MINING PEOPLE IN THE NEWS: Acadian Mining, Avalon Rare Metals, Castle Resources, MetalCorp and Premium Exploration

Acadian Mining of Halifax has named Grant Ewing to the role of president and CEO. He formerly held the same positions at Staccato Gold. Peter Lee, who has been acting president and CEO, will remain on the board of Acadian.

To advance the Nechalacho project in the Northwest Territories, Toronto's Avalon Rare Metals has named Finley Bakker senior resource geologist and Pierre Neatby VP of sales and marketing. Bakker has an honours BSc in geology from McMaster University. Neatby holds an economics BA from Queen's University.

The new president and COO of Toronto-based Castle Resources is Mike Sylvestre who held senior management positions at Vale Inco's operations in Manitoba, New Caledonia and Indonesia. Sylvestre has a MSc and BSc in mining engineering from McGill University and Queen's University, respectively.

MetalCorp of Toronto has named Chris Dougherty its new president. He brings to the job more than 22 years of experience as a consulting engineer of both underground and open pit mining around the globe.

Colin Jones has been named VP exploration and a director of Vancouver-based Premium Exploration. He also serves as executive VP of Dundee Resources.