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West Hawk Development Announces Roger A. Baer As Chief Financial Officer and a Member of the Board of Directors

Posted on: Tuesday, 14 November 2006, 21:00 CST

West Hawk Development Corp. (TSX VENTURE: WHD) (FWB: H5N) today announced that Roger A. Baer has joined the Company as its Chief Financial Officer. Baer has also been appointed to the Board of Directors of West Hawk Development and its subsidiary, West Hawk Energy (USA) LLC, and is named Corporate Secretary.

Baer is a Certified Management Accountant, and holds a Master's in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix, and a BS, Accounting from Illinois State University. Baer has 25 years of financial experience in the minerals and natural resource industries, including management positions with Newmont Mining, Cyprus Amax Minerals, Kennecott Energy, and Amoco Pipeline Company.

Baer is a member of the Institute of Management Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

As the Company's Chief Financial Officer, Baer will be responsible for Accounting, Finance, Tax, Treasury, Investor Relations, and Corporate Governance and Administrative functions, as West Hawk begins exploration and development of its coal gasification properties in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. Baer comes to West Hawk from Denver-based Newmont Mining Corporation, the world's second-largest gold producer, where he was Director, Corporate Accounting.

Prior to Newmont, Baer was a financial consultant for internal control and Sarbanes-Oxley implementation and compliance-related work in the oil and gas, construction, and minerals industries. Baer was the Chief Financial Officer for Newcastle Construction, and held Accounting and Financial Management positions with Rio Tinto-owned Kennecott Energy in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, and at Cyprus Amax's surface and underground coal properties in Colorado, Wyoming, and Kentucky. Baer started his career with Amoco in the oil and gas pipeline industry, and later with Amoco's minerals segment, holding various accounting, finance, economics, and business planning positions.

At Newmont, in addition to helping implement a new enterprise-wide financial system and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, he also led several process improvement initiatives in the corporate accounting group. At Cyprus Amax, as Controller for the Colorado Business Unit, Baer helped its operations gain world-renowned status and achieve several world records for underground productivity. At Kennecott, Baer helped the Company grow through acquisitions of coal properties in the Powder River Basin and become one of the leading suppliers of energy to the electric power industry.

"We are extremely pleased to have someone of Roger's caliber and welcome him to our Company," commented Dr. Wm. Mark Hart, President and CEO of West Hawk. "Roger will be an integral part of West Hawk's executive management team, in helping grow our energy business, ensuring solid financial focus, and focusing on proper Corporate Governance."

THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE HAS NOT YET REVIEWED AND DOES NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

About the Company: West Hawk Development Corp. is focused on providing valuable, high-demand energy products from a variety of sources. Assets include the 500 billion cubic feet (as per NI51-101 report) Figure Four natural gas property located in the Piceance Basin, Colorado, being developed under a drilling and development agreement with EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc.; the 2(+) billion ton Fort Norman coal deposit resource in the Northwest Territories, being developed with Lurgi South Africa (Pty) Ltd. with the aim of creating a multi-stage, multibillion cubic foot per year Coal-to-Gas operation supplying clean "syn-gas" to markets through Imperial Oil's proposed MacKenzie Valley Pipeline and/or producing high-demand electric power and sulfur free diesel through construction of an IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) facility; the one billion ton Groundhog anthracite coal deposit resource located in northwest British Columbia; and the 2(+) billion ton coal deposit resource located on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut Territory.

Source: Business Wire

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