Advisory Board
Chas Day, CDR USN Ret. - Mountaineer
Charles Day is a retired Navy Commander and mountaineer. He spent 22 years in the Navy and also worked at a duty station at the US Embassy in Copenhagen. He has a degree in oceanography and attended the Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey California. In 1987 he climbed Aconcagua, South America's highest peak (22,841 feet). Chas began a career as a professional National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) instructor in 1989. Mountains are Chas' focus. From Wyoming to Alaska and especially the Pacific Northwest, Chas has climbed, taught and lived on outstanding wilderness peaks. He's worked for a number of seasons shepherding science teams in Antarctica and during one season he led the Search and Rescue Program for the United States Antarctic Program. He's worked NOLS courses with Naval Academy students. Chas enjoys Nordic skiing and also runs competitively. He is building a solar and wind-powered home in Bozeman, Montana, and he still finds time to work a NOLS expedition course each year, mostly in the mountains.
Al Hansen - Operations
Cathy's husband Albert is as crazy about planes as Cathy - he is a pilot and vintage aircraft re-builder. He has been a licensed pilot since 1960 and holds single- and multi-engine land and sea and helicopter ratings. Al holds type ratings in the F-86, Hawker Hunter, Fouga Magister, T-33. He owns a UH-1B, UH-1H, Bell 206 Jet Ranger, AN-2, Grumman S2F tracker, Canadair F-86E, CM-170 Fouga-Magister, Comander 500A, 1947 Republic SeaBee, Cessna 150, and North American T-28B. Al was born and raised in South Pasadena, California, and moved to Mojave after service in the U.S. Army in 1956. He is a general contractor and is also active in renting his aircraft for movie production work. Al has participated in many adventuresome aviation projects, including: B-29 "Keebird" retrieval effort in Greenland; flying seven C-7 Caribou aircraft from Kwajalein Atoll; purchasing and flying a PBY Catalina across the Atlantic from Madrid, Spain to Mojave; flying a HU-16 Albatross from Grand Turk, in the British West Indies to Mojave; and ferrying numerous UH-1H helicopters across the nation. His favorite activity is flying his F-86E Sabre and Fouga Magister CM-170 through the clear Mojave skies.
Ron Sheardown, MBA - Operations
Ron Sheardown, president of Greatland Exploration Ltd. in Anchorage, is a pilot and aircraft historian. He recently was part of team awarded the2007 Robert J. Collier trophy for for conceptualizing, developing, and implementing Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, the next generation performance-based air-ground, air-air, and ground-air surveillance system. Ron served as the pilot for demonstration and certification flights in Anchorage and southeast Alaska. He has made more than sixty trips to Russia since 1988 to manage international mining exploration projects. Ron has flown to the North Slope to search for the Soviet-made Bolkhovitinov A, a four-engine bomber. He also participated in searches for Levanevsky, a pilot and adventurer, known as "the Soviet Lindbergh," and awarded the "Hero of the Soviet Union." Levanevsky disappeared in 1937 on a long distance eastbound flight from Moscow to New York City. Ron started the search during 1962 in the Canadian Arctic and searched in Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia. Sheardown began his mining career in Canada in 1954 in Barkerville, British Columbia. In 1958, he joined the Murray Watts Group of Companies (predecessor to the WGM group) in Toronto, Canada where he advanced to Senior Vice President of a group of 23 junior Canadian mining companies operating world wide. He was also a member of the team that found Asbestos Hill and Raglan Nickel mines in Ungava Quebec and the Black Angel mine in Greenland. Ron was a co-discoverer of the Baffinland Iron deposit (Mary River deposit) in 1962. In 1974 he founded two Alaskan exploration companies, Greatland Exploration, Ltd., and BSTC Corporation, which he continues to lead today. Sheardown has served two terms as Statewide President of the Alaska Miners Association. He is also a member of the United States Export Council (appointed by the US Secretary of Commerce) and was a member of the Alaska Minerals Commission 1987-2003 (appointed by the Governor). He served two terms on the Anchorage Port Commission in addition to many other public organizations. Sheardown served as Honorary Consul for Canada in Alaska 1989-2004 and is Consul emeritus to Canada. He holds a US Airline Transport Pilots license, Canadian Senior Commercial pilot's license. Ron was educated in Canada and USA in Aviation, Geology, Mining Engineering and holds an Executive MBA.
Richard Shubin, MD - Physician
Dr. Richard Shubin graduated from Stanford University in 1977 with a degree in Chemistry before getting a Master's degree in Philosophy and an MD from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982. He did a residency in neurology and a fellowship with emphasis on Neuroimmunology with the University of Southern California (USC) School of Medicine. Dr. Shubin is a board certified neurologist specializing in movement and sleep disorders as well as degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis. He was named in L.A. West's Magazine in the Best Physicians in Los Angeles. At this time, Dr. Shubin is an Associate Clinical Professor for both the Departments of Neurology and Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at USC. He is also the Director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Huntington Hospital. He has private practices in Arcadia and Pasadena, Ca and he also sees patients at Casa Colina in Pomona, Ca. In addition to his clinical practice, Dr. Shubin is active in research. As the Director and Principal Investigator of Neuro-Therapeutics, Inc., he continues to provide opportunities to his patients to be involved in cutting edge research breakthroughs in neurology.
