GARETH HATCH APPOINTED TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF ALABAMA GRAPHITE CORP.

Aug 8, 2016

Alabama Graphite Corp. has appointed Dr. Gareth Hatch, PhD, CEng, FIMMM, FIET, as an independent director to its board of directors, effective immediately.

A two-time graduate of the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, Dr. Hatch holds a bachelor of engineering degree with honours in materials science and technology and a doctorate in metallurgy and materials, focused on rare earth permanent-magnet materials. Dr. Hatch is a fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (IOM3), a fellow of the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET), a chartered engineer registered through the U.K. Engineering Council and a senior member of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE). He is also a member of the Washington-based Strategic Materials Advisory Council.

Dr. Hatch is co-founder, president and director of Innovations Metals Corp., a private, Toronto-based company specializing in cost-effective processing solutions for many metals vital to high-tech and green energy, including battery-grade nickel and cobalt and rare earth elements (REEs). Dr. Hatch is also a founding principal of Technology Metals Research LLC, a consulting firm that develops market intelligence and analysis on the critical materials and technology metals sector. Dr. Hatch was previously director of technology at U.S.-based Dexter Magnetic Technologies Inc., and holds five patents on a variety of magnetic devices.

Since 2014, Dr. Hatch has served as principal investigator on a multimillion-dollar, U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) research program on innovative rare earth elements processes. Additionally, Dr. Hatch has advised the DoD on threats to the United States and allied strategic materials suppliers, as well as the U.K. Parliament and members of the U.S. Congress on critical materials. Dr. Hatch has contributed to and has been referenced by reports published by the U.S. General Accountability Office, the U.S. Geological Survey, the British Geological Survey, the DoD, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) and many others.

“It is my sincere pleasure to welcome Gareth to the board of Alabama Graphite Corp.,” commented Donald Baxter, AGC’s president and chief executive officer. “The company’s board and management team look forward to Gareth’s contributions, perspective and insights as a world-renowned critical materials expert with extensive experience with both the U.S. DoD and DoE. I have known Gareth for years and he has been following AGC closely since shortly after I joined. I can attest that he fully understands and appreciates our unique business strategy focusing entirely on secondary-processed coated spherical graphite (CSPG) for lithium-ion batteries, and as importantly, the primary audience we are targeting.”

Dr. Hatch stated: “Since my initial site visit to the Coosa graphite project last October, I was very intrigued with the new strategic direction Don Baxter had deployed for AGC. To me, focusing on the battery-ready specialty CSPG graphite market with a small, scalable production target is the only business model that makes sense in the flake-graphite development space. Targeting those U.S. government-related entities that value — and in some cases require — a U.S.-sourced and U.S.-manufactured solution just makes sense. I met with and thoroughly interviewed AGC’s technical team, and was so impressed I decided to accept the invitation to join the company. I am pleased to join my fellow directors, Don Baxter, Daniel Goffaux and chairman Jean Depatie, and look forward to working with them in the future.”

In connection with Dr. Hatch’s appointment, Dave Ramm has resigned as a director of the company, effective immediately. The board of directors thanks Mr. Ramm for his contributions to the company over the past year and wishes him well in his future endeavours.