Mr. Newman received a B.S. degree in Mining Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, an M.B.A. degree in Finance from the University of Denver and has done graduate work in Mineral Economics at the Colorado School of Mines.  He is a registered Petroleum Engineer in California and Colorado.  Mr. Newman initially worked as a mining engineer, developing mine and mill plans, mining related software, capital and operating budgets for operating mines and performing mine subsidence research.  He then was employed by Petro-Lewis Corporation as Senior Staff Petroleum Engineer and Manager of Planning and Economics.  As a petroleum engineer, Mr. Newman performed reservoir modeling and geotechnical models of subsidence, compaction and well damage.  He designed a waterflood for a diatomite reservoir, which may add 60 million barrels of reserves, performed analyses of large (over $500 million) acquisitions, and put together property sales packages for $200 million of producing properties.  As Manager of Planning and Economics, Mr. Newman oversaw capital budgeting for a $60 million annual drilling budget and operations budgeting for $250 million of annual revenue from producing properties.  Mr. Newman also developed software to optimize the sale of $1 billion worth of properties owned by 50 different corporate entities and to model the after-tax effect of various capital spending programs.  He oversaw the cost control for all capital expenditures, and taught in-house seminars in Petroleum Economics.  As an independent consultant and entrepreneur, Mr. Newman started and profitably sold a computer leasing business.  He developed a computerized cathodic protection system for a 450,000 barrel-per-day cross-country oil pipeline.  He has performed research using neural networks and their uses in finance and engineering.  He has also published papers on the effects of income tax structure on oil and gas drilling and has taught a class in Oil and Gas Finance for the University of Denver.