Kathleen has had an extensive career assisting mining companies in the fields of Mineral Resources, Grade control and Sampling, either as an employee or consultant.  She has substantial experience in mineral evaluation from early stage exploration, production and reprocessing of waste materials.  As would be expected, Kathleen continuously maintains her knowledge and has run numerous courses and seminars in sampling, quality control, resource estimation and geostatistics.  She also covers mineral/metal extraction, financial valuation and risk assessment.  In addition to gold, she has extensive experience in other commodities and is a Qualified/Competent person, Project Lead or Supervising Principal in many of them.  As a French speaker, she is able to teach in French.

With an education in the US and South Africa, Steven brings a tremendous level of mining experience to the DEKA Group.  Involved in mining since obtaining his BSc Mining Engineering in 1986, Steven has progressed through the mining ranks and commodities of gold and coal, achieving Technical Director level.  He obtained his PhD in 2003.

Steven has also gained experience as a mining consultant and spent four years with CSIR as a Research Area Manager.  Steven now devotes his time and knowledge teaching young mining engineers the intricacies of mining.  His experience in the application of mining engineering on feasibility/pre-feasibility studies in numerous commodities, along with Project Management appointments and appointments as CP for various mining companies, attests to his subject matter knowledge.  Steven is also a serving Council member on the SAIMM.

Dr Stephen Rayward has a diverse science, mathematics, engineering and software development background. Stephen has 40 years’ experience in Mathematical Modelling, Engineering, and development of both commercial and research software. He is the author of some 60 refereed papers, and some 20 LinkedIn articles; and he is well-known for his approachability, enthusiasm and considered views.  Prior to Stephen’s entry into mineral processing he worked in the fields of computer-based sail design (for racing yachts), numerical modelling of coastal currents, and remote sensing.

Stephen gained a PhD in Mineral Processing Engineering and was a Senior Research Fellow at JKMRC with fields of work including: mineralogical analysis, mass balancing, simulation and geometallurgy.  Stephen’s analysis software is still being applied successfully by Mining Companies in both Australia and overseas.

Stephen has provided numerous services to Mining Companies (and other diverse Companies) principally in algorithm development, education and specialised training.  Stephen simultaneously started developing his own Excel addins and commercial software for both mineral processing and more general applications. In addition to presenting courses in Australia and internationally (both in mineral processing and Excel), he is the author of a mineral processing analysis patent, which is fundamental to operational optimisation and simulation of mineral processing plants.

Orestes is a Geological Engineer with 40 years of experience in Geological Modeling, QAQC, Statistics, Geostatistics, Resource Estimation, Prospecting and Exploration Projects, Project Management, Economic Evaluation of Mining Projects, Planning and Development of Geologist-Mining Investments and Teaching and a registered Competent Person.

With extensive international experience in Chile, Peru, Nicaragua, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, Orestes has participated in over 100 mining projects and directed the geology work on many of them, from the drafting of prospecting and exploration projects, resource estimates, audits, technical reports and peer review of resources and reserves.

He has participated in technical/economic feasibility studies from conceptual studies (scoping studies) to executive projects of complete plants for metallic ores (Au, Ag, Cu, Cr, Fe, W, U, Al, Fe, Pb-Zn, Ni and Co) of various genetic types.  He has extensive experience in porphyry copper deposits, epithermal gold, skarn, SEDEX, laterites, placers, etc. and non-metallic (building materials, cement raw material, wollastonite, phosphorites, silica, ulexite (boron), lithium, rock salt, dolomites, volcanic glass, zeolites, mica, sands, barite, marbles, peat, kyanite, feldspars, clays, garnets, limestones, etc.

He is competent is the use of Studio RM, Studio RM Pro, Supervisor, Statistics, Studio EM, GSLIB, SGeMS, AutoCAD, Strat 3D, MS Project, and MS Office.

Marta brings a wealth of geological knowledge to our team as well as a strong background in multiple mining software platforms.  With experience in the fields of geological modelling and mineral resource estimation, gained from working with a number of companies, her role in our company focuses on consulting, personnel development and training, which she has been engaged in doing since 2009.Marta speaks English and Spanish and has assisted mining software companies with the translation of their excellent software solutions from English into Spanish.

Eric is a distinguished Geological Database Management systems & Quality Assurance Quality Control (QAQC) specialist. He has over 35 years mining industry experience and has worked for international mining houses, such as BHP Billiton, Anglo American, Newmont and AngloGold Ashanti. He has a rich multi commodity experience and brings with him a wealth of experience in Exploration and Mining data management, integration of data sources to modelling processes, quality control of geochemical assay data and fire assay laboratory processes.

He is passionate about training and has offered Geographic Information systems, QAQC and various earth science related Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) software courses across Exploration assets. He was the global exploration database representative for Newmont Ghana, where all Newmont data, worldwide, was brought to a common platform. 

Eric compiled and indexed all AngloGold Ashanti's Mali geoscience datasets, namely Sadiola and Yatela Gold mines, prior to their sale to Allied Gold in 2020.

As a Mining Engineer, Cristian’s mining experience extends to mining and geological software solutions looking at Geological Modelling, Mine Planning and Mining Unit operations.

Through his 25 years of international experience in countries such as Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Brazil, Ecuador, Surinam, Australia, Mexico, USA, Italy and UK, Cristian has participated in over 40 mining projects and lead geology and mine planning implementation projects on many of them, providing best practices in the exploration, geology and planning areas for underground and open pit mines in metallic and non-metallic commodities.

He has participated in several metallic ores (Au, Ag, Cu, Fe, Pb-Zn) studies of various deposit types and his experience extends to non-metallic/industrial mineral deposits such as limestone and borax.

Cristian bring his competency in several Datamine Studio software products such as RM, RM Pro, NPVS, UG and Fusion Suite.

Samuel has a BSc in Geomatic Engineering and is currently busy completing his Masters.  He has been involved in manganese mining in Ghana and has taken up the challenge of self-development, with specific interest in the field of mining software. He is proficient in many aspects of Geovia Surpac, such as Geological Database Management, Resource Modelling and Estimation, Advanced Geostatistics, Advanced Solid Modelling, Open Pit Designs and Advanced Mine Surveying.

Samuel is also competent with ArcGIS, AutoCAD and other software products, which form the basis of his ability to teach these subjects.  His geomatics background enables him to also undertake survey work and training.  Samuel has been published as a co-author.

Aaron is a chemical and metallurgical engineer and an environmental specialist, with a BSc in Chemical Engineering (Sofia), MSc Environmental Management (UK), MSc Engineering Metallurgy & Materials (SA), and Executive Education MDP.  Aaron has a wide range of experience in Metallurgical processing plants and equipment having over 20 years of experience working with diverse mining, mineral processing and metals extraction operations covering a wide range of commodities (e.g. Coal, Ferroalloys, Gold, Platinum, Titanium, Tantalum, Lithium and Ilmenite).

Aaron has worked on the development and commercialisation of an environmentally friendly technology for the processing of refractory metals (Titanium, Tantalum, and Scandium) both at a pilot plant and in the research laboratory facilities and has been in several projects covering minerals/metals extraction pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, unit operations improvement/optimisation, innovation, and new sustainable technologies scanning.  Throughout his career he has been actively involved in the training and mentoring of operational plant personnel, and also in imparting the knowledge and skills gained as a contract lecturer.  

He has a strong commitment to HSE principles, with exposure in the application of emerging environmentally friendly technology solutions, knowledge sharing and personnel training, process commercialization/scale up, business case development and implementation, process optimisation, trouble shooting, SCADA, SAP, flowsheet design, AUTOCAD, process auditing and operating procedures development, budgeting and cost control, metallurgical accounting, pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, metallurgy research & development.

With a B.Comm in Accounting, Economics, and Business Economics, a MBL, and Post Graduate Diploma in Financial coupled with his registration as an Accredited Financial Planner and member of the Financial Planners Institute of SA, Alex is well versed in all matter financial. 

Apart from his many years employed in financial institutions, Alex has had the pleasure of tutoring at several universities and for companies requiring specialised and focused training.   

Alex brings his knowledge and experience to our company and is available to help any organisation develop the financial capabilities of its staff.