About us / Profiles - Operations Management Team

Alan P. Shoesmith - FFA
Acting Chief Executive

Alan's background is in financial management and brings senior management experience from a wide range of commercial activities, having previously been CEO of a highly diversified group of companies covering specialist engineering, manufacturing and property development. Alan brings 40 years of financial and commercial experience to WUM and has guided the project in relation to the commercial, political and planning aspects of its progress to date.


John Webster - Dip CSM
Acting Chief Operating Officer, Consultant

After graduating from the Camborne School of Mines in 1980, John emigrated to Western Australia and worked initially for BHP Minerals at the Koolan Island Iron ore mine, he subsequently worked at Eneabba Mineral sands operation and Mt Gibson Gold mine, where he was Mine Superintendent.

In 1989 he moved to the US where he became Mine Manager of the Red Rock Mining Inc mine at Goldfield, Nevada, where he developed a 1Mt/yr gold heap leach operation and a large land holdings in an old hard rock gold mining area.

In 1994 he became Vice President of Mining with Nelson Gold plc and managed the Taror and Jilau gold and copper joint venture with the Government of Tajikstan, modernizing an old Soviet open pit/flotation project into a modern 80,000 oz/yr CIL operation.

In 1996 he became Managing Director of TSX listed companies, establishing and working on gold projects in a number of FSU countries and since 2000 he has led a number of private and public engineering, exploration and mining companies, raising funds up to IPO level in Europe and North America. He is a consultant to WUM and has recently been appointed as its acting COO, responsible for the technical direction of the company.


Kevin P. Williams - BSc Mining Engineering
Mine Manager, Consultant Mining Engineer

Kevin graduated from the University of Leeds and has since held a variety of mining and tunnelling positions throughout his 40 year career. He joined Geevor Tin Mine near Penzance, Cornwall in 1976, subsequently becoming General Mine Manager, having developed and implemented a new mining programme which significantly enhanced mine productivity and efficiency. His international experience includes all aspects of practical mining up to senior management level in the UK tin industry. In tunnel construction Kevin was sucessful in the large-scale management of operational logistics and he was also involved in successful recovery operations following a tunnel failure at a major UK project. Kevin identified the potential for re-establishing polymetallic mining at South Crofty, was a founder director of Baseresult and WUM's director of mine operations until March, 2010.


David J. Stone - BSc(Hons) Mechanical Engineering, CEng, MI MechE
Consultant Engineer

David is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer, whose career has mostly been in the mining and quarrying industry and has spanned from deputy colliery engineer to senior management as Chief Engineer. David's experience includes industries such as water, (supply and treatment), railways, power stations and oil installations and his worldwide achievements include responsibility for the engineering departments at a number of mines, a railway and a power station as well as the management of a 500-strong engineering workforce. He has supervised mechanical and electrical installation in a $112 million water well field project; complete construction of a $20 million oil pipeline facility and provision of unique technical engineering solutions at  mines in the UK, Ireland and Africa. David was a founder investor/director of Baseresult and WUM's director of engineering until March, 2010.


Allan Reynolds - ACSM
Substitute Mine Manager, Chief Surveyor

Camborne School of Mines trained, Allan's 40 year mine industry career covers all aspects of mine surveying including a senior management position as mine manager on the Roskeer Adit Project.
Having commenced his career as a trainee surveyor at Geevor Tin Mine in 1968 he subsequently became a senior member of their geological team responsible for underground mapping, setting out and logging diamond drill boreholes (both for exploration and evaluation) and producing and maintaining the mine's suite of geological plans and sections. Allan also re-assessed and recalculated Geevor's ore reserve data base. His experience includes a number of exploration projects and a four year spell at South Crofty Mine as Mine Surveyor.

Allan joined the team proposing to re-establish mining operations at South Crofty in 1999 and is now WUM's Chief Surveyor. His work and responsibilities include mine surveying and the updating of mine plans as required by mine regulations. He was also part of the Baseresult team involved in the preparation of the ROMPs application to the Mineral Planning Authority. Allan has re-assessed and recalculated the South Crofty ore reserve and carried out research of the former mine operator's hypothetical reserve to establish potential exploration targets. He has also been conducting the research into the resource potential contained within Dolcoath and South Roskear Mines. Allan is also responsible for identifying and planning the long term surface exploration drilling targets.


T. Neil Hitchens - BSc Chemistry & Geology, ACSM, MIMMM, CEng
Senior Mining and Geotechnical Engineer

Neil's responsibilities at WUM include Exploration Programme planning & operational management, geotechnical assessment of support requirements and the formulation & review of Mine Support Rules and medium & long-term Mine Development and Production design & programming. He has over 30 years broadly based experience in medium to hard rock mining and tunnelling, predominantly in narrow to medium width, steep ore bodies mined for a range of base and precious metals. This has included all aspects of operations from "hands-on" through supervision to senior management in capital and main development, exploration, production and planning in Europe, Asia and South America. The size of operations has ranged from 0.1MTe/year to 1.7MTe/year, track bound and trackless. More recently he has been extensively involved in mining engineering, planning, geological, geotechnical and rock support aspects of a wide variety of civil excavation and mining projects both in Europe and further abroad.


F. Michael Sampson
Senior Underground Supervisor

Mike started his mining career at Wheal Jane Mine, Cornwall at the age of 19 where he first worked on the cages and then as part of the maintenance crew underground. At the age of 21 he went to work in the gold mines of South Africa and later in Southwest Africa as a shift boss in a copper mine. After 3 years Mike returned to Cornwall to work for Thyssens Mining who were sinking a sub-decline shaft at Geevor Mine. After Thyssens he had a 6-month contract with British Steel in Saudi Arabia driving a prospect tunnel to sample a body of iron ore.

On returning to Cornwall once more, Mike worked for Geevor Mine as a development miner and stayed there until the mine closed in 1986. When Geevor reopened in 1987 he returned to mine the widest stope ever mined in the area. Unfortunately, the mine closed again in 1990 and he moved on to a position with a zinc mine in Ontario Canada. In 1996 he returned to the UK and worked in the building industry until 2006 when he came to work at South Crofty Mine.

As Senior Underground Supervisor Mike has responsibility for planning and overseeing all works involved in underground operations.


Chris Tenbeth
Drilling Operations Manager

Chris started work in 1970 as a driller at Geevor tin mine both on surface and underground diamond core drilling for 5 years, he then moved to Saudi Arabia for 4 years working on surface and underground diamond drilling.

His next job was for South Crofty contract division for almost 9 years, which saw him working both at Crofty and Wheal Jane but also on contracts in various parts of the UK, Europe and Africa. His next long term position was with Carnon Contracting as Foreman diamond driller working on contracts in the UK and overseas for almost 10 years before taking up his present role with WUM in Dec 2009. 

Chris comes to us with 35 years of hands on drilling experience mostly in diamond core drilling on surface and underground bringing a substantial amount of influence in the level of professionalism and efficiency of our drilling operations.

Chris is responsible for all activities associated with exploration drilling including training, safety and planning, for both underground and surface drilling operations.


David J. Semmens - IEng, FIMMM, MIET
Chief Engineer

David is responsible for all workshop facilities, parts sourcing and maintaining the Mine's plant and machinery as part of a planned maintenance scheme, as well as the installation of the electrical distribution system underground. Although he only joined the team in 2007 the site and its infrastructure was well know to David having been based at South Crofty whilst a mechanical engineer with the contractor, Thyssen (GB) Limited. During his career he has held management engineering positions at a number of collieries in Wales and the North of England, he was engineering manager at a Devon quarry and Chief Engineer at Geevor Tin Mine in Cornwall.
With over 30 years experience (Mechanical Engineer's Certificate gained in 1974) David is well qualified to handle the challenging role of establishing a first class engineering department; a crucial element of South Crofty's return to production.


Gareth Joseph - MSc, BSc Geology
Mine Geologist

After graduating from the University of Southampton in 2001 with a degree in geology Gareth then completed an MSc in mineral deposit evaluation (mineral exploration) at Imperial College, University of London in 2002. He then went on to work as a geologist in gold exploration in Western Australia gaining experience in several deposits. His career took him on to working with GIS applications and in project management in the UK.

In 2008 Gareth returned to Cornwall joining the WUM team as a geologist as the exploration diamond drilling and underground development were getting underway. He is now responsible for the geology department at South Crofty managing the geology team. The role includes planning and supervising the underground drill programme, while overseeing core logging, geological mapping, sampling and the use of portable XRF to identify discreet mineralisation. He is also building the geological database and creating the orebody model on Surpac.


Keith D. Russ - PhD, BEng (Hons) Mining Engineering, ACSM
Technical Services Engineer

Keith is a twice graduate of the Camborne School of Mines, gaining his doctorate in 1995. His responsibilities include survey control and the preparation and updating of working plans and sections (using AutoCad), all aspects of underground environmental monitoring and ventilation to include Radon monitoring (a legal requirement), and computerised mine planning using Surpac - Mine Planning System, which he has been using since 1989. Keith's work in this field has resulted in the only 3D computer model of the whole of Camborne/Redruth Mining District, which is now used as part of the mine planning process. Keith has over 15 years survey experience (both surface and underground), a subject in which he lectured at the Camborne School of Mines. Keith is also a past president of the Cornish Institute of Engineers.