Comstock appoints new director and audit committee chair

Virginia City, Nevada-based Comstock Inc.'s board of directors has nominated and appointed Guez Salinas, Ph.D., as a new independent director to the board and appointed Walter “Del” Marting as the chairman of the company’s audit and finance committee. The company also has announced the resignation of Judd Merrill as a director, all effective as of April 5.

Salinas has more than 30 years of professional experience in the areas of engineering, strategy, finance, corporate management and business development, with a primary focus on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence policy. He is currently an international cybersecurity expert at the Pacific Council on International Policy and also has been advising Quantum Generative Materials LLC (GenMat) on strategy and commercialization.

Salinas also founded and serves as the director emeritus of The Polymathic Academy for the Teaching of the Humanities & Sciences (The PATH), where he mentors and develops students’ multidisciplinary entrepreneurial pursuits. He co-founded and serves as the executive director for The Law Enforcement Work Inquiry System (LEWIS), where, in partnership with Microsoft Corp., serves as a touchpoint between peace officers and the community. Salinas, a U.S. Marine, also held positions in banking and private equity.

“We are honored to welcome Dr. Salinas and his perspective on the commercialization and rapidly growing positive impacts of generative artificial intelligence, and the security thereof, on our markets and society overall,” Comstock Executive Chairman and CEO Corrado De Gasperis says. “His direct work with GenMat has forged an alignment and productivity that complements the current competencies of our board.”

Marting was elected to Comstock’s board of directors in April 2018. He is the founder and managing member of CereCare LLC D/B/A Brain Health Restoration since March 2017, a firm focused on providing rehabilitation treatment for individuals, including numerous veterans, suffering from brain disease, traumatic brain injury and related substance use disorders, most commonly alcoholism and opioid addictions.

Comstock says Marting also is an experienced mining, financial, capital markets, transactional and corporate governance executive. He graduated from Yale University in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in English and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Marting is a U.S. Navy veteran, including service with U.S. Navy SEAL Team Two.

“Del’s experience and counsel has been invaluable over the past five years, including his long tenure as a member of our audit committee, which he will now lead,” De Gasperis says. “We are sorry to see Judd step down and could not be more appreciative of his contributions and leadership on our board. I consider him one of the most reliable, professional, trustworthy and productive professionals I have ever worked with. We wish him nothing but success in his future endeavors.”

Comstock commercializes technologies that contribute to global decarbonization by converting under-utilized natural resources such as woody biomass into net-zero renewable fuels, end-of-life metal extraction and generative artificial intelligence-enabled advanced materials synthesis and mineral discovery.