Hunter Dickinson wins award

The management team of Hunter Dickinson, including Robert Dickinson, Ronald Thiessen, David Copeland, Scott Cousens, David Jennings and Jeffrey Mason, was recently honoured collectively as the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the Natural Resources category at the Entrepreneur of the Year Awards ceremony in Vancouver.

In 1985, Robert Hunter, who is now retired, Dickinson and secretary Shirley Main established North American Metals, which had a 50% interest in the Dease Lake underground gold property in B.C. In 1988, the company was the subject of a hostile takeover by Homestake Mining, and Hunter, Dickenson and Main were forced to look at other businesses. They eventually formed HDI and later that year Thiessen and Copeland joined the company with the aim of forming an umbrella company for mineral exploration.

“An entrepreneur is defined as a risk-taking businessperson, someone who sets up and finances new commercial enterprises to make a profit,” says Thiessen, who became President and CEO of HDI in October 2000. “Certainly Bob Hunter and Bob Dickinson fit that profile. We set about to create a franchise around the name Hunter Dickinson Inc. The franchise we wanted to build was one of entrepreneurship, and (we wanted) to create an environment in which the entrepreneurship of the people at Hunter Dickinson could flourish.”

Hunter Dickenson employs 70 core staff in its B.C. offices and manages publicly traded companies active in mineral exploration and development throughout the world, including Taseko Mines (TKO-V), Great Basin Gold (GBG-T), Anooraq Resources (ARQ-V), Northern Dynasty Minerals (NDM-V), Farallon Resources (FAN-T), Continental Minerals (KMK-V), Rockwell Ventures (RCW-V), Amarc Resources (AHR-V) and Quartz Mountain Resources (QZM-V).

Through a reverse-takeover, Anooraq recently joined with Pelawan Investments, a South African black economic empowerment group. As a result, Anooraq is now the first black economic empowerment company to hold a primary listing on a North American stock exchange. The company intends to acquire a secondary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.