Pat came in third on our list last October and since then has been red hot. The founder and managing director of PowerOne Capital Markets, in just eight years Pat has been the brains behind some 190 financings that raised more than C$1 billion, mostly for small-cap emerging private and public companies with early-stage natural resource projects.

Pat's list of successes is overwhelming, especially given his age. He was instrumental in getting Aurelian Resources up and running with a C$0.10 financing, enabling that team to delineate 13.7 million ounces of gold in Ecuador and earn a C$1.2 billion takeover by Kinross Gold (T.K) in 2008. He helped create and structure Continental Gold (T.CNL), a story that hit the markets in April at C$2.50 and is now worth C$8.00. Pat worked a C$72 million raise for Colossus Minerals (T.CSI) at C$5.75 in late 2009; a year later, Colossus hit a high of C$9.87.

We invited Pat to the Casey Summit in May 2010, and he named Cline Mining (T.CMK) as his top pick.At the time it was worth around C$1.50 but within a few months was pushing the C$5 mark.

Rather than slow down and enjoy the rewards of his efforts, Pat, if anything, is picking up the pace.

The latest big deal on PowerOne's books is Ryan Gold (V.RYG), the most talked-about exploration play in the hottest gold camp in Canada. Ryan Gold is named after Shawn Ryan, the Yukon prospector who discovered the White Gold deposit and optioned it to Underworld Resources in mid- 2008. Eighteen months later, Kinross snapped up Underworld for $138 million. Shawn also discovered the soil anomalies that are guiding Kaminak Gold's (V.KAM) drills at the nearby Coffee property, where results like 15.5 meters grading 17 grams gold and 35 meters of 6.3 grams gold are becoming the norm. Over the 2010 summer exploration season, Kaminak's shares leapt up from below C$1.00 to over C$3.00, and reached heights of C$4.71 by July 2011.

Shawn's success stems from 14 years of regional prospecting and soil sampling. His work has left him with a gold-in-soil database with more than 200,000 entries that outline hundreds of anomalies. He's already optioned out more than a dozen properties for others to explore, but after his Underworld and Kaminak successes, he started keeping the best anomalies for himself.

The collaboration of Shawn Ryan and Pat DiCapo dovetails well – Shawn is a proven prospector and Pat is a deal-structuring genius, so together they built a company that's hard to beat. Pat convinced Osisko Mining (T.OSK) to buy 9.9% of Ryan Gold; he also brought two renowned Dundee names to the table, Ned Goodman and Murray John.

Pat is a force to be reckoned with, especially when it comes to junior natural resource stocks. We believe shareholders of his latest deal, Ryan Gold, are in for a hell of a ride with this NexTen high achiever in the car.