Patrick J. Burns, Geologist

Director, Technical Committee Chairperson

Patrick J. Burns is a Canadian geologist with over 40 years' experience throughout Canada the Caribbean, Central and South America, Mr. Burns was directly involved in the initial exploration and drilling that lead to the discovery of the Escondida porphyry copper deposit in Chile in 1981, as well as the Escondida Norte and, Zaldivar deposits. Additionally, he was the first Project Manager of all three projects. He is one of the senior discovery team members that authored the history of the discovery of the Escondida Porphyry Deposit, published as a chapter in Mining Latin America, (W.J. Wilkinson et al, copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Dordrecht,1986). The Escondida Mining complex is currently the world’s largest copper producer.

In addition to the Escondida discovery, Mr. Burns has a substantial record of accomplishment in copper and gold exploration that includes his direct involvement and leadership roles in a number of significant discoveries in the Americas (North, Central and South) including the following:

The Sustut Copper deposit in Northern British Columbia, while working with Falconbridge Ltd. for which he was rewarded with a royalty.

The Momotombo Geothermal Project while working in Nicaragua, turned out to be the second largest in the country, located on the flank of the Telica volcano. Momotombo is a 5-megawatt geothermal power project, located in Managua, Nicaragua.

The San Cristobal gold deposit in Chile, the deposit was acquired by Niugini Mining of Sydney, Australia, which subsequently mined approximately two million ounces gold plus a significant silver credit.

Co-discoverer of the Soledad high-grade Au-Ag-Cu tourmaline breccia deposits in Peru. The deposits were optioned to Chakana Resources of Lima, Peru.

In addition to these discoveries, Mr. Burns is the owner of the Cristal porphyry copper project in Northern Chile which is currently optioned to World Copper Ltd. (www.worldcopperltd.com).

Along with his exploration achievements, Mr. Burns has negotiated numerous international resource and exploration funding deals. He was awarded a $2.1 million grant from the Inter-American Development Bank (“IADB”) to conduct mineral exploration in southern Chile. This being the first time the IADB had given a grant for mineral exploration. He partnered with the University of Chile to execute several exploration programs in the region, the IADB continues to provide funding grants for resource exploration in the developing world.

Mr. Burns has been involved in management and director roles in numerous publicly traded mining companies in Chile, Canada and, the USA throughout his career. He currently serves on the Board of World Copper Ltd, (WCUFF; OTCQX).

Mr. Burns holds a B.Sc. in Geology from the University of British Columbia.

Neil D. Novak, P Geo, FGAC

Director of Exploration

As Director of Exploration, Mr. Novak will oversee and co-manage exploration for the Company’s current portfolio of exploration projects in Arizona and Nevada. In the Director of Exploration role, Mr. Novak is responsible for the design and advancement of exploration programs, and advises the Company on any new acquisitions. Mr. Novak reports to the Board of Directors and will be working closely with Ed Walker Ph.D., P.Geo., the Company’s independent geological consultant along with the rest of Pershing’s Technical Team

Mr. Novak, of Cambridge, Ontario, is a geologist with 4 decades of experience in the junior resource and mining sector in the role of consultant and senior officer for publicly listed junior resource companies. Since graduating from University of Waterloo in 1977, his career as an exploration geologist has covered North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. The search for kimberlites in the early 1990’s brought Mr. Novak back to Canada where he discovered several kimberlites in Northern Ontario. At the 2010 Prospectors and Developers Convention in Toronto, Mr. Novak, along with four others, was awarded the Prospectors and Development Association of Canada, (PDAC), Bill Dennis Prospector of the Year Award 2009 for his key role in the discovery the “Ring of Fire” exploration area with its numerous deposits of nickel, copper, zinc and chrome.

Mr. Novak is currently President/CEO/Director of BWR Exploration Inc., a public company on the TSX.V Exchange. He is former President/CEO of Spider Resources Inc. (2005-2010) until the company was taken over in 2010 for an all cash offer of $125 million by Cliffs Natural Resources of Cleveland Ohio. Novak acquired one of the old Spider projects from Cliffs and then launched Black Widow Resources Inc. as a new public company in early 2013 through an IPO, Black Widow changed its name in late 2016 to BWR Exploration Inc..

Mr. Novak is presently a director of one other public company, Cadillac Ventures Inc. and is President of a private family owned consulting business, Nominex Ltd. Mr. Novak is a Professional Geoscientist (P.Geo.) registered with the Association of Professional Geoscientists of Ontario and a Fellow of the Geological Association of Canada (F.G.A.C.).

Ed Walker PhD, P Geo.

Principal Consulting Geologist, New Enterprise Project & Nevada Exploration Program

Dr. Ed Walker is an independent consultant, and President of the geologic consulting firm, PetroLogic Inc. based in Lakefield, Ontario Canada.

Dr. Walker has over 30 years of technical and management experience in exploration and resource development of precious, base, and rare metal, and industrial mineral deposits. He has designed, managed and implemented mineral exploration programs to test the mineral resource potential of properties including, precious and base metal deposits; field mapping, sampling, and drilling, geochemical, textural, and mineralogical testing, design, implementation, and monitoring of QC and QA programs and, computer compilation and 3D modelling of mineral resource data, as well as process mineralogy, beneficiation, and predictive metallurgy, and geological and mineral resource characterization.

He is a Qualified Person, (QP) authorized to write NI 43-101 technical reports for mineral exploration and, is registered in good standing with the Association of Professional Geoscientists of Ontario, (APGO). Dr. Walker is a joint author of the NI 43-101 Technical Report Assessing the Au, Cu Porphyry Potential of Pershing Resources’ New Enterprise Project near Kingman Arizona.

Dr. Walker received his BSc in Geological Sciences with first class honors from Brock University in 1984 and completed his doctorate work at the University of Western Ontario in 1991.

Luis A. Vega, P.Geo

Technical Consultant & Geologist, Arizona Exploration Program

Luis Vega is a senior geologist with over 40 years of experience in working for publicly traded mining companies involved in exploration for precious and base metals His work has focused on investigation of polymetallic and porphyry copper deposits, as well as porphyry gold and sedimented hosted gold deposits throughout North America and South America. Mr. Vega is bilingual speaker in Spanish and English, and has extensive experience in business negotiations in Latin America with both private and governmental entities. He has directed exploration programs in the US, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras and Argentina and conducted submittal evaluations in Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay and Chile.

He has worked for or contracted with companies such as Utah International, Duval Corporation, and Battle Mountain Gold Company, (BMGC),. While at BMGC, he established an exploration office in Chile and discovered the Angelina Porphyry copper/gold occurrence, which was sold to Gold Fields Corporation. He also participated in the discovery and definition of El Higo epithermal gold deposit in the Dominican Republic and, the Casposo Epithermal gold deposit, Argentina. In Bolivia, he supervised and conducted the early geologic work at the Kori Kollo Mine resulting in the definition of over 8 million ounces of gold resource.

While with Utah International he assisted with the definition drilling of several poly-metallic exploration projects in Utah.

During his time with Duval Corporation as head of exploration at the Mineral Park Mine near Kingman, Arizona, Mr. Vega directed the exploration programs that resulted in identification of additional copper and molybdenum reserves. He also co-established and managed the exploration operation for Duval in Argentina. Duval is a division of Pennzoil Corporation.

Mr. Vega is a co-author of several technical papers including:

Geology and Ore Deposits at Mineral Park: Mohave County, Arizona by William H. Wilkinson, Jr., Luis Alfonso Vega and Spencer R. Titley, in Advances in Geology of the Porphvrv Copper Deposits. Southwestern North America, 1980.

Exploration in Lessor Explored Countries: A Geologist's Perspective by Kirk P. Kinart and Luis Alfonso Vega; in Mining Engineering, February 1993, Vol. 45 No. 2, pp 145147.

Cuerpo Subvolcanico en la Quebrada del Chorrillo, Nueva evidencia de mineralizacion en Cordillera Frontal; San Juan, Argentina by Gustavo Sotarello, Irma Belvideri, Ivan Grassi and Luis Vega, in XVI Geological Conference Abstracts, 1997.

Mr. Vega is a member/fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) and the American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG) (Ret) He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology and a Master of Science in Economic Geology from the University of Arizona, Tucson. 

Nicholas R. Barr

Consulting Geologist, New Enterprise Project & Nevada Exploration Program

Nick Barr is an independent consulting geologist with over 35 years of experience, working with numerous public and private companies in the mineral exploration business. He has worked for or contracted with companies such as, J.H. Montgomery Consultants, Cambior Exploration USA, St. Joe Gold, Technica Group Inc. and GeoXplor Corp., among others. His work has primarily focused on gold-silver and base metals, and including massive sulfides, chromite, uranium, lithium, and industrial/rare earth metals, mostly in Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, California and Oregon.

Mr. Barr's experience includes target generation, land work, permitting and reclamation, surface and underground mapping, grid soil, mobile metallic ion (MMI) and biogeochemical sampling, and supervision/logging of rotary, RC and core drilling. He has remained active brokering and evaluating mineral properties in western U.S. and managing crews for all phases of mineral exploration.

He has a strong personal interest in gold-silver exploration and small, high-grade mine development. As a private contractor, Nick has owned and operated a Simco 4000 track mount drill and, authored/co-authored NI 43-101 compliant reports. Early work experience included three years of Federal Agency geotechnical investigation work, including extensive slope stability studies.

Mr. Barr holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from Southern Oregon State University, Ashland, Oregon.