HiTest is a company that has seemingly appeared from thin air. Anyone who has navigated to their website will note that it consists of just a single page containing some rudimentary contact information. There is literally nothing published on their website about the company itself, nor its employees. Outside of the lone statement "Responsibly supplying Hi-quality silica" and a large photo of a mine, it couldn't be more vague if they tried (which clearly, they have).
Turning to Google then, one can do some digging and turn up a few facts regarding some of the key individuals who are involved with HiTest Sands:
- James (AKA Jim) May, Founder and Chief Operating Officer
- Jason Tymko, President
- John Carlson, Co Founder and Vice President
Jason Tymko
Thus far, Tymko has largely been the public face of HiTest, and has been personally involved in several meetings with local county commisioners and other officials. There is this to say about his background:
"Prior to forming J2 Capital Corp. in September 2008, Jason Tymko was a spirited entrepreneur. In 2000, he was named by the National Post as one of Canada's top 25 "Up and Comers" for his work in Menex Technologies, a company he founded which was devoted to building artificial intelligence to optimize gas well production and monitoring services. Other accomplishments include co-founding Galahad & Associates Inc., a company focused on automating business processes and designing and building internet enabled computer networks, where he acted as Director of Operations from 1993-1996. Jason is also involved at the Director/Partner level of Pink Army and Ideal Contract Services, as well is a director/partner of Nickel Financial, a company designed to bring together First Nations bands to create a united front to lobby the Provincial Government to grant new gaming licenses to First Nations, and are the owners of the gaming licenses of River Cree Resort (Enoch) and Eagle River Resort (Alexis/Whitecourt). Jason is a music enthusiast and enjoys spending as much time as possible with his wife and daughter."
Source: http://www.shareedmonton.ca/events/2011/11/21/emerging-business-leaders-november-meetingAccording to Jayson Tymko's LinkdIn profile, he is also listed as Director of Operations at Zedi Solutions Inc.. Oddly, there is no mention of HiTest on there or any other employment history.
Zedi is a rather large company with thousands of assets and a prolific customer base:
"Zedi Inc. (Zedi) is an Oil and Gas service provider. Zedi is specialized in providing production operations management. It delivers systems and services to Oil and Gas producers for better management of people, assets and information. Zedi has around 300 upstream, midstream and oilfield services customers. Majority of the customers to the company are from Western Canada. It monitors 36,000 sites and manages around 200,000 assets. The company is headquartered at Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Zedi provides its services and solutions through four lines of business Zedi Surveillance, Zedi Optimization, Zedi Production Applications, Zedi Field Operations."
Source: http://www.marketreportchina.com/report/content/3539/200907/143260.htmlAmong many of their multi-million dollar acquisitions is the purchase of Menex Technologies for $6.16 million.
Tymko has a long history of being a director / partner of many companies, including partnering on one commercial failure, the Pink Army Cooperative, which was a crowdfunded company with the lofty idea of producing individually tailored cancer therapies; "3D-printed" viral engineering, if you will. Now, if that had taken off, that would have been great, but instead, we're now all wondering why Tymko is involved with a cancer-causing silicon plant.
You can, in fact, find Tymko's name attached to many entities, including:
- J2 Capital Corp.
- Zedi Inc.
- Nickel Financial
- Galahad & Associates Inc.
- Ideal Contract Services
- Alberta Centre for Advanced Microsystems and Nanotechnology Products
- Pink Army Cooperative
- Menex Technologies
John Carlson
Similar to Tymko, Carlson shares some of the same history (emphasis mine):
"John Carlson completed his education at Point Loma College, San Diego, California in Business Communication. He was inducted into the President's Club at National Bank where he worked as an Investment advisor from 1999-2007 and was a Sr. Investment Advisor at Canaccord Capital Corp. from 2008-2009 before starting J2 Capital Corp in September 2008. John is also co-founder and still involved with VERDEX Energy Solutions, a company focused on developing turn-key solutions for oil & gas generation, as well as Pink Army, a member owned, open source bio technology firm focused on drug development for breast cancer. John is involved at the Director level of Rotating Energy Services, a company focused on natural gas compression, as well as Ideal Contract Services, a 300 employee drywall/painting subcontracting company. When John is not busy at work he enjoys spending time with his wife and son at their lake cottage"
Source: http://www.shareedmonton.ca/events/2011/11/21/emerging-business-leaders-november-meetingVerdex Energy Solutions is a Philippines based "Solar energy service".
James B. May (AKA Jim May)
James May (not to be confused with the James May of BBC fame) has been very prolific in the silicon industry, with nearly 30 years of investment into it - a few of these companies were also founded by him:
- HiTest Sand Inc. - Founder / Chief Operating Officer
- Gerson-Lehman Group - Top 2% Consultant
- Midland Silicon Company LLC - Chairman / CEO
- May Global Business Group Inc. - Chairman / CEO
- Lumen Solar LLC - Co-Founder / Subsidiary of May Global Business Group
- The Silicon Solutions Joint Venture LLC - President / CEO
- Dow Corning - Global Silicon Product Line Director
- Dow Corning Silicon Energy Systems Inc. - President / CEO
- May Engineering
- Foote Mineral Company - Plant Manager
Lumen Solar LLC has an informative section on Jim May:
"In 1998, Jim May founded Midland Silicon Company LLC and in 2007 created May Global Business Group as a parent company to the two subsidiaries. May Engineering provides consulting and market research on the global solar and silicon industries; Midland Silicon sells metallurgical and poly-silicon products, and May Global handles international solar sourcing and product development. The annual sales of May Global and its subsidiaries exceeds $30 million, with over 100,000 tons of silicon metal products sold to date."See also: https://www.scribd.com/document/183569579/President-CEO-Metals-Chemicals-in-USA-Resume-James-May
Source: https://lumensolar.wordpress.com/about/
You will no doubt by now have noted that Jim May has an extensive history of working with China - over 16+ years - and is himself fluent in Chinese. In fact:
"Midland Silicon Company LLC and Midland Silicon Shanghai Trading Company Ltd (Collectively "MSC") are part of Silex Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Contel Corporation, a Singapore listed (SGX) company. MSC was formed in 1998 by James May. Its purpose is to supply high quality silicon and manganese based metal produced in China to customers around the world. MSC has become a leading global supplier of critical feed-stocks to the steel, solar energy, aluminum and silicones industries."The Silex Group has Jim May listed as President:
Source: http://www.mscsilicon.com/
"Silex Group Limited distributes silicon metal, solar grade silica, and other products. The company is based in British Virgin Islands. As of December 12, 2014, Silex Group Limited operates as a subsidiary of May Global Business Group Inc."Of interesting note, the Silex Group is based in the British Virgin Islands, which is a well established (if not infamous) tax haven for business. Some of the many benefits of hosting a company in the Virgin Islands are:
Source: http://www.mscsilicon.com/
And: https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=146300447
- 0% corporate tax
- 0% capital gains tax
- 0% profit tax
- 0% gift tax
- 0% sales tax / Value Added Tax
- 0% inheritance tax
- No stamp duty except for land transactions in the British Virgin Islands itself
- No restrictions on doing business anywhere in the world
- Ability to transfer and repatriate money without fees
- No currency exchange fees or limitations
- No
need to publicise company directors, officers, owners or shareholders
Source: https://www.wis-international.com/british-virgin-islands-tax-haven.html
Source: http://repository.shareinvestor.com/rpt_view.pl/id/82450db5adc7e20f1c5e93302e4068369bf2b9a754b8972886369129548cb4c7/type/si_news
"Contel Corporation Limited is engaged in the manufacture and sale of digital media products. The company was incorporated in Bermuda in March 2005 under the name Contel Digital Entertainment Limited. It has its headquarters located in Shenzhen Province, People’s Republic of China. It has branch offices in the United States, Europe, Japan, Singapore and other parts of Asia undertaking marketing, sales and after sales services to customers.
Contel designs and manufactures its products for consumer electronics companies in the United States, Europe and Japan. It distributes its products through major retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Circuit City. Its products include Net-DVD player, iBox, DVD recordable player, walking cinema, HD-DVD player, digital DVD home theater, and personal media player."And much like the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda has often been listed as among the worlds "worst corporate tax havens" by NGO Oxfam.
Source: http://listofcompanies.co.in/2011/12/28/contel-corporation-limited/
Digging further, one finds that Contel had changed its name to the "W Corporation Limited" in 2013. In August of 2014, the W Corporation Limited was acquired by the Yuuzoo Corporation in a reverse merger transaction.
Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=24247322
Yuuzoo has seemingly little relevance to the Silicon industry as well:
"YuuZoo Corporation Limited, an investment holding company, engages in social networking, e-commerce, payments, and gaming businesses in Singapore and internationally. It operates through two segments, Network Development and Franchise Sales; and E-Commerce. The Network Development and Franchise Sales segment is primarily involved in building mobile-optimized device agnostic that targets social e-commerce networks for businesses and consumers. This segment also sells franchise and marketing rights. The E-Commerce segment provides a range of services for online mobile transactions, including payment processing, advertising, mobile social games, and other online transactions. The company also offers YuuPay, a payment solution for online merchants or retailers; and YuuWallet, an electronic wallet. In addition, it provides data processing, hosting, and related services, as well as network development services; and advertising, and business and management consultancy services. YuuZoo Corporation Limited is headquartered in Singapore."What is not presently known, is how much involvement Jim May has with some of these companies. Per his LinkedIn profile, he is still listed as "Presently Employed" (at high level positions, no less) with Midland Silicon Company LLC, May Global Business Group, and of course, HiTest Sands.
Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=45239767
But if there is any key takeaway from any of these often byzantine connections, it is this: if you account for all the companies and individuals thus far reported on, there are literally millions of dollars involved - if not potentially billions.
There are undoubtedly additional players and persons unknown who are involved in HiTest. One must also consider whether any of these companies or individuals may have engaged in campaign contributions or have been funding pro-industry advocacy groups - all of which are questions that beget further investigation.
Somehow, seemingly "out of the blue" a new company called HiTest Sands, Inc. was created just a few years ago, with what appears to be the sole purpose of exploiting the Horse Creek Mine for silica sand, all which requires a silicon smelter to located "somewhere" (else, since Golden, B.C. rejected it). This monstrosity has now landed here, at least for the moment, causing a massive lasting disruption throughout the entire region.
But who are these people? What is their specific interest in this plant, this location, the potential profits to be made from silicon smelting, and their connections to REC smelter in Moses Lake?
What is their financial stability on a multi-million dollar plant proposal? Who are their investors? What happens if they pull out or somehow fail to complete their project here? What would that do to our town? This review is but the tip of the iceberg. There are numerous, unanswered questions that need further investigation.
What is important for the city of Newport, Pend Oreille County and Washington State to remember is - exactly who are the people that are trying to foist this smelter upon this community? What do they represent? There are clear connections to multi-national corporations, big business and huge sums of money. They've been extremely closed lip and not forthcoming about their proposed project, which has been a huge public relations disaster and with good cause - this community knows almost nothing about this new company or what they really intend to do. It's high time to turn the spotlight on them.
How is it that our elected representatives have even gotten this far without understanding and knowing who they are getting in bed with? They've professed near-total ignorance about HiTest and the players involved. We really do not have any sound reasons to trust them at this point in time, especially considering all the information we have uncovered so far that absolutely refutes their claims and assurances that our community, our health, our well-being and the environment will be safe from the effects of silicon smelting.
It appears to a great many of us that they are simply interested in raking in profits and have virtually no stake, no interest and no real concerns at all for what happens to this community. If this is all true - how can this be good for any of us in this corner of the world? Are we about to be wiped out by more industrialists?
Our community is about to be devastated by a nuclear blast and it would be good for us all to really know who this "neighbor" is that keeps trying to come here and what they really represent.
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