Growing up with less has not stopped Dan Symons from reaching for the stars.
From the age of seven, the Canadian from the small town of Peterborough in Ontario delivered newspapers so he did not have to burden his family. At 15, he got a job working part-time at the local grocery store. Between that and student loans, he put himself through university and graduated with an Honours B.A. from Concordia University in Montreal.
With hardship, hard work follows. While that may not always be the case, for Symons, the mantra rang true. It instilled in him a strong work ethic.
Fifteen years after his introduction to the industry extracting minerals from the earth, he is today the president and chief executive officer of C3 Metals Inc (TSX-V:CCCM, OTC:CARCF), a junior mineral exploration company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
“It still surprises me a little bit. But I have a very strong work ethic. I think that also comes from my background. I come from a fairly low-income family. I worked part-time and I borrowed all the money to put myself through university and then paid back all the student loans.
“I have been supporting myself basically since I moved out of my parents’ house the week before I turned 18 and never asked for a penny and never got one offered to me. You have to learn. You learn a strong work ethic,” he told Proactive.
In this article:
- The early days
- But first, we investigate
- Showing leadership
- Simplifying the complex
- Empowering the community
- Family man
Fresh out of university, Symons knew very little about the mining industry when he joined Renmark Financial Communications, a leading North American investor relations firm.
“When I entered the industry 15 years ago, I did not have a background in mining. Looking back now, it was like a paid internship into the mining industry. The firm was representing over 60 different mining companies, anywhere from 10-plus billion [US dollars] market cap producing companies down to small exploration stage companies like C3 Metals is today.
“But I was also a bit of a nerd. I really became passionate about it and I would go home and I would read technical reports in the evening. Just for fun. Some of it was self-taught. Mostly I asked a lot of questions and I had some really strong mentors throughout my career,” he said.
Symons spent three years at Renmark before joining Romarco Minerals Inc in 2010. He was last at Argonaut Gold, where he spent six years. Symons held corporate and business development and investor relations roles at the junior-mid tier growth companies.
But first, we investigate
C3 Metals wasn’t the first company that offered him a chief executive position. But it was the first that interested him enough to conduct due diligence on the company and to hold multiple meetings with the board and the vice president for exploration Stephen Hughes.
The exploration company holds the 26,800-hectare Jasperoide Copper-Gold Project in the prolific Andahuaylas-Yauri belt in southern Peru. It also owns 100% interest in five licenses covering 20,700 hectares of highly prospective copper-gold terrain in Jamaica, and a 2% royalty in Tocvan Ventures’ Rogers Creek Project in British Columbia, Canada.
With the help of a trusted geologist whom he had previously worked with, Symons signed a confidentiality agreement with C3 Metals and pored over the data on the projects.
“At this early stage (of the company), it is highly speculative but we really liked what we saw. The prospects are about as good as they can get for this stage. They passed with a very strong check mark.”
Coincidentally, while conducting due diligence, C3 Metals made a grassroots copper-gold-silver discovery at the 6,000-hectare Arthurs Seat Project in Jamaica and that sealed it for Symons.
He wanted the opportunity to help grow the business, from exploration to production.
Location of C3 Metals' projects.
Showing leadership
Eager to see the discovery through to production, Symons accepted the offer and clocked on for his first day of work on September 6, 2022.
A little more than three months into the job now, the CEO has identified an area that requires fixing to improve work performance: company culture.
As the captain of the ship, Symons believes the company needs a mission statement to define its goals and strategy and a clear structure to provide employees with a sense of purpose.
“There are certainly some cultural changes that are needed but they don't happen quickly. We are a fairly small corporate team and we have people on the ground both in Peru and Jamaica.
“There is a lack of structure and clear communication within the broader company on areas such as what are our goals and objectives, our targets, or key performance indicators. There hasn't been much of that. We have people with different ideas of what is important.
“What I have always done is to build a budget based on what we would like to do for the year. Get that budget approved by the board and once you have that, provide very measurable targets and objectives that flow down the entire organisation so that people know what are the focus areas and what is important to the company.
“That sort of system is not in place yet but it will be coming into place here early in 2023.”
Simplifying the complex
What is refreshing about someone like Symons fronting a junior minerals exploration company is his ability to make technical information easy to understand.
As drill results are hugely important for junior explorers such as C3 Metals, Symons understands it is necessary to be able to plead the company’s value proposition to investors who may not have the technical ability to interpret complex data sets.
“I know enough geology to be dangerous but certainly not enough. Throughout my career, one of my skill sets has been speaking to the people within the organisation who are highly technical and being able to wrap my head around what they are saying and then being able to communicate that to a more general audience. For this stage of the company, that is very important.
“When we go into meetings with investors, 80% of the time they're not geologists so you can't get overly technical. If you want to talk geology, you have to find ways to create metaphors or analogues in order for them to wrap their minds around the concept.
“With the other 20% of meetings that we go into, you will have people who are trained because geologists are now working with investment firms focusing on natural resource investments.
"As soon as I know that this is the case, I will hand the meeting over to (VP of exploration) Steve Hughes because he can speak at a much more technical level than I can with that audience.”
Empowering the community
One can hear the passion in Symons’ voice when he speaks about leaving a legacy within the communities where the company is operating.
“We are always visitors in these areas and deposits are not infinite, they are finite. They will be mined out someday. We need to put up the right foundations to make sure that all stakeholders benefit for generations to come.
“People don't always see this side of it but I have been fortunate enough to be part of new mines coming into development in areas and communities that are fairly economically depressed.
“When you see a whole generation of people get lifted out of poverty and kids now having the chance to go to school and get the proper skills and training to improve their lives and the lives of their children and the multiple generations, it is very powerful,” he said.
In Peru, C3 Metals has animal husbandry programs in place for the communities within its projects. It also helps with sourcing clean water from wells, making improvements to schools and other related initiatives.
The company doesn’t yet have a community engagement plan in Jamaica but with the recent grassroots discovery and the granting of exploration drilling permit at the Arthurs Seat project, Symons is keen to partner with local universities to create courses where students can be employed in mining companies when they graduate.
“We want to focus on children and education in the areas where we can. I would like to see us partner with Jamaican universities to help create courses that will end up training people for exactly what we would need. They would get an education and with that, a career path. There will be scholarships that will go along with it.”
Family man
It is obvious why Symons has chosen to focus on children and education in Jamaica. There is no doubt his own childhood experience had a large part to play in the decision.
Symons spends his free time with his wife of 14 years and daughters, aged 10 and six. Living in the city, they try to spend as much of their leisure time as possible at their lake-side property 200 kilometres northeast of Toronto.
“It is where I take my daughters canoeing and fishing, and in the winter, ice skating and sledding and all the fun outdoor things,” he said.
Like every Torontonian, Symons is a big fan of baseball and follows the Blue Jays. He played for his university and continued playing after he graduated but gave it up eventually for his career.
He reads too. “I’m a big fan of literature. I’ve read a lot and still do. Catcher in the Rye and A Year in Provence are the two books that have had the most profound impact on me.
“I think most people will probably be surprised by that.”
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