Duane Poliquin received his degree in Geological Engineering in 1962, and became a registered professional engineer in 1966, and ever since has been continuously active in mining exploration around the world. Duane started out with a large Canadian mining company and was soon involved in a major copper-zinc discovery. This was followed by work with several of the world’s largest base metal and gold companies in some of the most important mining areas of the world.

In 1972 Duane identified the Santa Fe gold property in Nevada and formed Westley Mines Ltd. to explore it. The project was taken over and placed in production as a heap leach operation by a division of  Homestake.  This success was coincident with his discovery of an extension to the Nevada Sheelite (tungsten) Mine  which was placed into production in the early 1980’s. This was followed by his  private acquisition and initial development of the Apex germanium-gallium deposit vended to Musto Exploration Ltd., and placed in production in the late 1980's. After founding Almaden and doing an IPO in 1986, Duane indentified the Trinidad gold deposit in Mexico which was subsequently sold with a royalty retained to Eldorado Gold Corporation and became that company’s second mine. As Chairman of Almaden, Duane is actively exploring in the western part of North America for gold, silver, copper and diamonds. Having been in the exploration industry for many years, Duane has been through several metal and mining market cycles and remains confident that the next up cycle will be very rewarding.