About Us

Management & Directors

  • Andrew Davidson, CPA, CA

    President, CEO and Director

    Mr. Davidson is a resource development professional with more than a decade of continued experience in moving quality projects from greenfield exploration to production across multiple commodity types.  As a founder of Royal Helium, Mr. Davidson is one of the most experienced helium exploration company executives in Canada.

    A graduate of the University of Calgary (BComm), Mr. Davidson is a Chartered Professional Accountant with Certification in both Saskatchewan and Alberta. Mr. Davidson has extensive experience in the financial management and capital structuring aspects of companies in the junior resource markets in Canada. Mr. Davidson currently sits as a director for a number of junior natural resource exploration and production companies.

  • Jeff Sheppard, CPA, CA

    Chief Financial Officer

    Mr. Sheppard is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan (BComm) and is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CA). Mr. Sheppard has worked in the Canadian junior resource industry for the last 9 years and has an in-depth understanding of the junior natural resource markets with particular expertise in the areas of taxation and financial reporting.

  • Shayne Neigum, B. Sc.

    COO and Head of Exploration

    Shayne holds a B.Sc. Honours in Geology from the University of Saskatchewan and is currently a G.I.T. with APEGS. Shayne is the current Owner and President of 2Seven Energy Services Ltd. with an extensive background in wellsite & operations geology and overall workings of the Oil & Gas sector. He is also the President of East Forty Projects Inc., which is a freshwater access, exploration and production company which supports hydraulic fracturing operations in West Central Saskatchewan.

    Shayne has experience in project management, geo-steering, and wellsite supervision of hundreds of wells in the WCSB, geological prognosis and well planning for Oil and Gas &  Helium exploration, land & property evaluations, supervision of water well drilling activities, and overall business management.

  • Spiro Kletas

    VP Investor Relations

    Spiro has been involved in the capital markets for 17 years, specializing in finance, investor awareness, marketing strategy and management consulting for Canadian listed junior companies. Mr. Kletas has previously worked in multiple roles, including having served as a CEO and Director of a public company, Corporate Development and Investor Relations, and has helped multiple companies successfully acquire financing as well as increase their liquidity. Most recently, Mr. Kletas has been a partner in Tavros Capital Partners Corp, a boutique Venture Capital firm that invests in, and consults for, early-stage growth companies. Mr. Kletas holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia.

  • David T. Young

    Executive Vice-President & Head of US Operations

    Mr. Young has more than 20 years of experience as an investor, advisor and operator across a range of industries. For over a decade, Mr. Young has operated with a primary focus on the natural resources space where he has invested in and advised upstream development and midstream operations across North America.

    Most recently, Mr. Young was a principal at the Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and preeminent private equity firms, with over $300 billion in assets. While at the Carlyle Group, Mr. Young was part of the leadership team managing over US$4 billion in natural resource investments, with a primary focus on upstream development and midstream related assets.

    Prior to joining the Carlyle Group, Mr. Young was a Director of Talara Capital Management, where he led the team’s control-oriented private equity investments in the natural resources space.

    During his tenure at Talara, Mr. Young represented its interests on the board of directors of multiple upstream oil and gas development companies and, most notably, led the distressed acquisition and subsequent take-private transaction of Caza Petroleum. Mr. Young led the team in building Caza Petroleum from less than 50 barrels per day of production to its current standing as a regional leader in the Delaware Basin.

    Mr. Young previously held positions at leading New York based investment banks, including Perella Weinberg Partners, Kramer Capital Partners, and Houlihan Lokey.

    Mr. Young is a graduate of the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce and has frequently returned as a guest lecturer on investment topics, including control investments in the oil and gas industry.

  • John Styles, P. Eng., FEC.,

    Lead Engineer

    John Styles is co-founder and Executive Chair of the board of the Edge group of companies, whichincludes a Regina-based engineering and geological consulting firm, Edge Engineering and Geoscience Ltd., an oilfield abandonment and reclamation specialty contractor (Edge Liability Risk Management), and an operating junior oil company with producing assets and staff located across western Canada (Edge LRM Operations Ltd.).

    John has over 40 years of experience in the resource industry. He founded and/or has served on the boards of several public companies, including Reece Energy from 2007 through to its acquisition by Penn West in 2009. John was co- founder and CEO of Invictus Minerals Corporation, which staked the 97,000 acre KP-289"Legacy" potash exploration permit in 2005, and ultimately sold Invictus to Potash One (now K+S Canada) in 2008. Previously, he served in various engineering and business development roles with several domestic and international resource companies, having started his career with Gulf Canada in Edmonton in 1981.

    John has been an active volunteer with APEGS (Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan), having served on the governing Council (2010-2013), and currently serves as a member of the Licensee Admissions Committee, and previously served as chair and director of the South Saskatchewan section and director of the Petroleum Society of CIM.

  • Brian Weston

    Advisory Board

    Mr. Weston has held numerous senior and executive positions with some of Canada’s largest oil and gas corporations and has over 40 years of industry experience. Most recently Mr. Weston was Vice President of Mineral Land at Ovintiv Inc. (previously Encana Corporation) until his retirement in 2020.

  • Brent Ziegler

    Helium Technical Lead

    Mr. Ziegler is currently the Principal Consultant – Helium, Hydrogen, Machinery, and Storage at Progress Through Technology LLC. He previously worked for over 19 years at Air Products and Chemicals (“Air Products”) of Allentown, PA, in various positions, most recently as Global Helium Operations Technical Manager.

    Mr. Ziegler received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University. Amongst his helium and industrial gas experience and technical proficiencies, Mr Ziegler was Technology lead for the world’s largest Helium Salt Dome Storage Cavern. He has extensive operational and design experience with gas processing equipment for extraction, purification, liquefaction, and delivery including process machinery, cryogenic distillation, partial condensation, pressure swing absorption, temperature swing absorption, membranes, chillers, dryers, acid gas sweetening, oil removal systems, guard beds, cold traps, gas bags, and transportation systems.

    Previously, Mr Ziegler provided technical expertise on new projects and in support of existing operating facilities worldwide, including over one dozen helium liquefiers from the five major commercial scale suppliers, multiple upgraders, and numerous other large scale helium systems.

  • Dean Nawata

    Manager of Corporate Development

    Mr. Nawata has been part of Royal Helium for 3 years, providing project evaluation, business model development, corporate structuring and financial modeling and has spent the last nine years as a consultant with 49 North Resources.   He is past president and CEO of Kapuskasing Gold and has sat on the boards of several public companies. He has over 30 years of public market experience, nine of which he spent as a licensed stockbroker focusing on financing of junior mining and oil/gas projects with Nesbitt Burns, Research Capital Corporation, and Raymond James.

  • John Pringle

    Non Executive Chairman

    John Pringle is a partner in the Saskatoon office of McKercher LLP practicing in the areas of securities law, natural resources law and corporate commercial law with a focus on corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions and natural resources. Mr. Pringle’s experience includes acting as counsel to issuers in more than ten initial public offerings as well as several notable mergers, acquisitions, take-overs and sales.

  • Karl Kurz

    Director

    Mr. Kurz has over forty years of energy industry experience in the public and private markets, including serving as the Chief Operating Officer for Anadarko Petroleum Corporation from December 2006 through March 2009, which was acquired by Occidental Petroleum (OXY: NYSE) in one of the largest merger and acquisitions in oil and gas history for USD $55 billion in 2019. Mr. Kurz currently serves on the public boards of several multi-billion-dollar corporations, Devon Energy (DVN: NYSE), Texas Pacific Land Corp (TPL: NYSE) and American Water Works (AWK: NYSE) where he is the non-executive independent Chairman of the Board. Mr. Kurz holds a Bachelor of Science in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M University, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 1983. He is also a graduate of Harvard’s Advanced Management Program in 2008.

  • Sylvain Laberge

    Director

    Mr. Laberge has had a long and distinguished career in the junior resource sector, focusing on management, investor relations and financing. Mr. Laberge is currently the President and Chief Executive Officer of Gespeg Resources Ltd., and an independent director of Omineca Mining and Metals Ltd.

  • R. Campbell Becher

    Director

    Mr. Becher joined Haywood Securities Inc. in 2016 as a Managing Director focused on Special Situations. He has been actively involved in the investment industry since 1993. Mr. Becher spent eight years in retail at RBC Dominion and BMO Nesbitt Burns before pursuing merchant banking for six years with Bearbeech Capital and Becher McMahon. From 2008-2014, he served as President & CEO of Byron Capital Markets Ltd. (“Byron Capital”), an investment bank headquartered in Toronto with offices in Montreal and Vancouver.

  • Martin Wood

    Director

    Mr. Wood is the Chairman of Altona Rare Earths Limited, which is currently listing on the LSE, He is also Managing Director of Vicarage Capital Limited, an FCA registered, full-service brokerage house which provides assistance to junior resource companies, which he founded in 2003. From 2017 to 2019 Martin was the CEO of Kogi Iron Limited, an ASX listed resource company and prior to 2003 he worked in resource finance for NM Rothschild and Sons Limited and Standard Bank (London) limited.

  • Samuel “Kyler” Hardy

    Director

    Mr. Hardy has over 19 years of experience in the global resource sectors. He has worked with venture capital, private equity funds and has introduced strategic partners to advance projects. Mr. Hardy has founded, managed, and successfully sold several resource sector businesses. Mr. Hardy is currently the CEO of Cronin Group a natural resource focused merchant bank, CEO of Cloudbreak Discovery PLC, Director of Temas Resources Corp, director of Royal Helium Ltd., Director of Norseman Silver Inc. and Director of Hexa Resources Limited.