testimonials
Alexandro Sandoval
The Center for Entrepreneurial Geosciences has provided me with the opportunities to grow as an individual and as a professional. Being president of the organization offered me the qualities that lead into successful entrepreneurialism. These essential entrepreneurial skills have allowed me to start an exploration company that holds over 70 mining claims. With the guidance of Dr. Goodell, one realizes that the best way of learning to be an entrepreneur is to BE an entrepreneur. Applied geologic work in Batopilas, Chihuahua, Mexico, allowed me to comprehend multidimensional aspects of geology that are not teach in a classroom. Attending PDAC in Toronto, Ontario, Canada educated me to understand how professionally network. Sampling programs in multiple regions of North America has taught me practicality that leads to success CEGS has been the most powerful organization I have been a part of due to the practicality of every activity, whether it is technical, social, or financial.
J. Mickey Merguerian
I am currently a graduate student at the University of Texas at El Paso but I am also involved with the development of the Center for Entrepreneurial Geosciences. During this semester the Center gave me the opportunity to travel to Toronto for the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Conference (PDAC); the premiere mining conference in the world. Subsequent to this conference, I am focusing on my thesis to create a comprehensive Mining Investability Quotient (MIQ) to screen poor investments. Subsequent to this meeting, I had introduced myself to a Sprott Global; a resource investment firm and acquired a phone interview. After the phone interview I was offered a chance to meet the company in Carlsbad, California. I had five days between the end of PDAC and my interview. Luckily during PDAC I was able to commandeer some face time with the Founder of my potential hiring business. I had an informal discussion with Rick Rule of Sprott Global about my motivations for progressing their company and asked any suggestions for the upcoming interview. He reassured me to tell them what I just told him and sent me on my way.
Along with providing opportunities in the professional world, PDAC was able to update and supply me with various new sources of data for my master’s Thesis. Without this meeting I would never have had the opportunity to use The Fraser Institute’s quantities from their annual mining report in my equation. Along with that discrete opportunity I was also given access to a short course that provided several different avenues for consideration for influences on the MIQ. This meeting, provided by the Center, has become a seminal step in my development as a young professional and I would not be on the route I am without it.
Joshua R Peterson
I Joined CEGS during my first semester at UTEP. I worked on various projects for the center including organizing the ever-growing document library, which taught me the mining industry involves more than just knowing about rocks. CEGS taught me a new vocabulary, one that could span the gap between geologists and investors. I also built a small GIS database of Mexican petroleum exploration, ahead of Mexico opening oil leases to international companies. I was selected by the CEGS president to travel to PDAC in Toronto Canada to recruit students to UTEP’s Entrepreneurial Geoscience Program, and open us to the experience of the largest mining, prospecting, and investment conference on the world. I was able to network and meet with investors, miners, and see cutting edge developments in prospecting and recovery technology. I also enrolled in Entrepreneurial Geology I & II, pilots for the upcoming Entrepreneurial Geoscience Certificate program. The courses covered aspects in the mining industry from fraud and Bre-X to prospecting and staking your own claim. My past and continued involvement in CEGS has been a great asset in my geoscience education.
Valeria Martinez
The Center of Entrepreneur of Geosciences (CEGS) had a great impact in my career and my vision as an economic geologist. It taught me to prepare myself for the real world economic problems and learn to have more than one set of skills in order to become a more valuable scientist in the industry. It changed my dynamics on how to approach any problems, build the confidence to talk to any high ranked person in the industry, and learned from other professionals on how to give talks to other people on why they should invest on their companies. These valuable lessons I have been applying it in my work and teaching other colleges in order to become equally or more successful than I am. CEGS is one of the organizations where I actually learned skills where it can be applied anywhere, it should be a must for every student that wants to enter to the mining world and learn from firsthand how to become more valuable employee for a mining company.