A thunderstorm: where his career began

John Roozendaal is founder and president of VMS Ventures Inc. — Photo courtesy VMS Ventures Inc.

It was actually during a thunderstorm one day when John Roozendaal's career path in the mining industry began. Yes, a thunderstorm.

It was 25 to 30 years ago, after he had graduated from high school, when Roozendaal—now the president and founder of VMS Ventures Inc.—was working for CN Rail up in northern Manitoba. While Roozendaal and his crew were working on the rail, a massive thunderstorm hit and the crew took refuge under some trees. Sitting among the trees waiting for the thunder and rain to subside, Roozendaal noticed a crew from Hudson Bay Exploration and Development Company from Flin Flon, Manitoba, just 15 feet away. As the storm raged on, a young Roozendaal struck up a conversation with one of the men. The man explained to him what he did in exploration and it really piqued Roozendaal's interest.

"Because I was born and raised in Manitoba, I always had an interest in the natural sciences—geology, astronomy, meteorology, you name it," said Roozendaal. "I thought, 'This sounds amazing . . . some guy is getting paid to work outside, look for treasure and gets to use science, prospecting and geology,' and I thought . . . 'that sounds like the life for me.' "

An incredible twist to the story is that five years after that fateful day—while Roozendaal was a geology student working for the Manitoba government one summer—he walked into a bar in Flin Flon during one of his breaks from the bush, and lo and behold, the same fellow recognized him and walked right up to him.

"He had no idea what I was doing with my life and so I told him that he actually probably shaped the direction of it," said Roozendaal. "It was very strange how something that small can change the direction of one's life."

Roozendaal got his bachelor's degree majoring in geology from Brandon University. During his years in school, he spent three of the summer field seasons working in British Columbia for both major and junior mining companies. He then did a stint with the Manitoba government and ultimately focused on junior mining companies shortly after he received his degree. But a long-term goal of his was about to become reality.

"VMS Ventures was really a long-term goal of mine," he said. "The reason I got into mining as opposed to oil and gas was because it was much more accessible for somebody to actually start a business. Oil and gas takes a gigantic amount of money and pretty serious contacts. Mining is a world of prospectors and everyday people that live in remote places, and I always had the aspiration to be involved with a junior company and start a venture where a small amount of people could make a significant difference in the business world."

So when the mining industry suffered a collapse in the late1990s, Roozendaal recognized an opportunity. After having worked in the Northwest Territories and B.C., he realized that the province of Manitoba had really been overlooked by a lot of the explorers and that the big discoveries had happened everywhere but Manitoba since the Thompson Discovery in the 1950s.

"So I felt really strongly that my contacts in Manitoba who really knew their geology and knew good exploration projects could be a good marriage with the money looking for good projects in Vancouver," said Roozendaal. "So I ended up starting the company privately in the year 2000. It's kind of an old-fashioned story, but I raised the money with a partner and through friends and family right across the Prairies—and ultimately, we listed the company in 2002."

Since then, Roozendaal has experienced huge success in the mining and exploration industry.

"In some ways, I guess I have kind of lived the dream," he said.

Of particular significance in Roozendaal's career were exploration programs for nickel in the Thompson Nickel Belt of Manitoba and for high-grade shear-hosted gold in the Canadian Shield. This includes the gold discovery at Assean Lake, Manitoba, in 2001 and the 2007 high-grade copper massive sulphide deposit at Reed Lake near the Manitoba mining community of Snow Lake.

"That big discovery in 2007 was incredible," Roozendaal said. "When the driller showed up at my office where I was staying in Snow Lake with a chunk of shiny core, (it) proved to me we weren't just getting close to a deposit, we had actually hit one. That was one of the most exciting days of my life."

Reed is a high-grade copper deposit located in the Flin Flon Greenstone Belt. Hudbay has a 70 per cent interest in the project, and together with VMS, they are exploring the deposit. The project received approval to proceed to full construction in December 2011, with first production expected by late 2013.

When it comes to what Roozendaal is most proud of in his career, he said he is proud of the fact that he has worked with some very smart and creative people who were willing to take somewhat unconventional risks and test targets that may not have been tested otherwise. Also, he is proud of his company's ability to sell investors on their projects, raise money and be prudent with it during tough times. But something that Roozendaal is hugely proud of happened when VMS made the Reed discovery back in 2007.

"There was some debate about whether or not we would even drill the target—the anomaly that became the discovery," he said. "I sort of pushed through with the idea and there was some debate within the team. I decided as president of the company and wearing my business hat that we may not get a second chance to drill this thing. Hindsight is always 20/20, but really, later that year, the stock markets collapsed and we may never have gone back and tested the target. So the lesson learned as exploration geologists is you need to treat your projects like it's the last time you're going to get there. You really have to dig deep, look hard at your targets and take some chances once in awhile."

Indeed, the chances Roozendaal has taken in his life have been worth it—and since that day when the course of his life changed forever during a thunderstorm, he has worked very hard for what he has earned and has done so with an amazing attitude.

"I very much love that essentially the hunt for treasure is what I do for a living," said Roozendaal. "I get to go to some pretty exotic places, see some fantastic country—but it's really using the science and a lot of intuition to try to uncover that next discovery that has eluded explorers previously that really excites me."