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David Bikerman

President

David with first gold bar poured at Minas Santa Rosa, Panama

David Bikerman formed Bikerman Engineering & Technology Associates, Inc. in 1997, after four years of employment with Greenstone Resources Ltd. As Chief Engineer for Greenstone, he was responsible for all phases of technical analysis, project design and engineering on their Central American gold projects including: the Santa Rosa mine in Panama; the Mojón mine in Nicaragua; and the San Andrés mine in Honduras. Mr. Bikerman's titles with Greenstone included: Vice President, Chief Engineer of Greenstone Resources Ltd. (International); Vice President, Manager of Mining, and General Manager of Minas Santa Rosa, S.A. (Panama); and Member of the Board of Minera Nicaragüense, S.A. (Nicaragua).

During his tenure at Greenstone, Mr. Bikerman’s responsibilities included: project resource and reserve analyses using Medsystem software; reserve reconciliations; pit, haul road and waste dump design; theoretical mining fleet requirements; and the management of several feasibility studies. He authored, negotiated and administered a $US 48 million mining contract with Brown & Root in Panama. He also wrote bid documents and tendered bids for: environmental baseline studies; environmental viability reports; road construction; leach pad and pond earthworks; leach pad liners; crushing and conveying systems; power generation systems; ADR plants; and interim mining contracts. Mr. Bikerman's team was responsible for the design and operation of the Santa Rosa pit in Panama; the design and construction of the Mojón mine in Nicaragua; and the design of the San Andrés mine in Honduras.

Mr. Bikerman holds three degrees in mining engineering. In 1995, he earned the degree of Engineer of Mines from the Henry Krumb School of Mines at Columbia University in the city of New York. The degree was a result of ten years of part-time graduate study focusing on geostatistical analysis and mineral economics. Mr. Bikerman had previously earned the degree of Master of Science in mining engineering from Columbia University in 1985 after two years of full-time graduate work specializing in rock mechanics, operations research and international business. He also earned a Bachelors of Science in Mining Engineering in 1981 from the University of Pittsburgh, where he focused on coal mining techniques.

Prior to joining Greenstone, Mr. Bikerman was an Associate with Behre Dolbear & Co., minerals industry consultants based in New York. For five years he performed reserve evaluations and audits, as well as cashflow, economic analyses, and commodity studies. As a consultant to MINTEC Inc. of Tucson, Arizona, He wrote the Medsystem Goldbook for use by university-level educational institutions as an instructional workbook. It was designed to show students how to use Medsystem software to develop resource and reserve estimates for a hypothetical gold deposit. Using the Goldbook, Mr. Bikerman taught a course in Mine Plant Design at the Henry Krumb School of Mines at Columbia University for five years. While in graduate school, he worked as a consultant to the United Nations (UNDP) and for various New York-based mining companies, as well as for Columbia University's rock mechanics laboratory. Other mining experience includes two years with Consolidation Coal Company, initially as a unionized underground miner at the Mathies Mine in Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, and ultimately as a Project Engineer for the Midwest Division in Evansville, Indiana.

Mr. Bikerman wrote several mining-related computer games and programs, including: EXPLORE!, an exploration game based on random mineral occurrences that must be drilled in a logical drill pattern to increase resource value (distributed by the USBM); and TUNNEL, a graphics application that shows the stress envelope around two tunnels.

Mr. Bikerman is also President of Goldcoast Cigar Company of Mansfield, Connecticut, a cigar import and wholesale company. Previously, he was President of 3-D Enterprise, Inc. of New York, New York, a computer supply wholesale and retail firm.

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Marc Russell

Senior Associate

Marc on front porch of Mansfield, CT office

Marc Russell joined BETA as a Senior Associate in December 1997. He brings with him over 12 years of geological and minerals industry administrative experience from assignments in Canada and Latin America.

Born and raised in Canada, Marc graduated in 1985 with an honors B.Sc. in geology from the University of Western Ontario. His thesis on rare earth element analysis was the subject of a publication (co-authorship) which appeared in the journal of Chemical Geology in April 1987.

Mr. Russell joined BETA after 10 years with Greenstone Resources Ltd. of Toronto, Canada. Having worked for Greenstone since its inception, Marc was a valued participant in the company’s rise from a start-up junior exploration company of 9 employees to a solid intermediate gold producer with four operating gold mines and 1,000+ employees in 5 countries.

Mr. Russell joined Greenstone's exploration team in Latin America in 1993 after five years in Greenstone’s corporate office in Toronto. His titles included: Country Exploration Manager and Senior Geologist (Panama); Project Exploration Manager (Honduras); Project Supervisor (Costa Rica); and Exploration Geologist (Nicaragua). Marc’s Central American managerial experience began when he supervised a 3,000 tonne bulk-sampling program in Costa Rica. Mr. Russell was promoted to Country Exploration Manager, Panama in 1995 where he was responsible for exploration and condemnation drilling and geologic modeling. He conceived and implemented a new geologic model for the Santa Rosa ore body, resulting in a revised reserve model as well as publication (co-authorship with Mike Johnson and David Bikerman) in the Engineering & Mining Journal (April 1996). Mr. Russell was responsible for a budget of $US 1 million earmarked for drilling of 13,000 meters of reverse-circulation holes in the Santa Rosa concession. Significant additional reserves were modeled as a result of the program. After drilling and modeling was completed in Panama in 1997, Marc took over as Project Exploration Manager of the San Andrés project in Honduras. Overseeing a crew of 4 expatriates and over 40 locals, Mr. Russell was responsible for a program utilizing 2 reverse circulation rigs, 1 core rig, and 3 full-time channel sampling crews, in addition to various geological mapping programs.

Mr. Russell was responsible for all of Greenstone's front-end geologic modeling using MEDSYSTEM for projects in Panama, Nicaragua and Honduras, beginning in 1993. While in Central America, Marc was a key participant in the production of two feasibility reports for Greenstone.

From 1987 until 1992, Marc held a wide variety of management positions at Greenstone, all designed to assist upper management get the start-up company on its feet. Besides certain geological duties, Marc’s responsibilities included: technical and administrative systems management; data and file management; project land management; purchasing, expediting and import/export; corporate development; cash flow analysis; and PC maintenance, network administration and software training. Marc set up and managed Greenstone’s first purchasing department, and was responsible for the procurement and expediting of $Cdn 1.5 million dollars worth of mine and mill equipment to Greenstone’s first producing gold mine in Colombia, South America. As land and data manager, Marc was responsible for all land and data management activities associated with Greenstone’s Chibougamau land package. At that time, Greenstone was the largest landholder in this camp with 81 properties comprising over 67,870 acres of land. Achievements in corporate development include a "best of show" award for a booth design set up at the 1993 Western Gold Show in San Francisco.

Mr. Russell introduced personal computers to Greenstone in 1987, and he designed and structured all data and file management systems for the corporate head office as well as project field offices. He installed and maintained a networked system of PC’s in the Toronto office and provided PC and software training to both Canadian and Central American staff.

Prior to joining Greenstone, Marc was employed for two years in the exploration department at Kidd Creek Mines Ltd., Falconbridge Ltd. And Westfield Minerals Ltd. in the Timmins area in Ontario, Canada. As a field geologist, Marc participated in early reconnaissance project work on various gold and base metal exploration projects. During the winter seasons, Marc participated in various geophysical exploration programs utilizing HLEM, MAG and VLF survey equipment.

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