IBAT Leadership Team

Garry Flowers is a seasoned senior executive in intensive construction and operations management. He has served as Executive Vice President and Section 16b Officer since 2016 for the Fluor Corporation, responsible for Construction & Fabrication, HSE, Corporate Security, Corporate Investigations, Industrial Relations, Corporate Supply Chain, and Corporate Risk. Alongside this role, Mr. Flowers was president and chief executive officer of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC, the Fluor-led partnership which oversaw the management, cleanup, and operations at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina. In this position, Mr. Flowers led the team constructing four 1200-megawatt, nuclear-powered power projects for two public utilities in South Carolina and Georgia, valued at 9 billion dollars. Flowers also held oversight of the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Cable Stay Bridge, a 3.2-billion-dollar project, the Nuclear Weapons Storage facility at the F.E. Warren U.S. AFB in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the U.S. Army Nitrocellulose Project in Radford, Virginia. More recently, Mr. Flowers served as Group President of Global Services, Operations and Maintenance wherein he managed a 3 billion operations and maintenance business department with 19,000 employees in over 100 countries, with subsidiaries AMECO and TRS. Notably, in this role, he oversaw a 500-million-dollar contract between AMECO and the U.S. Army to equip U.S. bases in Iraq. He is active in a variety of civic and professional organizations: he is a past member of the Executive Council of the U.S. Department of State, Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) and was a director on the board of the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Furman University in South Carolina.

Dr. John Burba is a physical chemist and a world-renowned pioneer in lithium and other mineral extraction technologies. His more than 40-year career features a number of lithium brine projects in North and South America, notably with Dow Chemical Co., FMC Corp., and Chemtura Corp. Most recently, Dr. Burba served as CEO of Simbol materials, a company focused on the recovery of lithium from geothermal brines in Southern California. Under his leadership, Simbol successfully developed a proprietary process capable of producing low-cost, high-purity lithium products from brines that were previously believed to be too high in contaminants to be economically processed. Dr. Burba also recently served as CTO and Executive VP of Molycorp Inc., where he was instrumental in identifying and developing numerous rare earths technologies as part for the Project Phoenix re-development of the Mountain Pass facilities. Dr. Burba received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and completed doctoral studies in Physical Chemistry at Baylor University. He now serves as the founder and CEO of International Battery Metals.

Mr. Yick Cheung Chan is a seasoned finance consultant and executive with over 20 years of experience working in finance, marketing, sales, manufacturing, and research and development. His expertise primarily lies in the financial and operational improvement of companies. He has experience supporting startups and VC-backed companies that require the development of financial processes, operational procedures, and compliance systems to ensure adherence to standard financial statements. He brings a robust background in managing working capital  and he has previously set up the accounting policies, procedures, and controls and managed cash and other working capital in order to sustain business operations and prioritize cash outlays. Yick received an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, a B.S. from the Polytechnic Institute of NYU and an M.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Foy Wyman Morgan is an established executive with in-house corporate and consulting experience in developing biopharmaceuticals, specialty chemicals, and minerals. Notably, Mr. Morgan worked Director of Technology for the FMC Corporation. In this role, he led the development and implementation of breakthrough technology in selective absorption, which produces lithium chloride from a lithium-bearing brine source in Argentina. The production facility which utilizes this technology has been in continuous operation since the late 1990’s, consistently and successfully producing low-cost, high-purity lithium chloride. Mr. Morgan holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Florence State College (University of North Alabama) and a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Florida. Currently, Mr. Morgan serves as the President of Strategic Technology Resources, LLC, and Senior Vice President of Infinity Resources, LLC.

Maria Echaveste brings with her a distinguished career that spans various senior leadership positions. She has held various positions within the United States of America White House, such as Deputy Chief of Staff, Policy Advisor and Special Representative to Boliva under the Clinton and Obama Administrations, directed programming and social policy at U.C. Berkeley, and co-founded a D.C.-based strategic and policy consulting group, NVG. Ms. Echaveste received a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Stanford University and a Juris Doctorate from U.C. Berkeley. Currently, she serves as the President and the Chief Executive Officer of The Opportunity Institute, and is on the board of directors of UCSF-Benioff Oakland Children's Hospital, Mi Familia Vota, and the Level Playing Field Institute.