Born in 1937 in Western Colorado, Mr. Dobbs is the first son of a fur trapper and a schoolteacher. He finished high school in Colorado in 1955. He began mining the following year near Grants, New Mexico. Thereafter he boomed around the western states working at mines in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California and for a period of time in Mexico.
He attended the University of Arizona College of Mines for two years, after which he worked for two years on a mine development project in Chile, South America. He traveled to Alaska in 1970 for a short job, and found a home in a state that suited his tastes.
Mr. Dobbs worked in various mining and tunneling jobs in Alaska, as well as blasting work for surface operations around the state. Placer mining was a late interest that took him to even more areas of the state, as well as a couple of projects in Western Africa, in the gold rich country of Benin.
He has worked in nearly every Hydro tunnel and underground excavation in the state of Alaska since 1970.
He has worked off and on for Silverado since 1981, and is the lead man in all of our underground and surface mining. Gil is also the father of 3 sons, all of which are active in the blasting and underground mining business. |