Stephen Roman has stepped down as Harte Gold’s chairman and, effectively immediately, Joe Conway replaces him.
Roman will continue to serve as a board member. Roman, who steered the development of the first gold mine in the Hemlo camp in three decades, had earlier resigned as president-CEO of the Toronto-headquartered mining company late last August.
He agreed to stay on in an interim capacity until Sam Coetzer was appointed as his successor last November.
“Harte Gold has been a key focus of mine for the past 10 years,” said Roman in a Jan. 27 news release.
“We advanced a greenfield Ontario gold project culminating in a new Ontario gold mine and declared commercial production in January 2019. The new operational team is doing a good job of getting the mine ramped up and on track. I expect the Sugar Zone Mine will be a solid producer for many years to come.
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"I would like to thank our longstanding shareholders for their support in developing Harte Gold over the past 10 years and Appian Capital Advisory for their significant investment and support for my vision of developing a new gold mine in Ontario which also holds significant exploration potential for new discoveries.”
In a statement, Conway added: “Without Stephen’s drive and enthusiasm, this company would not be where it is today.”
Harte’s flagship Sugar Zone Mine is located on a significant greenstone belt, just north of White River in northwestern Ontario.
The company also made some management moves appointing Dan Gagnon as the Sugar Zone’s new general manager.
A news release said Gagnon brings more than 30 years of experience in geology and management in working at operations across Canada, most notably as Mussselwhite Mine’s chief geologist for 13 years and most recently at Hope Bay Project in Nunavut.
“We are very fortunate to have someone of Dan’s caliber join the Harte Gold team,” said COO Martin Rafffield in a statement.
“Dan brings a wealth of experience managing a range of high-grade gold operations and will be a valuable addition to lead a transformation of our operational philosophy at site.”
Christopher McCann also joins the company as director of technical services, a new position within the company, with a focus on engineering design, scheduling and planning capabilities.
On the exploration front, the company announced it is drilling a new gold occurrence, the TT8 Discovery, 17 kilometres southeast of the Sugar Zone Mine, to test the depth of a mineral outcrop.
The mine’s production guidance for 2020 is between 42,000 and 48,000 ounces with exploration still ongoing on the almost 80,000-hectare property.
