Our People
Experts, with decades of experience in the mining industry
Partners
Principal Mining Engineer
Gordon Zurowski P.Eng
Gordon is recognized as an industry expert in mining projects around the world, with particular skills in open pit mining projects and financial evaluations. With more than 30 years of practical experience in both mine operations and consulting, Gordon has honed skills for the development of economic pits, mine scheduling, equipment selection, capital cost estimating, and operational audits. He has participated as both a team member and leader in the production of NI 43-101 compliant preliminary economic assessments, pre-feasibility and feasibility studies.
Principal Mining Engineer
Willie Hamilton P.Eng.
Willie Hamilton is a Principal Mining Engineer with over 30 years of mine operations and consulting experience. Proficient in surface mine planning, reserve estimation, and financial analysis, Willie is a team player with strong interpersonal and communications skills acquired through previous roles in the mining industry. Willie has provided due diligence and engineering support for both North American and international projects. An experienced mine planning software user, most recently with MineSight™ applications, allows Willie to troubleshoot issues and develop quick solutions. Willie is an effective team leader and mentor and is currently a CIM Peer Reviewer for Surface Mining papers.
Geology
Principal Resource Geologist
Pierre Desautels P.Geo.
Pierre has over 45 years of experience in geology and resource evaluation, both at operating mines and as a consultant for emerging mining opportunities in Canada and around the world. Pierre's strong knowledge of gold, molybdenum, and base metal deposit geology, coupled with his expertise in Gemcom resource modelling software, makes him a valuable and knowledgeable contributor to any project team. Pierre is fluent in French and English.
Senior Resource Geologist
Paul Daigle P.Geo.
Paul Daigle has over 32 years of progressive experience in evaluating and developing mineral exploration and mining projects worldwide. He is skilled in project management, team building, and problem-solving. Paul has extended experience in geostatistics and resource estimation and is skilled in the use of Geovia GEMS™ and Sage 2001. As an Associate of AGP, Paul has worked on a variety of open pit and underground projects ranging from Order of Magnitude to Feasibility Studies. Paul is fluent in English, French, and Spanish and has a basic knowledge of Portuguese.
Principal Mineral Resource Associate
Oscar Retto MAIG
Oscar Retto has 28 years of experience in geological modeling, resource estimation, technical assessments for economic evaluations, mineral resource updates, geostatistical analysis for exploration projects, open-pit, and underground operating mines in North and South America, and Australia.
Mining
Chief Underground Mine Engineer
Geoff Challiner CEng.
With over 45 years of experience in Mining Engineering and Operations, Geoff brings a very seasoned and proven set of skills to our AGP project teams. Although Geoff is an underground mining specialist, he has working knowledge of open-pit operations as well. Geoff has undertaken numerous Feasibility Studies and project management assignments over the course of his career and has led numerous study and audit teams on behalf of mining companies and financial institutions at mines around the world. Geoff offers a practical and experienced set of skills in mine design, planning and costing, and mine performance analysis. He is widely respected for his recommendations for improvements to mining methods, cost/benefit analysis, and detailed financial analyses of company cash flow projections and overall financing. Geoff has led negotiations with governments, contractors, and suppliers and has acted as a co-signatory for a number of Competent Persons and Canadian NI 43-101 reports.
Principal Mine Engineer
Todd Carstensen
Todd Carstensen has over 30 years of experience in mine planning and mine operations, working in corporate and mine site roles. Todd has diverse experience in team management, resource estimation, mine design, production scheduling, pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, project evaluations, and financial modelling, combined with extensive international experience in North America, Africa, and South American including ex-pat positions in Peru.
Prinicipal Mine Engineer
Kirk Hanson P.E.
Kirk Hanson has 32 years of experience in operations, engineering, management, and consulting roles within the mining industry. He is an MBA and is a Registered Professional Mining Engineer in multiple states. Kirk has 13 years of operational and mine engineer experience at large open-pit mines located in Northern Nevada. He was a planning engineer for the start-up of a roaster project and a mine expansion at Cortez Gold Mines and a Chief Engineer at Barrick’s Goldstrike operation, where he was responsible for all aspects of open-pit mining, mine designs, mine expansions, and strategic planning. After earning an MBA in 2004, he was assistant manager of operations and maintenance for the largest road department in Idaho. In 2007, he joined AMEC (now Wood) as a Principal Mining Consultant and over the past 15 years, has been the mining lead for multiple scoping, pre-feasibility, and feasibility studies. Kirk’s expertise includes financial modeling, mine planning and optimization, and mine fleet design and costing.
Principal Mine Engineer
Antonio Peralta P.Eng.
Antonio Peralta has 38 years of experience in open pit mine planning, production scheduling, and cost estimating. Antonio has done extensive work with property evaluations, feasibility studies, financial and economic analysis, and due diligence with strong practical experience using Whittle, MineSight, and Surpac.
Principal Mine Engineer
Ryan Brown P.Eng.
Ryan Brown has 15 years of experience in both open pit and underground mine planning and operations, including all major aspects of project evaluation and financial modelling. Key strengths include optimizing complex mining operations and schedules, mining approach trade-offs and scenario analysis, pit phase design, site layout, waste management, and closure planning. Most of Ryan’s experience is in gold and copper, including projects in North America, South America, Africa, and Russia.
Principal Mine Engineer
Lawrence Elgert P.Eng.
Lawrence has 32 years of experience in mine planning and design, ore control, geomechanics, production forecasting and management, slope stability monitoring, and operations, mainly for open-pit metal and coal mines in North America.
Principal Mine Engineer
Manuel Jessen P.Eng.
Manuel has over 30 years of experience predominantly in large and medium-size open pit mining operations with solid experience and knowledge in direction of mine engineering teams, mining studies, and execution of mining projects, as well as engineering consulting roles, primary at precious and basic metals properties in the Americas and Africa.
Senior Mining Engineer
Freddy Bravo
Freddy Bravo is a Senior Mining Engineer with over 21 years of practical experience in both mining operations and consulting, specializing in open pit, mine design and planning, ore resource and reserve evaluation, and economic analysis. Freddy has worked on different projects in Canada, the U.S.A., South America, and Africa, and has held senior positions with several mining companies. An enthusiastic customer-driven leader, Freddy effectively uses his expertise in MineSight,™ M24D, Ventsim, Minescape, and Minecad to advance client projects. As a specialist in other mining optimization tools, such as MineSight's Scheduler Optimizer and MS Haulage, Freddy is able to quickly assess client needs.
As a Senior Mine Engineer with AGP, Freddy works as the lead mining engineer on various projects and provides peer reviews on NI 43-101 compliant reports and technical assistance to many of our clients.
Principal Mining Engineer
Jay Melnyk P.Eng
With more than 30 years of international and domestic mining engineering experience, predominantly in open-pit mines, with additional underground and exploration experience, Jay Melnyk is recognized as an expert in pit optimization, pit phase design, mine scheduling, equipment selection, cost estimating, project management, resource modelling, and construction management.
Process & Metallurgy
Project Management
Senior Process Metallurgist
Neil Lincoln P.Eng.
Neil Lincoln has over 25 years of technical and leadership experience as a Mineral Processing Engineer and Study Manager in engineering consulting and operations related to the mining industry. Neil has extensive experience working with mining professionals and executives to review and develop their mineral projects during scoping, preliminary economic assessments, pre-feasibility and feasibility studies. As an Associate of AGP, Neil offers a wealth of experience in coordination of multi-discipline design teams, mineral processing design, review of process engineering deliverables, capital and operating cost estimating, financial study and modelling, and study and NI 43-101 Technical Report collaboration.
Senior Mechanical Engineer
Justin Taylor P.Eng.
Justin Taylor is a Senior Mechanical Engineer and Project Manager with over 20 years of experience in industries associated with large-scale multi-disciplinary capital engineering projects in the chemicals and minerals processing industry. His extensive background covers international projects in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Angola, and Kazakhstan. Justin is a driven self-starter with strong written and oral communication skills and superior organizational abilities required for this type of work, skills that he has successfully implemented in many projects.
We're not currently hiring, but are always interested in hearing from talented members of the mining community.