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Hey. Good day, Carl. Nick. How you doing, mate?
Like, you were born to run a company and make money.
I know. I know. So, it's an Irish heritage surname, but I have had those sort of pun-type headlines in the different papers back in Australia, particularly with Nick Earner. You see what I mean? Like...
I can only imagine looking at an investor pitch presentation and the CEO's name is Nick Earner. I'd be like, 'Wow, this is just destiny.'
It's better than Nick Catastrophic Loss, isn't it?
Yeah. Um, so, you're the CEO and managing director of Alkane Resources.
And uh you have a real business here, my friend.
And we're going to touch on that. Um but we also I want to get to know who you are. That's what this morning drive is all about.
Yeah. No, it's cool. It's cool. Sweet ride, too, by the way.
Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. Um so judging by your accent, you're not Canadian.
No, that's correct. Yeah. Born and bred Australian. Yeah. Yeah.
Where did you grow up in Australia?
I grew up, people might be familiar from sort of like the Chris Hemsworth type Thor type thing with Byron Bay just below Brisbane in Australia, like that most easterly point. I grew up about, you know, 15, 20 minutes drive from there and um then I went up to university in Brisbane because that's heaps, even though I was in the state of New South Wales, heaps closer than Sydney, right? Yeah. And I did um did chemical engineering. Yeah.
Okay. So and then I, you know, like so many industries, got sucked broadly into mining, you know.
Yeah. Mining's really big in Australia.
Yeah. It's massive. I mean if you look at the exports of the nation, like mining is mining, oil and gas. It's just it litters the top 20. You know, you break copper from gold from coal. Yeah. It's just Yeah. It's massive.
Okay. So would you say you're a competitive guy?
Re, yeah, reasonably, but not one of these people that, you know, loses their, you know, emotions if they get beaten at Monopoly, right? Like that's not, you know, I mean, that's not the objective of the game. The objective of the game is to have fun with your family and friends, right? Of course you're going to win because that's a tug.
Monopoly can get a little offside.
It can get a little offside, right? It's a polarizing game.
You start getting into the deal making, it's like, you know, why are you making a deal over there? You know, anyway.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, um I mean, of course, like anybody, well, not like anybody, of course, I prefer to win than lose. Right. But I'm not going to I certainly don't have a win-at-all-costs mentality. Now, different people view that that therefore makes you less successful, but I believe it makes you a much more well-rounded person, much more pragmatic, particularly when you're running a business.
And much but also a much more fulfilled personal life. Yeah, that's my personal view.
Yeah. Okay. That's great.
Um so let's get into you mentioned you went to uni, you call it. So uh what was that like?
Yeah. Really good like um you know so I had to move away from home but it's a common thing here in Canada of course to move to a different location but not as common in Australia. A lot of people live with their parents, but I moved and then yeah, I really enjoyed that. I mean, it's weird many people cuz you call it college here, don't you? Yeah. Many people with a college degree like you hit your 50s, you know, I'm a managing director CEO of a mining company. How much raw chemical engineering am I using? Not much, right? Of course, I have a, you know, with over 30 years experience, you have a much more deep understanding, but I couldn't, you know, when my kids hit like year nine and they asking me to help them with algebra, man, I was tapped out, right? Yeah. So um it was it was a very enjoyable experience and it taught me, you know, less people went to university back then, um yeah it taught me a lot but mostly taught me about a mode and method of thinking and logic, I'll call it that engineering mindset. Yeah.
Right. So professional career, you you go to uni and you get your degree. Get my degree and then where where does life go from there?
So in, you know, depending depending on the age of people watching, you know, yourself, there was a in Australia, I think it's the same here, there's a recession in the '90s, right? So sort of late 80s, early 90s had the crash of '87 and then '89. So I'm graduating into effectively a downturn market with an engineering degree and that's how I ended up in mining was one of the few jobs available was in mining and I worked with CRA who became Rio Tinto. I worked an aluminium smelter of theirs on in the central coast of Queensland and then moved from there into coal, central Queensland coal. Coal was in a massive slump back then. Then I moved to Roxby Downs, copper, you know, the Olympic Dam, the massive copper, uranium, gold, silver mine, the thing. I was there for eight, nine years. Lived in Roxby Downs. So all of these things were residential, not flying fly-in. Moved from there back to coal in the Hunter Valley in in in um New South Wales. Then moved from there to be the GM of a gold mine and then that was actually gold and antimony and then um moved companies where I became the COO and we had assets in we had assets in Indonesia and small thing in China and New South Wales copper gold, tiny bit of some other elements and then and then I joined Alkane. I know I've covered 30 years really quickly but I joined as a COO in 2013 just as we were building the Tomakinley mine and getting a rare earth thing developed and got that through government approvals and design and all that sort of stuff. Then I became CEO a few years after that. So in 2017, so nearly 10 years ago now. And um yeah, and then we, you know, split out the split the company in two and stuff like that. But yeah, that's...
Yeah, there's no more rare earths in the company.
No, we split that out in 2020 and a whole separate we did an in-specie distribution for shareholders back then. Yeah. Okay. And then Yeah. And then merged with Manderlay. So yeah, pretty I I it's fair to say I didn't go some people, you know, you meet um I don't know, it's just a thing now. It's like, yes, I'm hoping to one day be a CEO and you know, I'm building my network and that's not me, right? I've just organically gone into things that I enjoy. I've taken on the the challenge, you know. Um
It just happened organically pretty much. Yeah.
Okay. All right. Let's get into the company.
Cuz you have a Mr. Earner. You have a real business here.
