Šarec is a former actor and comic who started his profession in politics after profitable the mayoral election for the city of Kamnik in 2010. In 2017, he narrowly misplaced the Slovenian presidential election, however he was elected prime minister in 2018. He has been Slovenia’s minister of protection since June 2022. Based on the spokesperson, the minister can also be “very fascinated with historical past, and particularly in technical historical past.”
The Thursday earlier than the Argo tour, a safety element — which included two Slovenian particular forces members, confirmed as much as scope out the location, in response to Dustin Littleton — who’s in control of enterprise growth for the Argo. Šarec arrived the next Sunday in a motorcade after having lunch on the Tommyknocker Brewery & Pub — the place Lieutenant Colonel Brock discovered that Slovenians have their very own model of the legend of Tommyknockers.
“The Minister’s go to was additionally honored by the mayor of Idaho Springs,” in response to the spokesperson for Šarec. Mayor Chuck Harmon says he and Šarec bonded in the course of the Argo tour, since Šarec had as soon as served as a city mayor.
“I do not care the place you are mayor, individuals are the identical,” Harmon tells Westword. “All people that was with the protection minister, together with the protection minister, spoke fairly good English, they usually have been so right down to earth and simply so approachable. You felt comfy speaking to him about something.”
The historic Argo gold mine in Idaho Springs.
Carol M. Highsmith, 1946 / Library of Congress
After the tour, everybody panned for gold. “They actually cherished the gold panning,” Harmon says. “However here is the factor I discovered fascinating: The protection minister is, like, actually good at gold panning. I did not ask him if he had ever performed it earlier than, however he positive had the approach down fairly darn good.”
Harmon says he was additionally impressed by the sorts of questions Šarec requested in the course of the tour — particularly in regards to the chemical compounds used in the course of the gold-refining course of.
“I even discovered one thing from their questions,” Harmon says. “One in all them requested how many individuals labored at that huge Argo mill. And since most of it was automated, there was solely a couple of half a dozen folks on a given shift. Now, I might have thought 100 or one thing [people worked there] for a spot that large. I reside eight homes away from [the Argo], and I had all the time been below the impression that there was an enormous variety of folks. So had they not requested that query, I nonetheless would have by no means recognized that.”
The spokesperson for Šarec says the minister “loved the tour of the mine.”
Colorado and Slovenia commenced their army partnership on July 14, 1993. Based on Brock — who served as a Bilateral Affairs Officer for the Colorado Nationwide Guard within the U.S. embassy in Slovenia between 2009 and 2011, which is why he was requested to assist facilitate the thirtieth-anniversary journey — the pact got here after the autumn of the Soviet Union, with Slovenia and Colorado becoming a member of forces after Yugoslavia cut up up.
The partnership was “instrumental in creating capabilities and attaining interoperability between the 2 militaries and thus inside the Alliance,” says Šarec’s spokesperson. “Through the years, cooperation has shifted to particular areas of strategic significance to us, together with army workouts and coaching, army mountaineering and mountain warfare, army aviation, nuclear, radiological, chemical and organic protection, safety and rescue, and, in recent times, cyber safety and protection.”
The anniversary journey additionally included a go to to the Colorado Nationwide Guard headquarters in Centennial and a dinner with Governor Jared Polis.
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