Ryan Fletcher

Mr. Fletcher was a very passionate mining entrepreneur. This photo was from his Facebook page.

Vancouver's junior mining community is mourning the loss of Ryan Fletcher, the 31 year old co-founder, director and interim CFO at Montan Mining, and a former director of Zimtu Capital.

Mr. Fletcher was remembered by friends and business partners in CEO.CA chat yesterday evening, with especially moving comments from Montan co-founder Luis Zapata.

"Ryan was like a brother to me and my business partner in Montan Mining and other deals. In fact that was our last whatsapp chat. I told him we are brothers and like Kane and Toews with him of course being captain serious. He loved his hockey. Ryan was the nicest human being I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. We are indeed a small team and we are all in shock. Ryan was 31. He was just a solid person. Everyone liked and respected him. Rare in this industry as others have mentioned, but easy for Ryan because he was genuine and a good man. I've been a longtime lurker of this chat and ceo.ca because he told me it was good and important to read. He was only a year older than me but a mentor nonetheless. Ryan had a vision for what he wanted Montan to become and we will persevere in carrying out his vision. I can assure you all of that because I've been assuring myself all day long. Ryan was relatively young but had his hands in the building of a couple solid companies. I know he was proud of that. Ryan was also the hardest working man I knew but never looked to take any credit. He was always about the team. More importantly he always stressed the need to put shareholders first. He was so proud to have taken our first "own" deal public with MNY. We dreamed about it since 2007 when we first met. I went to my first PDAC with him that year as well. I can't believe he's gone. We were kids then. I will miss him and I wish I could have put all this in the news release but I know this is a good as forum as any for these thoughts to get around."

The thread on Mr. Fletcher begins here.

He will be sorely missed.