About Us
EnergySource Minerals is a privately held company leading the development of Project ATLiS, a premier lithium project located in Imperial County, California, United States.
EnergySource Minerals’ team is comprised of leaders in industrial project development, continuous adsorption and ion exchange processes, and battery materials. A 30-year veteran of ion exchange and adsorption technology, Dr. Charles Marston has led the ILiAD technology project as Senior Development Officer. Dr. David Deak (President of Marbex LLC, former CTO of Lithium Americas, ex-Tesla) and John Featherstone, CTO of EnergySource Minerals, provide leadership support for ILiAD and our own project development efforts.
EnergySource Minerals, in coordination with its EnergySource affiliate focused on geothermal power operations and development on the Salton Sea resource area, has assembled an experienced team with extensive experience in every stage of project origination, permitting, plant engineering, construction, project financing, and operations.
ES Minerals Team
ERIC SPOMER | President & CEO
Over 33 years of experience in energy industry project development, project finance, and management. 15 years leading renewable energy project development teams.
DEREK BENSON | Chief Operating Officer
Over 25 years of experience in project development, focused on mineral extraction and renewable energy industries. Currently oversees EnergySource Minerals’ project development team in Southern California along with execution of the ILiAD technology platform being deployed globally. Formerly renewable project lead for Reliant Energy and Catalyst Renewables.
CARMEN RENE | Chief Financial Officer
CPA with over 30 years of experience in the renewable energy and biotech industries establishing well controlled business and financial functions, managing acquisitions, and implementing ERP systems at high-growth companies. Carmen has extensive familiarity with operational metrics and SOX, establishing cross functional teams and ensuring quality administrative results.
DAVID DEAK | Chief Development Officer
Dr. David Deak is an entrepreneur whose expertise spans across lithium mining development, battery supply chain developments, energy storage, renewable energy, and electric vehicles. He is President of Marbex LLC, was formerly the CTO and SVP of Lithium Americas Corp., and is an alum of Tesla Inc., Ambri Inc. (MIT start-up), Lux Research Inc., and Siemens Wind Power. He was educated at the University of Toronto and Oxford University.
SAMUEL MOORE | Chief Commercial Officer
Over 20 years experience in the Energy/Utilities industry, including 17 years with Mercury NZ (Head of M&A prior to joining EnergySource Minerals) during a period of extensive investment in geothermal, wind generation and business development. Experienced in overseeing investment and leading high value transactions in energy and telecommunications covering M&A, partnerships, generation development and all manner of commercial arrangements.
KATHY SCHWERTFEGER | Chief Legal Counsel
Over 35 years experience as Senior Management, General Counsel and external counsel for public and private clients at various stages of development. Experience includes venture financing; public offerings of equity and debt securities; leveraged buy-outs; corporate acquisitions and divestitures; real property acquisitions and divestitures; secured, subordinated and unsecured debt financing; managing litigation; litigation; corporate record keeping; negotiating commercial contracts; software and other intellectual property licensing; and working with multi-disciplinary senior management teams to address risk management, tax restructuring, human resource and accounting initiatives.
JOHN FEATHERSTONE | Chief Technical Officer
Over 42 years of geothermal experience as production engineer, production superintendent, general manager, zinc project manager, chief technical officer and senior vice president of engineering and operations.
DOUGLAS R. POWELL PE | VP, Engineering & Construction
Over 46 years of experience in power generation, including 32 years in geothermal design and development. Assumed the lead role in managing all construction activities for the Featherstone Plant.
NATHAN FEATHERSTONE | Construction Manager
Over 24 years of experience in EPC Projects with focus in renewable power, fossil power, and fossil power scrubbers. Emphasis on construction planning, management, engineering, and supervision of complete EPC projects.
JURG HEUBERGER | SVP, Permitting & Compliance
Dedicated 36 years to the Imperial County Planning & Development Services Department. He currently holds various contractor licenses through the California State Contractors License Board, and holds professional certificates under the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP) and the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP).
CHARLES MARSTON | Senior Development Officer
Dr. Charles Marston, President of Marston Hydro-Met LLC and inventor of ILiAD, has been exclusively engaged with EnergySource Minerals since 2016 with a keen focus on the development of a continuous adsorption/desorption process for separation of lithium from the Hudson Ranch Power 1 Salton Sea Geothermal Brine Resource. Dr. Marston has 35 years of specialty ion exchange experience and served as “Global Application Development Leader” at Dow Water & Process Solutions and was responsible for Dow’s technical strategy in mining hydrometallurgy, IX chemical processing and IX catalysis. He is highly skilled in hydrometallurgical separations, particularly via continuous processing techniques and is the primary inventor on more than a dozen active hydrometallurgical patents.