SOURCE: RIVERTON RANGER

DATE: DECEMBER 18, 1997

MILLER LEAVES COGEMA FOR NEW EXPLORATION COMPANY

Miller leaves COGEMA for new exploration company

Twenty years and one week spent by Dave Miller with Pathfinder Mines Corp. and its successor company COGEMA came to an end Aug. 1.

Miller, chief geologist for COGEMA, forsook the security of long-term employment with the major minerals company for the opportunity and excitement of a new exploration company.

Miller has joined Strathmore Resources, Inc., a junior public Canadian exploration company.

"Our primary focus will be discovered United States uranium resources," said Miller.

Miller has left the Mills office of COGEMA and established a Strathmore Resources office in the upstairs of the Riverton post office.

Kenneth Friedman, president of Strathmore, is pleased to have the vigorous, experienced Miller on board.

Miller said he left COGEMA on excellent terms.

"They are an excellent group of people with outstanding qualities," Miller said. He cited their fulfillment of the tremendous reclamation obligation restoring mined areas in Gas Hills and Shirley Basin.

While some U.S. companies have chosen to "cut and run," COGEMA has stayed to fulfil its reclamation commitments at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.

Now Miller has his focus on uranium reserves. He is on the trail of uranium reserves discovered and explored by companies operating in Wyoming and the West between the 1950s and 1980s.

The small, aggressive companies were the pace setters.

Miller cites the experience of the famous Lucky Mc discoveries that led to Pathfinder and the COGEMA merger.

He cites the legacy of Bob Adams, who founded two successful uranium companies, Western Nuclear and Energy Fuels.

"The last 50 years of U.S. uranium is littered with legends: Cotter Ferguson, Charlie Steen, Paddy Martinez, Maxie Anderson, Neil McNeice and Lowell Morfeld," Miller said.

Miller said these pioneering entrepreneurs did not get their inspiration with the large mining companies.

"The future uranium mines that are made in the United States will not be by breakthroughs by large companies, but by original ideas on how to make mines work by a new generation of thinkers in the U.S. uranium fields," Miller said.

Strathmore plans to be one of those small, aggressive companies with aspirations to become a major player in the U.S.

Miller believes minerals will be the major underpinning of economic

development in Wyoming in coming years, as it has been in the past 50 years.

He surmises that state revenue from all sources to Wyoming the past 50 years would show as much as 80 percent from mineral development, 15 percent from agriculture and 5 percent from tourism.

"This state has tremendous potential for future mineral production," said Miller. "The citizen should support it. Minerals have been good for Wyoming."

He contrasts Wyoming's lifestyle with that of the Colorado fron range, where hordes of people have moved in as manufacturing has advanced.

Miller had mild criticism for Wyoming's leadership. Three years ago Gov. Jim Geringer said "Wyoming is open for business."

"I haven't seen it for mining nor do I see any so-called clean industries beating down our doors to come to Wyoming," said Miller.

"I have just three words for the governor: Minerals! Minerals! Minerals!" said Miller.

Miller worked out of the Riverton exploration office until 1985, going to the Northwest with a Pathfinder/COGEMA gold prospect.

He worked in the Northwest, opening a gold prospecting office s in Bozeman, Mont., until 1993. With the acquisition of TOTAL by COGEMA, Miller moved to Casper, spending the past four years with ISL uranium production.

Miller made connections with the Strathmore founders through a contact with Dieter Krewdl, now with Echo Bay.

Miller said Strathmore' has picked up properties in Wyoming, Utah, Arizona and Oregon. So has there been a look world- wide, including a major search in Peru.

Miller said the challenge is greater now with the change in federal mining laws.