Dr Walker is a civil engineer with tertiary qualifications in both engineering and business administration. His Doctoral thesis from Cambridge University was in the field of Soil Mechanics, and for 12 years he was Managing Director of a leading Australian geotechnical engineering firm, during which time (in 1982) he first became involved in UCG project evaluation.

Since 1984, he has been involved in guiding the development of small publicly listed resource companies, both as an investor and as Managing Director. These companies were active in gold mining and oil and gas exploration. He has worked for more than 25 years on the introduction of the UCG process in Australia, culminating in 1999 in the initiation of the pilot burn at Chinchilla, Queensland, the longest test burn yet conducted in the Western world. He has also been active in seeking international UCG projects, and has published technical papers in this field in Australia, the UK and USA.

Dr Walker became Managing Director of Cougar in November 2006 following the merger of Pinnacle VRB Limited and Cougar Energy Proprietary Limited.

Mr McAully operates a management consulting business focusing on organisational performance and strategic planning. Currently he has five board Directorships and holds post-graduate qualifications in Business from the University of NSW, Bond University and the University of Tasmania.

Malcolm started his career in audit and moved to Lend Lease Financial Services as National Administration Manager – MLC Life. He moved to Tasmania in 1997 to take up the position of Group General Manager for Hazell Bros, a large civil construction and transportation Company.

Dr Dalling has had a long career associated with new technologies through the research, start-up and development phases. Following a successful 13 year period at Melbourne University, he served for 8 years as the founding Managing Director of Florigene Limited, one of Australia’s first biotechnology companies.

From 1994 to 1999 he was Managing Director of the Strategic Industry Research Foundation Limited, a joint initiative of the Victorian Government and CSIRO, which led to the formation of a number of spin-off technology companies including X-Ray Technologies Limited, Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited and Starpharma Limited.

Dr Dalling was a Director of Ceramic Fuel Cells for 5 years and has been involved in capital raisings for a number of the companies with which he has been associated. He was appointed a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia in January 2006 for service to the biotechnology industry.