TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Northern Nevada gold exploration and development company Klondex Mines on Wednesday bolstered its operations team at its flagship Fire Creek mine, and appointed an investor relations manager team in Toronto.

At Fire Creek, in Lander County, Nevada, Dr Shuai Chen joined Klondex, as chief engineer Lucy Downer joined the company as environmental manager and Bryan Ouellette was named safety and projects foreman. In Toronto, Alison Tullis joined Klondex as the manager of investor relations.

The company said Chen, who had 17 years of experience designing mines, would oversee the design of the Fire Creek underground mining project, and that he specialises in underground mine design, planning, ground control and cost control. His previous Nevada gold mining experience included serving as chief engineer for Atna Resources' Pinson mine, as senior engineer for Great Basin Gold's Hollister mine and as senior mining engineer for Newmont's Midas mine.

Downer brought with her 18 years of environmental experience and had played a critical part in the success of several mining and environmental projects across North America, mainly within Nevada.

Ouellette brought more than 30 years of experience in North American mine safety to Fire Creek. He began his career in Ontario with Noranda, followed by increasingly senior training, projects and safety management roles at Newmont's Marathon mine, in Ontario, and at Carlin project, in Nevada. Most recently, he managed the Lean Six Sigma Black Belt continuous improvement courses at Carlin, including managing the project pipeline and analysing the best methodologies to extract gold from tailings.

Tullis would be responsible for the development and execution of Klondex mines' investor relations programme, in conjunction with Catalyst Global, the company's capital markets consulting firm. She brought eight years of experience in building investor relations programmes for public companies.