Antimony Resources (CSE: ATMY) has appointed John M. Melkon, the officer charged with building and leading the Critical Minerals Consortium at the United States Military Academy, as an advisor to its board.
Melkon has been a director and assistant professor at West Point since 2012. Alongside the consortium mandate, which covers coordinating its strategic direction and educating faculty, cadets and the wider community of practice, he teaches seminars on the geography of sub-Saharan Africa and of the Middle East and North Africa. He also co-chairs a bilateral defence committee between the United States and South Africa.
His résumé leans heavily toward national security. Melkon served more than thirteen years as an Army Special Forces officer, then as a strategic operations officer for the Department of Defense from 2006 to 2009 and as a senior operations advisor to United States Army Africa from 2009 to 2012. Earlier, he worked as an international banking associate at Credit Suisse First Boston. He is now a PhD candidate at Stellenbosch University, a professor of practice at North West University in South Africa, and the founder of a private risk mitigation and security firm.
Chief executive Jim Atkinson tied the appointment directly to Washington’s ambition to secure domestic antimony supply rather than depend on China.
WATCH: Why the West Still Doesn’t Have an Antimony Plan | Jim Atkinson – Antimony Resources
“With John’s connections to the United States Department of War and Military, he will be instrumental in introducing Antimony Resources to them with a goal of securing supply for United States antimony needs for its Military and assisting the Company in obtaining loans and bursaries from the United States Department of War and the Export-Import Bank of the United States for the Bald Hill Antimony project,” commented Atkinson.
The appointment follows the release of assays on July 6 from the Main Zone. Those results included 16.65% antimony over 5.05 metres from a depth of 96.95 metres, with a 1.10-metre interval grading 33.40%, and 13.14% antimony over 2.45 metres from 91.50 metres. The roughly 18,000-metre drill program underway is intended to extend the zone to the north, south and at depth, and to feed a maiden resource estimate.
Antimony Resources last traded at $0.495 on the CSE.
