He Had a Crazy Idea About Gold in Nevada. Then the Drills Started Finding It.

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1. Eminent Gold Corp. is a billboard sponsor of Streetwise Reports. The company pays a monthly sponsorship fee of US$3,000–US$6,000 for banner advertising and an enhanced company profile page. Streetwise Reports’ editorial content is fully independent and is not influenced by sponsorship. 
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1 Disclosure for the quote from the Stewart Thomson article published on September 8, 2026

1. Eminent Gold Corp. has paid Street Smart (an affiliate of Streetwise Reports) a fee of US$4,000 for the preparation of an independent technical research report, published on September 8, 2026.
2. Author Certification and Compensation: Stewart Thomson was retained and compensated as an independent contractor by Street Smart for writing this article. Mr. Thomson is a retired Canadian financial advisor who has passed the Canadian Securities Course as well as additional technical analysis courses that were mandated by his former employer and approved by Ontario regulatory bodies. Mr. Thomson is not an investment advisor. He does not know the financial situation or risk tolerance of any reader. For the past 15 years, he has been editing and writing numerous financial newsletters that have a strong focus on charts. The recommendations and opinions expressed in this content reflect the personal, independent, and objective views of the author regarding any and all of the companies discussed. No part of the compensation received by the author was, is, or will be directly or indirectly tied to the specific recommendations or views expressed. Mr. Thomson owns no securities in Eminent Gold Corp.,  and he has no direct financial relationship with the company.

2. Ownership and Share Structure Information

The information listed above was updated on the date this article was published and was compiled from information from the company and various other data providers.

Before there were drill rigs at the Hot Springs Range Project, there was a graduate student with an idea, a geologist for a wife who thought he might be crazy, and a friend willing to squeeze some claim staking around a wedding.

Today, Eminent Gold Corporation (EMNT:TSXV; EMGDF:OTCQB; 7AB:FSE) is drilling a 10,000-meter program at the 100%-owned Hot Springs Range Project in Nevada, testing whether the gold system emerging there could extend across a much larger structural corridor.

For Justin Milliard, Ph.D., now Eminent's Vice President of Exploration, the drilling is the latest test of an idea that began years before the first hole ever went into the ground.

"It's a treasure hunt," Milliard told Streetwise Reports. "Realistically, literally, it's a treasure hunt."

Milliard did not grow up planning to spend his career looking for gold. His father, a lawyer and landman in the oil and gas industry, recognized something in his son before Milliard recognized it himself: an interest in the outdoors and an almost compulsive curiosity about how the world worked.

"I didn't even know about the major at college, to be honest," Milliard said. "He just said, 'Sign up for this. I think this will fit you, Justin.'"

It did.

Milliard earned a bachelor's degree in professional geology from the University of Montana and a master's degree in structural geology from Oregon State University. His career also took an unusual detour through the U.S. Navy, where he spent two years on active duty as a Naval Flight Officer before transitioning to reserve status while pursuing mineral exploration.

His early work took him from Chile to Montana and eventually to Nevada, including work at Klondex Mines Ltd.'s Fire Creek project. He later pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Nevada, Reno, studying the tectonic evolution of the Northern Nevada Rift and the structural controls that helped determine where hydrothermal gold systems formed.

Academia, however, was never quite enough. "The ones that can't bloviate are the ones that have to test their ideas with million-dollar drill holes," Milliard said. For Milliard, that ability to put a geological theory against the unforgiving evidence provided by a drill hole became part of the appeal.

An Idea They Couldn't Afford to Ignore

By the end of 2019, Milliard was approaching the end of graduate school and facing a decision. He believed his research had pointed him toward a piece of Nevada that deserved another look.

The area had been staked before, and its rocks were an age that conventional thinking suggested was wrong for the type of gold system he was looking for. But Milliard saw something different in its structural setting.

He also knew that once he and his wife, fellow geologist Ajeet, finished graduate school and returned to full-time work, the opportunity might disappear.

"I came home to my wife, and I said, 'I got this idea. We don't have any money to do it,'" Milliard recalled. "'But if we don't act on it now, both you and I will be full-time working here in a couple weeks, and this opportunity will fade away.'"

Her initial assessment was concise. "You're nuts," Milliard recalled her saying.

Then she agreed to help.

There was still a practical problem. The couple had children, both were trying to finish graduate school, and staking the project required another set of hands. Milliard called Luke Schranz, a younger geologist he had mentored, and asked whether he was free that weekend.

Schranz wasn't. He had a wedding to attend with his girlfriend, but he wanted to know what Milliard needed.

"I need help staking a project."

Schranz found time on the way to the wedding and on the way back. Over roughly the next week and a half, the three staked the claims in their spare time. The plan was straightforward: secure the ground, take samples where they could, and find someone willing to take the project forward within a year.

Then the rocks started providing evidence.

The geological problem with the area was obvious, but Milliard believed the broader structural history mattered more than the age of the rocks exposed at surface.

The project sat along the Battle Mountain-Eureka trend, one of the Great Basin's major mineral belts. Nearby mercury mineralization provided another clue because mercury can act as a pathfinder for Carlin-type systems.

Milliard and his partners collected 12 initial samples. "I think three of those ran gold," he said, "and not just a little gold, but decent enough to be grades that are exciting for surface expression."

Suddenly, the graduate student's theory had evidence behind it. The project ultimately found its way to the group that became Eminent Gold, where Milliard served as senior exploration geologist from 2020 to 2022 and helped advance the Hot Springs Range concept.

The work became progressively more sophisticated. Soil sampling was followed by geophysics, geological mapping, and additional rock-chip sampling.

"Every layer of details just confirmed the original pitch," Milliard said. "The original framework of why the gold should be there."

Eventually, however, only drilling could answer the question.

Four Holes, Four Hits

Eminent has now completed four core holes at the Otis target at Hot Springs Range. All four encountered gold mineralization, with the strongest intercept to date returning 9.2 meters grading 3.2 grams per tonne gold.

For a property that had never previously been drilled, the results provided the first subsurface evidence supporting the geological model that had led Milliard and his family into the Nevada desert years earlier.

¹Technical Analyst Stewart Thomson gave Eminent Gold a Speculative Buy rating on September 8, 2026, outlining a short-term price target of CA$0.63, a medium-term target of CA$0.76, and a long-term target of CA$0.87.

Milliard, meanwhile, had moved on from Eminent in 2022 and eventually became principal geologist for North America at AngloGold Ashanti, generating and evaluating Carlin-type, epithermal, and porphyry targets.

In April 2026, he came back, with Eminent appointing Milliard vice president of exploration just as the company prepared for its largest drill campaign yet.

Finding the Deepest Part of the Tray

Milliard compares the geological structures beneath Hot Springs Range to individual compartments in an ice cube tray that has not been filled evenly. Some contain a little water. Others contain much more.

"What we're trying to do is find where in that ice cube tray you had filled the water, and it's the deepest," he said.

The drilling completed so far, in his analogy, has reached the edge of one of those compartments and found gold. Geological and geophysical evidence is now being used to move toward structures that Milliard believes may have provided greater pathways for the hydrothermal fluids responsible for carrying and depositing gold.

"We've just hit the tiny edge of that tray, and there's gold there," he said. "The next step, we're going into a bigger tray."

That makes Eden particularly important. Eminent has identified a 3-kilometer gold-in-soil anomaly there, while seismic, magnetic, gravity, and other data have been used to refine the structures underneath post-mineral cover. The current program calls for up to five initial RC holes at Eden following drilling at Otis.

Eden will begin testing whether the geological story established at Otis continues elsewhere along the Hot Springs Range structural corridor.

"Eden's going way out in the tray," Milliard said. "That will give us an idea of how big the trays are and what's down there when we get to the biggest ones."

If gold mineralization can ultimately be demonstrated across significant portions of that corridor, Milliard believes the implications could extend beyond an individual target.

"If we have gold on a long strike length of something like that, that's a new trend," he said.

That remains a geological hypothesis, not a conclusion. The drill has to test it, and for Milliard, that is precisely the point.

The Idea Comes Back to the Drill

Milliard's path back to Hot Springs Range has taken him through the Navy, graduate school, producing mines, international exploration, and one of the world's largest gold companies. But the project now being drilled traces back to something much smaller: an idea developed by a student who believed the geology was telling a story others had overlooked.

Milliard is quick to reject the idea that the project belongs to him alone. He credits his wife, Schranz, and a long list of mentors, colleagues, and supporters who helped move it from an interpretation on a map to claims on the ground and eventually to drill targets.

"It might be the one idea for me, but it is the whole team effort," Milliard said. "It would have just been a crazy idea from a student" without the people willing to believe in it.

Now the idea has reached the stage Milliard seems to prefer. It can be tested.

Hole by hole.

Ownership and Share Structure²

18.35% of Eminent Gold is held by management and insiders. Among them, Justin Milliard, VP of Exploration, holds the largest position at 9.59%, and Michael Kosowan holds 6.5%. Kinross Gold Corp. (K:TSX; KGC:NYSE) is a strategic investor with a 13.8% position. The remainder is held by retail shareholders.

Eminent Gold has 82.26 million outstanding shares, 34.59 million free float shares, and a market capitalization of CA$48.5 million. Its 52-week range is CA$0.28 to CA$0.87.

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