Toronto mining company starts scholarship at WNC

Mining company, WNC share love of Wildcats and opportunities for students

Courtesy Steve Yingling, Western Nevada College

While a new Canadian mining company explores and discovers gold and silver deposits in Northern Nevada, it is also providing funding to assist Western Nevada College students to make educational discoveries.

Millennial Precious Metals has established a $3,500 yearly scholarship at WNC for students who focus on mining-related interests such as biological, physical and environmental sciences; engineering, mathematics and physics.

“Higher education is baked into the Millennial Precious Metals approach,” said Dylan Shaver, a partner of the mining company who discloses that Millennial CEO Jason Kosec sponsors scholarships personally and was a beneficiary of them in college.

“Additionally, we have a responsibility to our host communities — both to make sure we are responsive to their needs and concerns, but also to provide jobs to local community members. This created the opportunity to merge both of these values into one effort — embracing the opportunity higher education provides, building tomorrow’s workforce and tending to our community.”

The 18-month-old mining company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, is owned by, you guessed it: a group of millennials. They plan to use a systematic and scientific-based exploration program to develop and advance their company in the near future. Coincidentally, one of those projects is located north of Lovelock and is named “Wildcat.”

Even though the open pit drilling project isn’t named after Western Nevada College’s mascot, the Wildcat site is an exploration opportunity just like WNC’s campuses are for its students exploring and pursuing the many career possibilities higher education provides.

“Western Nevada College was an ideal partner to do just that,” Shaver said. “Not only do we share a love of the Wildcats, but there are several great mining-related programs the school offers. Automation, construction management, machining, business and finance, and obviously engineering programs are places where Millennial, and the entire mining industry, have significant needs. These are well-paid, high-tech, 21st-century jobs, and we think WNC is going to be a great resource in finding the right people for them.”

Besides an interest in mining-related subjects, Millennial Precious Metals prefers scholarship recipients to reside in Lovelock or Gerlach or more widely in Pershing County or Northern Washoe County but a student’s address won’t exclude them from the scholarship.

“Mining is an egalitarian industry, where the right student with the right motivation can build a prosperous life for themselves,” Shaver said. “Our scholarships are about finding and empowering those students.”

Millennial Precious Metals’ Wildcat Property is located on a portion of 17,612 acres of federal land off of 7 Troughs Road and is administered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

For more information about the scholarship or starting your own scholarship, contact WNC Foundation at 775-445-3240 or foundation@wnc.edu.