Stay Curious, Find Hidden Value: A Q&A with John Owen, CEO of US American Exploration

One of the properties I became involved with was the historic Congress mine north of Wickenburg, Arizona. Congress was a significant gold producer in the early 1900s, producing roughly 400,000 to 500,000 ounces of gold before winding down around 1911. There was also another period of mining in the early 1990s that produced approximately 75,000 ounces before operations eventually stopped.

Those operations left behind roughly two million tons of historic tailings (finely ground rock).

When I originally became involved with the property, my interest was mining. I knew there was gold remaining in the tailings, and that was certainly part of what made the property interesting.

What I didn’t anticipate was discovering another potential use for some of the mineral material itself.

Over time, we began looking more closely at certain naturally occurring silica-rich materials and whether they might have value outside of mining. That eventually led to years of testing and product development and, ultimately, to Harvest Gold Organics.

The Rex Project is something entirely different. It is a gold exploration project in central Arizona and is being advanced as an exploration property based on geology, geophysics, geochemistry, mapping and drilling.

They are different businesses with different objectives and different paths forward.

If there is a common lesson I’ve taken from working on both, it’s simply to keep asking questions. Sometimes you start looking at a property or a material for one reason and learn something you weren’t expecting. I’ve been fortunate to work with professional geologists, engineers, scientists and businesspeople over the years, and many of the best decisions we’ve made came from being willing to listen to what the information was telling us rather than trying to force a predetermined outcome.

That lesson has come up repeatedly throughout my career.

In mining, materials can sit for decades because everyone has looked at them through the same lens. That doesn’t necessarily mean the earlier people were wrong. They may have been looking for something completely different, using the technology and economics that existed at the time.

The same principle applies outside of mining.

Before spending a lot of money trying to create something completely new, I think it’s worth taking another look at what you already have. That might be a material, a piece of property, old data, a product that never went anywhere, or even an idea somebody dismissed years ago.

In an ever-evolving world of change; technology, markets and science, what wasn’t economical or useful twenty years ago may look very different today.

I’ve also learned not to assume that because something has been looked at before, every question has been answered.

That is particularly true in mining. A district may have been explored extensively for copper, for example, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was evaluated the same way for gold. Different commodities can require different geological models, different exploration methods and different questions.

My advice is simple: stay curious.

I’ve been in the mining space for a long time and I’m still learning. Some of the most interesting opportunities I’ve been involved with came from going back and taking another look at something, other people had already passed over.

When you’re close to a business, it’s easy to become convinced that you have a great product. But ultimately, it shouldn’t just be management saying that.

That’s why we’ve tried to put a lot of emphasis on outside testing and independent evaluation.

The material has undergone independent laboratory testing. Harvest Gold is OMRI listed for organic use. An independent engineering evaluation assessed the processing operation and estimated approximately 74% of the net saleable product.

Those things matter because they give people information that doesn’t come from us.

But probably the most meaningful validation has come from customers.

Harvest Gold products have been sold online through channels including Amazon, Lowe’s, Tractor Supply and direct-to-consumer sales. We’ve now had thousands of customers using the product.

That has taught us a great deal.

You can learn things from laboratory testing, but once a product gets into the hands of gardeners, growers and other customers, you begin learning in a different way. You hear what they like, what they don’t understand, how they use it and where they see results.

Retail relationships have taught us something else: consistency matters.

A retailer needs to know you can supply a product reliably, meet their requirements and support the customer after the sale. Those relationships don’t happen overnight. We’ve spent years developing the product, testing it, improving how we communicate it and learning how to be a better supplier.

There is certainly a large market opportunity in soil amendments and organic inputs, particularly as growers deal with water availability, soil quality and increasing interest in more sustainable growing practices.

But I don’t think you can simply point to a large market and assume you’re entitled to a piece of it.

You still must earn the customer.

That’s what we’re trying to do.

Drilling is expensive, so the goal isn’t simply to drill more holes. It’s to do enough work beforehand that you have the best possible reason for putting a drill in a particular location.

That means looking at historical information, structural geology, geophysical interpretation, geochemistry, field mapping and everything else available to the geological team before making the larger commitment.

We’re still learning about the property, and exploration by its nature involves uncertainty. The objective is to reduce that uncertainty methodically rather than pretend it doesn’t exist.

Harvest Gold requires a completely different approach.

There, scaling is about manufacturing, processing, distribution, customer education and building reliable retail and direct-to-consumer channels.

Selling directly to customers has been particularly valuable because it gives us immediate feedback. We get to see how people are using the product and what questions they have.

As the business grows, larger distribution opportunities become possible, but we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. You have to be able to support those relationships with dependable production, inventory and customer service.

Another principle I believe in is maintaining financial flexibility wherever possible.

Mining and resource businesses can be cyclical, and circumstances can change quickly. I prefer having options rather than putting a company in a position where it must decide because of financial pressure.

That doesn’t mean debt or outside capital is always bad. Both can be useful tools. It simply means understanding what you are giving up in exchange for them and making sure the financing fits the business.

Rex and Harvest Gold are at very different stages and have very different capital requirements. Each needs to be evaluated on its own merits, with the strategy that makes the most sense for that project.

Early in a project, an entrepreneur tends to be involved in almost every decision. As things grow, that becomes less practical and, frankly, it isn’t always the best thing for business.

My job increasingly became finding good people, asking the right questions and making sure important decisions were supported by information.

In mining, that means relying heavily on geologists, engineers and other technical professionals. With Harvest Gold, it has meant working with laboratories, agricultural professionals, product specialists, retailers, marketing people and customers.

I’ve learned to place a lot of value on independent information.

If we believe something about a mineral property, I want geological work that supports it. If we make a claim about a product, I want testing behind it. If we believe customers like something, I’d rather hear that directly from the customers than assume we know what they think.

That approach becomes more important as a business grows because eventually other people have to be able to evaluate what you’re doing without simply taking your word for it.

Technology has also changed the way I work.

I’m very interested in what artificial intelligence may eventually do for the mining industry, particularly when it comes to analyzing geological information, historical records and large amounts of exploration data.

We’ve found AI useful already for some documentation and information-management work but applying it directly to exploration at the scale of a junior exploration company has been more difficult than I expected.

I approached an AI company about doing exactly that, and it wasn’t the right fit. So, we’re still looking for the right technology and the right people.

And I’m comfortable saying that.

You don’t have to pretend you have every answer.

I think leadership becomes less about being the person in the room who knows everything and more about making sure the right people are in the room in the first place.

After doing this for many years, I still ask a lot of questions. I still change my mind when better information comes along. And I think that willingness to keep learning has probably been one of the most valuable things I’ve carried with