Board of Directors

Brent Bilsland serves as Hallador’s Chairman of the Board, President and CEO. He has spent more than 17 years in the energy industry during which he has develop longstanding relationships with 13 utilities in the United States. Brent was one of the founding investors of Sunrise Coal in 2004. Brent oversaw Sunrise’s acquisition by Hallador in 2006 at which time he became President of Sunrise. In 2009, he became President and a Director at Hallador. In 2014, Brent led the $296 million acquisition of Vectren Fuels and became Hallador’s CEO. Four years later, he assumed the role of Chairman of the Board of Hallador.

Brent has held numerous leadership role with various industry associations such as Reliable Energy Association, America’s Power, National Mining Association and the Indiana Coal Council.

Prior to Hallador and Sunrise, Brent spent seven years at Knapper Corporation an agricultural company he cofounded. Brent is a graduate of Butler University in Indianapolis.

DAVID C. HARDIE, Director has served on our board since 1989. He is also the Chair of our Audit and Compensation and Nominating committees. From July 1989 through January 2014 Mr. Hardie was our Chairman of the Board. He is the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Hallador Investment Advisors Inc., which manages Hallador Cash Fund LP, Hallador Alternative Assets Fund, and Hallador Balanced Fund. Mr. Hardie is and serves as a director and partner of other private entities that are owned by members of his family and also serves as Chairman of Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation. Mr. Hardie is a graduate of California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. He also attended the Owner/President Management program at the Harvard Business School.

STEVEN HARDIE, Director, has served on our board since 1994. He is manager of NextG LLC a family investment partnership formed in 2016. For the past 32 years, he has been a private investor and serves as director and partner of other private entities owned by members of his family.

BRYAN H. LAWRENCE, Director, has served on our board since November 1995. Mr. Lawrence is a founder and senior manager of Yorktown Partners LLC, the manager of the Yorktown group of investment partnerships, which make investments in companies engaged in the energy industry. The Yorktown partnerships were formerly affiliated with the investment firm of Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. where Mr. Lawrence had been employed since 1966, serving as a Managing Director until the merger of Dillon Read with SBC Warburg in September 1997. Mr. Lawrence also serves as a director of Carbon Natural Gas Company, Ramaco Resources, Inc., and Star Group, L.P. (each a United States publicly traded company) and certain non-public companies in the energy industry in which Yorktown partnerships hold equity interests. Mr. Lawrence is a graduate of Hamilton College and also has an M.B.A. from Columbia University.

Mr. David Lubar is President and CEO of Lubar & Co. He began his career in 1977 at Norwest Bank (n/k/a Wells Fargo Bank) in Minneapolis, where he spent six years in commercial and correspondent banking. Mr. Lubar joined Lubar & Co. in 1983 and has served as lead investor to over 20 companies in a wide range of industries and various stages of development. He currently serves as a director of each of the Lubar Companies as well as Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., BMO Financial Corp., Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Team, and several other private companies. He also serves in many community leadership positions throughout the Milwaukee area. Mr. Lubar has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bowdoin College and Master of Business Administration from the University of Minnesota.

Mr. Wesley has served as President of Thoroughbred Resources L.P. since 2014 and CEO since 2016. Mr. Wesley served as Chief Planning and Commercial Officer of Ramaco Resources and, prior to joining Thoroughbred, Senior Counsel at Level 3 Communications, where he was also responsible for the operation and ultimate disposition of the company’s coal mining operations. Prior to Level 3, he worked at the law firms of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld and Strasburger & Price, focusing on international energy transactions. He began his career with a coal company as a mining engineer. He is an active investor in natural resources and financial technology. Mr. Wesley is a board member across multiple industries and philanthropic organizations. Mr. Wesley holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Kentucky College of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Mining Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute.