1983.

During the downturn in the industry in the 1990s, she returned to school to obtain a Post Baccalaureate in Environmental Science, after which she became an advisor to B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office on coal mining and hydroelectric projects.

More recently, Ms. Thomae has been applying her expertise in the research and investment side of the mining industry. After completing the Canadian Securities Course in 2002, she began coverage of numerous junior miners with the independent equity research firm, eResearch where she is a Senior Mining Analyst. Widely known for her news articles published in the Northern Miner she was also editor of InfoMine’s mining news for over three years.