Meet Harvey Kaye, Executive Director of U.S. Critical Materials

When Harvey Kaye decided to retire, he expected it to last more than three weeks. But his wife and some mining entrepreneurs had other plans.

“My wife told me if I didn’t get out of the house she’d kill me,” says Kaye, who now is involved in a significant rare earth resource and process technology company that is turning the rare earth minerals industry on its ear, thanks to a place in Montana called Sheep Creek as an answer to the quest for critical minerals sovereignty for the defense of the United States.

Kaye is Executive Director of U.S. Critical Materials, which is a leader in the exploration, separation and processing of rare earth minerals. He previously was founder and chairman of the board of Zero Gravity Solutions, an agricultural biotechnology company; and founder, chairman and CEO of Latitude Solutions, a publicly traded water remediation company.

“What is happening with U.S. Critical Materials will be the geopolitical story of 2025,” says Kaye, who was approached by friends and former co-workers to be a part of the company.

“They had owned the mineral rights to Sheep Creek for many years,” says Kaye, who lives full-time in Boca Raton, Fla., with his wife Helen. His focus for years has been on clean water, agriculture and treating the planet in a respectful way that is mindful of the environment and believes what he is doing with U.S. Critical Materials fits well with his interests and background. “In the last 18 months to about two years, things have begun to happen.”

While rare earth minerals are all over the media because of President Donald Trump’s Administration’s dealings with Ukraine and Greenland, American companies depend heavily upon contracts with China to supply their rare earth needs.

“Rare earth minerals such as gallium are needed to take us into the future,” Kaye explains of minerals such as neodymium, praseodymium, scandium, strontium, niobium and yttrium, all of which have been found at Sheep Creek. The Sheep Creek location consists of 335 mineral claims covering 10 square miles of high-grade rare earth minerals. “A problem in the past has been the difficulty of mining and processing for rare earth minerals.”

He explained that the way China mines and processes these minerals is an invasive process that is detrimental to the earth, the water supply and to the people. In the past, U.S. businesses have considered it more cost effective to simply buy the minerals, rather than seek out a source in the United States, partly because there wasn’t a source of high-quality, high-concentration veins.

“Sheep Creek in Montana is the largest and richest deposit that has been found in the US,” says Kaye of the rare earth deposit that has been independently verified by three outside entities. “We’re also developing environmentally benign technologies, meaning we won’t have to mine and process in the destructive manner that China uses.”

Sheep Creek’s grade of rare earth minerals is the highest in the US — by far. The grades average 9% or 90,000 parts per million. Greenland and Ukraine, the next most likely possibilities are both less than 1 percent, with older and less accurate verification methods.

Even more important, U.S. Critical Materials is working with the Idaho National Laboratory to create and patent a benign method of separating and processing that will be less invasive and safer for the environment, the water supply and the miners and surrounding population. In addition to a high concentration of minerals, the veins, called carbonatites, extend vertically 400 feet to 500 feet into the ground. Based on geophysics and artificial intelligence, Kaye and others at the company believe mineralization runs much wider and deeper.

“Our theory is that there are rare earth minerals yet to be found,” says Kaye, who has spent his career thinking about what is good for the earth. “We have another 7.5 square miles that has strong indications from our AI program, but has not been ground tested and verified.

He referred to the deposit found so far as a unicorn because it is of very high grade and with low levels of thorium, a radioactive mineral generally found with rare earth minerals. The usual amount found is about 500 parts per million, while at Sheep Creek they are finding 200 parts per million. An added bonus is that the low levels of thorium should make it easier to obtain permits, shorter processing time, and safer working conditions.

“The Ukraine and Greenland publicity has created a sense of urgency within the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Energy,” Kaye says of the current news regarding the urgent need for national mineral sovereignty “The need for rare earth minerals has been spotlighted from an economic context and for the defense of our nation.”

In addition to use in defense systems, rare earth minerals are also essential for the production of a full range of industrial and consumer goods including batteries, mobile phones, laptops, hard drives, lasers,electric vehicles, semiconductors, computer chips, 5g technology, solar panels, wind turbines and medical diagnostic devices.

Kaye explains that for 10 years, China was willing to sell U.S businesses rare earth minerals. In recent years, they have been less willing to do so, even cornering the African market, agreeing to build mines and devastating the areas in which they mine.

“What we’re doing at U.S. Critical Materials is a legacy transformation,” a passionate Kaye says. “The United States cannot be dependent on any other country for rare earth minerals. This is important for my children and grandchildren, for your children and grandchildren. China is destroying the environment, the water supply and crops, and people are dying. Before, there was no alternative to how they explore, develop, and mine. We’re creating that alternative. We have funded and are working under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Idaho National Laboratory to create an efficient and safe mineral separation and processing technology. The US currently does not have a way to process rare earths. China has a worldwide monopoly on processing. We cannot afford to lose this race to China.

“We have to be able to do all this in a friendlier way, or we will lose to China,” explains Kaye, who says the Sheep Creek site has been estimated to be worth billions of dollars, which doesn’t take into consideration the value of the new separation and processing technology.

“Before this started, all I wanted to do was remain active,” Kaye says with a laugh. “Now, I want to be environmentally active. We have created a successful company that is also meaningful. The need for domestic security of our mineral supply is one of the few political and economic issues which are bipartisan in the US.”

Todd Shapiro is an award-winning publicist and associate publisher of Dan’s Papers.