DENVER & SIERRA BLANCA, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp. (the “Company”) (OTCQX: TRER), a rare earths mineral exploration and development company, has announced the appointment of Mr. Daniel Gorski as its chief executive officer, as well as the addition of five new members to its board of directors: Mr. John C. Tumazos, CFA, as non-executive chairman, and Dr. Philip Goodell, Dr. Nicholas Pingitore, Mr. Cecil Wall, and Mr. James Wolfe as directors. Mr. Gorski commented, “I am pleased to have these very experienced and talented individuals joining the Texas Rare Earth Resources’ board. We are continuing to advance the Round Top project in Texas, and in the near term we plan to focus on metallurgy and proving out our ability to extract the valuable minerals in this deposit.”
Mr. Daniel Gorski was appointed chief executive officer of the Company, following his previous appointment as the interim chief executive officer, and remains a director of the board. Mr. Gorski is one of the original founders of TRER and is one of the largest shareholders. In March of 2007, Mr. Gorski became president and chief executive officer of Standard Silver Corp., later renamed Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp. in September 2010. In May 2011, Mr. Gorski stepped down to become chief operating officer and subsequently resigned that position on January 1, 2012, while continuing as a director of the Company. Mr. Gorski holds a B.S. from Sul Ross State College and an M.A. in geology from the University of Texas at Austin.
Mr. John C. Tumazos, CFA, was appointed as a director and will serve as non-executive chairman of the Company’s board. Mr. Tumazos’ career includes positions as senior vice president, steel equities analyst, Oppenheimer & Co., Inc.; vice president, metals equities analyst, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette; and, senior vice president, metals and paper equities analyst, Prudential Financial. Mr. Tumazos provided valuation testimony to the Federal Supreme Court of Canada in the largest property damages case in Canadian history (1985), valuation in a large U.K. gold mine litigation, served the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce an antitrust divestiture in the steel industry, and has advised five other publicly traded companies in fairness opinions for mergers in the U.S. and Canada. In 2007, he formed John Tumazos Very Independent Research, LLC, focusing his investment research within the resource sector. He has served as a financial advisor to seven emerging mining companies, including TRER, and was instrumental in the Company obtaining financing in 2011. Mr. Tumazos holds a B.S. in management sciences and economics and an M.S. in industrial administration from Carnegie-Mellon University.
Dr. Philip Goodell was appointed as a director to the Company. Mr. Goodell will serve on the Company’s corporate governance and nominating committee. He is currently an associate professor of geology at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), where he has been in residence since 1975 and has successfully sponsored 26 M.S. and 19 Ph.D. candidates. In addition to his academic accomplishments, Dr. Goodell has wide-ranging experience in the mining industry and has consulted for St. Joe Minerals, Exxon Minerals, Chevron Minerals Corporation, Cameco Corp., MAG Silver Corp., and Energy Metals, Inc., among other companies. One of the theses sponsored by Dr. Goodell, authored by W. M. Shannon, contained much of the basic research on the Round Top area. Dr. Goodell holds a B.S. in solid state physics (1964) from Yale University and an M.S. in geology (1966) and a Ph.D. in geology (1970) from Harvard.
Dr. Nicholas Pingitore was appointed as a director to the Company. Mr. Pingitore will serve on the Company’s audit and corporate governance and nominating committees. Since 1977, he has held a full-time faculty appointment at UTEP. In addition to being a Texas Licensed Geoscientist, Dr. Pingitore is a member of several professional associations including the American Chemical Society, Geochemical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, Materials Research Society, and Mineralogical Society of America. He has served for 25 years as director of UTEP’s electron microprobe laboratory. Since 2000, he has been project director of approximately $7,000,000 in research funding and a co-investigator on another $10,000,000 in grants. He has established a record for successfully managing and completing large institutional projects. Dr. Pingitore holds an A.B. degree from Columbia College (1965) and an Sc.M. (1968) and a Ph.D. in geology (1973) from Brown University.
Mr. Cecil C. Wall was appointed as a director to the Company. Mr. Wall will serve on the Company’s audit and compensation committees. In 1969, he acquired control of a publicly traded company, Altex Oil Co. (formerly known as Mountain Valley Uranium). Under Mr. Wall’s leadership, Altex established a 20,000-acre position in what became the Greater Altamont Field at Altamont, Utah. Mr. Wall sold his interest in Altex in 1985. Mr. Wall was part of the founding group for the 2007 reorganization of Standard Silver Corp., which became Texas Rare Earth Resources. He sat on the Company’s board of directors and served as the secretary and treasurer from January 2004 to April 2012. He is currently the manager for C-Wall Investment Company, LLC, in Utah. In addition, he is the president of several family-owned private companies. Mr. Wall attended Carbon County College and Utah State University.
Mr. James R. Wolfe was appointed as a director to the Company. Mr. Wolfe will serve on the Company’s compensation and corporate governance and nominating committees. As co-founder of Pacific Materials Resources, Inc. (PMR), Mr. Wolfe was among the pioneers of the China-U.S. rare earth industry and trade. As vice president of PMR from 1995 to 2010, Mr. Wolfe interfaced between the major rare earth producers in China and a broad spectrum of rare earth U.S. consumers. Prior to founding PMR, he was President of MPV Lanthanides, Inc., a rare earth joint venture between China Metallurgical Import/Export of Inner Mongolia and U.S. interests. From 1979 to 1995, Mr. Wolfe’s professional interests centered on resource recovery from industrial and mining wastes. He served as a consultant to the steel industry, co-founded Exmet Corporation (zinc from smelter dust), and served as executive vice president of Williams Strategic Metals, Inc., and its predecessor, Nedlog Technology Group, Inc. Mr. Wolfe developed and implemented projects for the recovery of cobalt from slags, indium from smelter dusts, and rare earths from mine tailings. In 1970, while he was employed by the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Mr. Wolfe invented and patented a plasma method for producing ultra-fine refractory metal carbides. He co-founded Cal-Met Industries, Inc., in 1973 to commercialize the plasma technology. Mr. Wolfe received a B.S. and an M.S. in metallurgical engineering from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. (1968) from the University of Missouri-Rolla.
About Texas Rare Earth Resources
Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp.'s primary focus is exploring and developing its Round Top rare earth minerals project. The Round Top project is located in Hudspeth County, Texas, 85 miles east of El Paso. A preliminary economic assessment (PEA) study was completed for the Round Top project in June 2012 by Gustavson Associates. The PEA reported estimated measured and indicated mineral resources* of 359 million tonnes at a rare earth oxide (REO) grade of 639 ppm, as well as estimated inferred mineral resources* of 675 million tonnes at an REO grade of 638 ppm. The occurrence of critical (as identified by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Strategy report) rare earth oxides (CREOs) at Round Top represents 69% of the total rare earth oxides (TREOs). The Company’s common stock trades on the OTCQX U.S. Premier tier under the symbol “TRER.”
For more information on Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp., visit its website at trer.com.
*Cautionary Note to Investors
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) limits disclosure for U.S. reporting purposes to mineral deposits that a company can economically and legally extract or produce. This press release uses terms that comply with reporting standards in Canada and certain estimates are made in accordance with Canadian National Instrument NI 43-101 (“NI 43-101”) and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (“CIM”) - CIM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, adopted by the CIM Council, as amended (the “CIM Standards”). NI 43-101 is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators that establishes standards for all public disclosures an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. This press release uses the terms “measured and indicated mineral resources” and “inferred mineral resources.” We advise U.S. investors that while these terms are recognized by Canadian regulations, the terms are not recognized under SEC Industry Guide 7 and are normally not permitted to be used in reports and registration statements filed with the SEC. Mineral resources in these categories have a great amount of uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. “Inferred resources” have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and, under Canadian regulations, cannot form the basis of a pre-feasibility or feasibility study, except in limited circumstance. The SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant “reserves” as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit measures. Under SEC Industry Guide 7 standards, a “final” or “bankable” feasibility study is required to report reserves, the three-year historical average price is used in any reserve or cash flow analysis to designate reserves and all necessary permits and government approvals must be filed with the appropriate governmental authority. U.S. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of mineral deposits in these categories will ever be converted into SEC Industry Guide 7 reserves. U.S. investors are urged to consider closely the disclosure in our latest reports and registration statements filed with the SEC. You can review and obtain copies of these filings at http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and forward-looking information under Canadian securities laws, including but not limited to, statements regarding the Company’s advancement of the Round Top project and anticipated focus on the metallurgy and proving out its ability to extract the minerals at its Round Top Project. When used in this press release, the words “potential,” “indicate,” “expect,” “intend,” “hopes,” “believe,” “may,” “will,” “if, “anticipate,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Such factors include, among others, uncertainty of mineralized material and mineral resource estimates, risks relating to completing metallurgical testing at the Round Top project, risks related to project development determinations, risks related to fluctuations in the price of rare earth minerals, the inherently hazardous nature of mining-related activities, potential effects on the Company’s operations of environmental regulations, risks due to legal proceedings, risks related to uncertainty of being able to raise capital on favorable terms or at all, as well as those factors discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” in the Company’s quarterly reports on Form 10-Q as filed on April 16, 2012, and July 16, 2012, and the Company’s latest annual report on Form 10-K, as filed on November 22, 2011, and other documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.