Management
William H. Bird, PhD, PGeo
Chairman & CEO
Dr William H Bird holds a PhD in Geology from the Colorado School of Mines, is a registered professional geologist, and has over 40 years of mining and corporate experience. He possesses a strong combination of business credentials and mineral-industry expertise. His practical and theoretical understanding of geology (most notably rare-earth elements), mineralogy, and metallurgy is recognized as exceptional.
Since his early career as a mineralogy professor, Dr Bird has pursued his long-standing interest in rare-earth elements and their mineral occurrences around the world. In 2005, he became CEO of Rare Element Resources, which owns the prominent Bear Lodge REE and gold property, where he was given the mandate to reorganize and refocus the company. Dr Bird left Rare Element Resources at the end of 2007 to devote his energy and expertise to Medallion Resources.
Don M. Lay
President & Director
Donald (Don) Lay works closely with Medallion’s CEO Dr Bill Bird with a focus on corporate strategy and finance. Don has over 25 years of experience in public and private venture capital, corporate communications and international business. He has served as a senior officer and director for a number of public companies including mineral-exploration companies International Taurus Resources Inc, American Bonanza and Medallion Resources Ltd. Don was a principal at China MobileSoft, a seed-funded, embedded-software supplier that delivered solutions to Chinese telephone handset makers that provided an exceptional return to shareholders. Before entering the venture-capital world in 1994, Mr. Lay invested 13 years in enterprise software arena in development, sales and support. Don holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia.
Tom Arnould, CA
CFO & Corporate Secretary
Mr Arnould is a graduate from Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario, receiving his Chartered Accountant’s designation after articling with Coopers & Lybrand (now part of PriceWaterhouseCoopers) in 1982. Since then, he has worked with various private companies in the food processing and distribution and group-benefits areas where he assisted with the sale of these companies to public entities. More recently, he has worked as a CFO of a private strategic-marketing firm, as a principal with Adler Business Solutions Inc and as the CFO of Securefact Inc. In addition, he consults with other companies on finance and accounting matters.
Sothi Thillairajah, MBA
General Manager – Middle East
Sothi Thillairajah has two decades of experience in international finance, advising North American corporations on Middle East joint ventures and early-stage, mineral projects in Africa and Latin America. Most recently, he was Managing Director at Revere Capital Advisors, a hedge-fund seeding group, working with investment professionals at Middle Eastern financial institutions, sovereign-wealth funds, and investment offices evaluating and recommending hedge funds and private equity investments. Mr Thillairajah earned a BA cum laude in Economics at the University of Rochester and holds an MBA in Finance and Statistics from the University of Chicago.
Warwick Bartle
Director, Feedstock Acquisition
Warwick Bartle’s commercial experience with titanium and related minerals spans almost 50 years. He started as an industrial chemist, working in pigment production for Laporte Titanium (now Cristal Pigments). He soon found his way into international mineral sales and marketing, and over the years has held those responsibilities for titanium minerals, zircon and monazite for leading companies that include Western Titanium (now Iluka Resources), QIT (now Rio Tinto Iron & Titanium Inc), Cable Sands/RZM (now Bemax), and others. Mr Bartle, who is based in Australia, is a graduate of the Royal Institute of Chemistry, London.
