Meet Our Speakers:
👤Lindsey Schultz, Our Host, CEO of MRC Recruiting
🎙️Curtis Johnson, President & CEO, Director, Scout Discoveries Corp.
This conversation was really about what it looks like to build something in mining without a script, and without much tolerance for doing things the usual way just because that’s how they’ve always been done.
Curtis Johnson talks about becoming an exploration geologist almost by accident. He knew he wanted to work outside, came from a logging family in western Washington, and found geology by working backward from a simple question: what kind of job could give him a decent living and still keep him in the field? What made the story worth hearing wasn’t the career arc itself. It was the way he described slowly figuring out that discovery is not magic, and not just luck. It is a skill set built through observation, experience, and a lot of missed holes.
That idea carries through everything he says about Scout.
Curtis did not start the company around a single “great” project. He started with a harder question: what actually gives an exploration company a better chance of making discoveries? His answer was pretty plain. You need good geology, and you need to drill more holes than other groups can afford to drill. From there, Scout’s model starts to make sense. Bring more of the work in-house, reduce the layers of contractor markup, move faster, test ideas sooner, and kill bad ones quickly. It is less romantic than the usual discovery story, but probably more honest.
The conversation also spent a lot of time on people, which felt important. Curtis was clear that projects come and go, but teams carry the real institutional knowledge. He talked about keeping the same people on a project over years, training younger geologists internally, and being deliberate about culture instead of leaving it to chance. The way he described Scout was simple: hard work, move fast, have fun, and no assholes. That last part got a laugh, but it was not a joke. In field-based work, one person can change the whole experience of a camp, a crew, or a project.
Another thread running through the episode was storytelling. Scout has put real effort into showing what exploration work actually looks like, not just for investors, but for people outside the business. Curtis made the point that exploration is inherently interesting, but most companies do a poor job of explaining it. That matters more than people think. Better storytelling helps with recruiting, helps people understand what mining work really involves, and makes the gap between technical work and public perception a little smaller.
What stayed with me was how often this came back to commitment. Starting a company, according to Curtis, is basically jumping off a cliff and building the plane on the way down. There is no clean starting point where everything is ready. You commit, you absorb the setbacks, and you keep going.
If there is something useful here for listeners, it is probably this, a lot of good work in mining gets built that way. Not from certainty, but from conviction, repetition, and people willing to keep moving when the path is still rough.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS: ⏱️
0:00 – Introduction to Curtis Johnson and Scout Discoveries
0:37 – How Curtis Became an Exploration Geologist
1:31 – Discovering a Passion for Geology in College
2:21 – Choosing a Career Path in Mining
3:43 – The Internship That Opened the Door to the Mining Industry
4:43 – Why Exploration Geology Requires a Generalist Mindset
5:12 – Understanding the Value of Mineral Discovery
6:11 – From an Average Student to Pursuing a PhD
7:01 – Why Curtis Decided to Start Scout Discoveries
8:32 – Building an Exploration Company Differently
9:13 – Applying Startup Principles to Mineral Exploration
10:00 – Why Successful Exploration Requires More Drilling
10:54 – Vertical Integration and Lowering Exploration Costs
12:14 – Learning Through Failure and Iteration
13:19 – Building a Company Around People, Not Just Projects
14:18 – Developing Talent and Preserving Institutional Knowledge
15:48 – Creating and Protecting Scout’s Company Culture
16:12 – Work Hard, Move Fast, and Have Fun
17:21 – The Importance of a “No Asshole” Rule
18:12 – Finding Joy in Fieldwork and Exploration
19:48 – Sharing the Story Behind Mineral Exploration
21:04 – Using Authentic Content to Educate Investors and the Public
23:29 – How Social Media Became a Recruiting Tool
24:52 – Lessons Learned From Building a Company
25:07 – Jumping Off the Cliff and Building the Plane on the Way Down
26:16 – Commitment, Grit, and the “Burn the Boats” Mindset
27:01 – The Power of Long-Term Consistency
28:00 – Why Tenacity Matters in Business and Mining
29:22 – Creating New Value Through Ambition
30:03 – Where to Find Scout Discoveries
Connect with us on LinkedIn and check out monthly episodes of Ore-atory: Elevating Mining Minds on Apple Podcast or Spotify, where we continue to explore the mining industry workspace.
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