And if you take a look at many of the most successful business men in the world, many of them failed in multiple business ventures prior to becoming successful.
There are many failures on the road to success, that is the nature of business. HLNT is in business to make a profit and seems to be putting together a winner this time around. Do your DD and add and the crunch the numbers. There is no scam going on here just a lot of timely events working their way out of the cycle and will soon become a thing of the past. The PPS will rebound once 4th quarter reports and PR comes out. So Coates belonged to the Fraternal Order of Hydraulic Technicians that means he knows a lot about managing H2O.
Maybe you should read the story of Leonard Susskind, a plumber who turned Physicist and is doing theoretical battle with Stephen Hawkins over black holes and quantum mechanics. So plumbers can be pretty smart people so be careful with your bias it can lead you to wrong conclusions and poor judgments. You cannot always judge the content of a book by its cover.