Kevin Hoagland
Kevin Hoagland more than the host of Gold Trails, when not in the field filming with members prospecting and mining, he is the Executive Director of Development for the Gold Prospectors Association of America (GPAA) & Lost Dutchman's Mining Association (LDMA).
Starting prospecting as a child in the California desert, Kevin has logged over 40 years in the field and has traveled around the world gold prospecting, mining and recovering historical artifacts with a special interest in metal detecting and training. He feels that this stems from building his first detector after receiving a kit detector for his 9th birthday. “I was hooked after building and learning about how metal reacted to the detector, I knew there were more possibilities than what I was hearing and started to learn how to modify and make what I had work better.”
During his teenage years he was away from the western states gold fields for a few years and focused on the recovery of relics and coins. Working in the oil fields of Oklahoma and Texas as an electromagnetic and gamma radiation inspector, he seldom traveled without a detector behind the seat of his truck. “There could be a lot of down time once you arrived on a drill rig location and instead of wondering around aimlessly I would detect around the properties. It was always an added bonus when there was an old barn our house nearby to the rig site for me to detect.”
Moving back to the west, Kevin has worked everything from ancient placers to underground hardrock mines and carries a gold pan with him everywhere he goes. When asked about his pan he simply answers, “Everything starts and ends with a gold pan. There’s no reason to not be equipped with at least the basics. You never know when you might run up on an opportunity to prospect.”
Executive Producer – Brandon Johnson
Supervising Producer – Greg Miller
Post Production Supervisor – Greg Miller
Camera – Beau Ryan, Greg Miller
Editor – Beau Ryan
IT – Web – Paul Louly, Jeremy Jefferson, David Peterson
Opening Theme – Gene Glenn, Nate Barcalow
Music – Megatrax