Necessity, it has been said, is the mother of invention. But sometimes, the invention part can come years later, depending on when one can find the time to tinker and actually make it happen. So it was when Australian-born geologist Kim Hillier decided he would one day create a better gold pan.
As a young man in his early twenties, Hillier had spent many hours test panning for an exploration company that was searching for alluvial and hard rock gold deposits in Australia.