Our Team
Directors:
Richard Bedell
| Board Chairman |
| Richard L. Bedell was the President/CEO/Director of RenGold. Along with Ron Parratt, Richard was a co-founder and Executive Vice President and Director for AuEx. Richard has over 30 years of exploration experience including an adjunct faculty position in Exploration Geophysics at the Mackay School of Earth Sciences & Engineering. Previous work experience includes Homestake Mining Company as part of the Global Target Selection Team and managing the Technical Group for exploration and as an exploration geologist with BP Minerals and Rio Tinto. Richard is a recognized expert in remote sensing and geo-spatial technologies and was lead editor for a recent Society of Economic Geologists publication on remote-sensing. Richard is a Certified Professional Geologist (CPG) with the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration. He is a graduate from The School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics, Hampshire College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1979, earned a Master of Science in geology from the University of Toronto in Ontario in 1985, and a Master of Science in Remote Sensing and GIS from the University of London, United Kingdom in 1986. Richard is a Fellow with the Society of Economic Geologists, a member of the American Exploration and Mining Association, the Geologic Remote Sensing Group, and a member of the Geological Society of Nevada. Richard is also on the board of the Society of Economic Geologists Foundation. |
Mark Landers
| Director |
| Mark Landers is also President/CEO/Director for SpecTIR LLC, Board Chairman Exogenesis Corp. and a Director at SpecIM Ltd. He has over 40 years of military and corporate management/leadership experience. He is responsible for the overall leadership, management and strategic planning for SpecTIR’s hyperspectral, and advanced GIS technologies. For the past 4 years, Mark has provided management oversight for two SpecTIR spin off companies, TerraCore International Corp and Exogenesis Corp. He is directly involved with foreign and domestic Defense, Civil Agencies, Academia, and Private Sector to advance hyperspectral design, development and operational application. Mark led SpecTIR to become an internationally recognized leader in hyperspectral imagery collection and analysis. He directed the spin off of TerraCore International in June 2013 to apply SpecTIR’s hyperspectral science and operational understanding to the core imaging market . He is a retired US Navy CDR with over 24 years of experience in cryptologic, imaging, and hyperspectral operations. Education: BS, U.S. Naval Academy 1981; MS in Space Systems Operations, Naval Post Graduate School 1987 and ; MA, National Security Studies, Naval War College 2000. |
Samuel Stern
| Director and Chief Counsel |
| Samuel Stern is a recognized expert in the reform of legal infrastructure in countries moving to open-market economies. With his extensive experience advising governments and private sector entities in respect of legal infrastructure for oil and gas, power, mining, and water, Mr. Stern has served as counsel or advisor to the governments of over 40 countries. Mr. Stern has done significant work in privatization, particularly of utilities and power. Mr. Stern serves as an arbitrator, advocate, or expert in international commercial arbitrations. Mr. Stern served as Law Clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren of the United States Supreme Court and was assistant counsel to a Presidential Commission. Before joining the firm, Mr. Stern was a senior partner (and member of the management committee) of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and of Dickstein Shapiro and counsel to Rogers & Wells (now Clifford Chance US LLP). He served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law Center, lecturer at Yale, Cambridge, and Sussex Universities, and a board member of the International Law Institute. |
Phil Harris
| President/CEO/Director |
| Phil Harris is one of a very few subject matter experts in the field of spectral geology. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Geology from the Rand Afrikaans University (University of Johannesburg) in 1999, for geological research on a high-grade metamorphic terrain in Antarctica. He has 18 years of experience in industry providing a broad range of remote sensing and spectral geology consulting, and has gained experience in satellite and airborne hyperspectral imaging, field portable mineral mapping systems and ground imaging systems while working for Anglo American. During this period he was a pioneer in the development of acquisition systems, data processing methods and geological interpretation of various types of spectral data. These include large scale airborne hyperspectral surveys, field portable spectral data on many different geological sample types, and hyperspectral imaging for geological rock and drill core samples. |
Michael Sears
| Director and Technical Advisor |
| Michael Sears was born in Johannesburg and studied in Kenya and Australia, obtaining a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1972. He joined the University of the Witwatersrand the same year and remained at that university until 1997, during which time he headed departments in the mathematical sciences and served a term as dean of the Faculty of Science. In 1997 he joined Anglo American as Manager: Remote Sensing, and managed the satellite and airborne remote sensing needs of the company including the De Beers’ airborne hyperspectral scanner system. With Phil Harris and Neil Pendock, he was also involved in the development of the first hyperspectral core imager for Anglo Gold Ashanti. Michael retired from Anglo American in 2007 and returned to the University of the Witwatersrand in 2008 as a Visiting Professor in Computer Science. He has published widely in pure and applied mathematics, and was the principal investigator in a Centre for High Performance Flagship Project on Computational Imaging and Remote Sensing. |