Victoria O'Dea; mining award winner Mark O'Dea, Oxygen Capital Corp. founder & chair; Miriam MacDougall; and George Cross, Haywood Securities resource specialist. (BCBusiness photo

Victoria O'Dea; mining award winner Mark O'Dea, Oxygen Capital Corp. founder & chair; Miriam MacDougall; and George Cross, Haywood Securities resource specialist. (BCBusiness photo)

Plenty to smile about...

Vancouver, Canada mining executive Mark O'Dea beat out Endeavour Silver's Bradford Cooke and Fission Uranium's Dev Randhawa to win Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the mining category last night.

Here's the BCBusiness story and event photos.

While a crippling downturn has crushed the Vancouver mining community in recent years, O'Dea has been hosting a clinic for how to run junior mining companies.

His True Gold Mining (TGM.v) is fully permitted and financed for its first gold mine in Burkina Faso, West Africa and on schedule for production in 2015.

Pilot Gold (PLG.v) is advancing discoveries in Turkey and Nevada, where O'Dea had tremendous success with Fronteer Gold (sold for $2.3 billion).

His less known venture, Pure Gold Mining (PGM.v), is a potential 5 million ounce plus target near Goldcorp's Red Lake mine called the Madsen project, which has seen 2.4 million ounces of historical gold production (map below). O'Dea hopes to bring in a new thinking to the exploration of the property. Goldcorp founder Rob McEwen owns 19% of the company. Disclosure note, I am long and it's a pure speculation.

MadsenAreaMap_2

Photo: Pure Gold Mining

O'Dea is a favourite of some Canadian mining finance legends, including Canaccord founder Peter Brown, and George Cross of the George Cross Newsletter, a Canadian mining institution for over 50 years. Mr. Cross was photographed smiling with Mr. O'Dea in the above BC Business gala photo.

I had an opportunity to talk with O'Dea about what it takes to succeed in the mining business a couple of months ago. He says raising more than enough money, having plenty of good people around, and going after projects in world class jurisdictions are three of his formulas for success.

Congrats Mark and the Oxygen Capital team.

This is not investment advice. Always do your own due diligence.