The Making of a high growth company
By: Galit Solomon January 8, 2018
Company: Rover Metals Corp, TSX-V:ROVR on the Toronto Venture Exchange and on the OTCQB (ROVMF)
CEO: Judson Culter, B.Com, CPA:
Number of locations: 2 (Up Town Gold Property and Cabin Lake Property)
In current role: 5 years
Place of birth: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Prior job: Controller, Atlas Accelerator
Timing is everything! You either have good timing, or you don’t. Having the intuitive ability to recognize an opportunity, is often what sets the good “timers” apart from the rest.
Judson Culter, the CEO of Rover Metals has mastered the art of timing. He spent six years in Seattle, first working at accounting giant, Grant Thornton, then moving to a start-up accelerator where he was a Controller. “Seattle has a start-up ecosystem like that of Silicon Valley, just on a smaller scale,” explains Culter. “I got to work with some brilliant people. In most cases, I got to work directly with start-up CEOs.”
It wasn’t long before Culter discovered a new passion. “These two years (working with start-ups) inspired me to start my own business. Being Canadian, I couldn’t legally do that in the U.S., so I moved back to Vancouver in 2010 and began networking in the junior mining circles. At the time, Vancouver was in the middle of a junior exploration boom.”
Timing!
The start of 2014 signaled a new beginning for Culter. “We started building Rover Metals that year.” For three years, through a joint venture, the company owned a small-scale gold mining operation in Colombia. “We ran into legal problems with our Colombian partner in Q1-2016 and wrote off the gold asset later that year.”
By June 2016, Rover Metals had restructured and morphed into a precious metals exploration company with a focus on Canadian gold assets in the Northwest Territories. Combined, Cabin Lake and Up Town Gold, make up Rover’s approximately 50 square kilometres of property. Cabin Lake sits on a historical resource of 85,000 ounces of gold. The Up Town Gold property is directly adjacent to the historic Giant Mine that produced 8.1 million ounces of high grade gold. “There is a saying in the mining world, ‘One of the best places to find a new mine is in the shadow of an existing one.’”
The mining industry is one of the largest contributors to the local economy in the Northwest Territories, and there is no shortage of untapped sites to discover. So, what makes Rover Metals the right opportunity, right now? Timing. “We’re just starting to build this company. We were private for three years and raised $3 million. We’ve received all the permits we need, and we are now public. The advantage for investors today is getting in at the grassroots level. It’s where a lot of investors like to play in the micro-cap space.”
In addition to good timing, Culter asserts, it’s the younger team of experts that makes Rover Metals a strong contender for investors. “The industry that we’re operating in is set for a changing of the guard, as a result of retirement, on a level never seen before. Rover’s management team is at the point of the sword with regards to our timing of this changeover. There are projects out there that we want today, but we can’t afford them yet. That will change as we grow the company. We have the longevity to get there.”
While the team running Rover Metals has the advantage of time, they also have great mentors. “Tookie Stuart Angus has been a mentor to me in the junior mining space including the building of Rover Metals to where it is today.” Currently an advisor to the board, Angus is a well-known, independent business advisor within the mining industry. “In certain circles, Mr. Angus is very well known. He likes to get involved at the early stage, but he’s also been part of some huge transactions – Ventura Gold, Augusta Resources and Arizona Mining to name a few.”
On June 29, 2018, Rover Metals began trading on the TSX-V. Rover Metals will also soon be listed on the OTCQB under the symbol ROVMF. Culter says there have been other meaningful achievements. “Some of the more monumental milestones have been fostering and building relationships with the Tlicho First Nations, in Northwest Territories. We are working closely with the Tlicho First Nations on building Rover Metals as a next-generation exploration company – a company that is creating future opportunities for all northern stakeholders.”
The relationship building also extends to Rover’s competitors in the region. “Our peer and mentor companies in the same area code – companies like Nighthawk Gold (TSXV: NHK), TerraX Minerals (TSXV: TXR), and Fortune Minerals (TSX: FT).”
Where is Rover headed in 2019? Culter will be returning to the US to grow the Company’s shareholder base there. “Rover is just finalizing its OTCQB listing. Rover is also evaluating exploration assets south of the border.”
Rover intends to start drilling its Cabin Lake project this year.