Albert Matter

How did you get your start in the mineral industry?

As a starry-eyed teenager, I found geology and astronomy fascinating, and the fact that ‘all roads led from mines to Rome’ intrigued me. Since I wasn’t a good enough student to excel in the hard sciences, I used what I’d learnt about ‘getting things done’ from working in construction to enter the finance industry, and have spent my life progressing from participating in exploration financings as a rookie broker, to becoming founder and initial CEO of several junior exploration companies, including Alamos Gold, Gryphon Gold and NuLegacy Gold Corporation.

What was the most fulfilling project you ever worked on, and why?

Creation of Alamos Gold Corporation. Why? I took this from inception to completion. In 2000, I had retired from the brokerage industry, intuited that gold was bottoming, sought out capable hard scientists (geologist James McDonald, now CEO of Kootenay Silver, Genco Resources), then found and initiated/completed negotiations with Placer-Dome for the acquisition of their 3.0 million ounce of PP&P Mulatos deposit in Mexico on behalf of our ‘shell company’ National Gold; financed the acquisition (with the help of James Anderson, now CEO of Guanajuato Silver) and initiated further exploration, and then enrolled Chester Millar, founder of Glamis Gold, Eldorado Gold, truly a grand old man of the mining industry, as our partner to give our fledging junior exploration company (led by an amateur – me) some credibility and muscle. Chester joining us led to immediate creditability, and his protégé, John McClusky, took over day to day management and very capably advanced the Mulatos to production and we were all rewarded, and I retired ‘once’ again, before cofounding NuLegacy Gold Corporation with my partner Dr. Roger Steininger, one of the respected deans of the Carlin-style gold industry in Nevada.