Yearly Archives: 2016

Jarrod Lucas Kal Miner July 5 2016

Jayne Finch’s life story is not one of a typical mining engineer, as much as she wants to be just one of the guys on crew.

For a start, the 150cm pocket dynamo speaks four languages fluently.

A strong Australian accent hides the fact Jayne was born in England, where her German-born father worked the same job in coal mining.

 

Her mother is Spanish and she inherited the same flair for cooking.

The family bounced around Africa for most of her youth after Jayne’s father took up a job in tin mining and eventually found their way to Australia.

Jayne now works as a project and planning engineer at Kalgoorlie’s Mt Charlotte underground gold mine, while her husband Nick Galton-Fenzi founded Boulder’s Beaten Track Brewery.

She was previously environmental superintendent at Fortescue Metals Group’s Cloudbreak and Chichester iron ore operations in the Pilbara.

More interesting than her resume or her fascinating family history is the obstacles Jayne has overcome to make it in the male-dominated industry.

As a 21-year-old, Jayne suffered a severe bout of meningococcal which put her in a coma and when she woke she was deaf.

Now she says it is 80 per cent hearing loss, though she needs to lip-read to have a conversation.

Only in the past year has she been able to use a phone, via specially designed Bluetooth hearing aids.

Jayne told her story to industry professionals at Kalgoorlie’s Lot 35 bar last Thursday night for another gathering of the Kalgoorlie Women in Mining group, known colloquially as KalWIM.

Her talk was about diversity in the workplace.

“I believe that true diversity isn’t ticking the right boxes or getting enough of each category … for me diversity really means including everyone, and not ruling someone out because they don’t fit the mining stereotype,” she said.

“Never let other people tell you what you are and are not capable of doing. You are the only judge of that.

“When I was 32 and about to embark on my mining engineering career most people thought that there was no way a 150cm tall, 55kg deaf female could get a quarry manager’s ticket. The work would be too physical, and the requirements to utilise a two-way radio too great.”

Another obstacle was convincing employers she could safely work a shift.

When she joined Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines they linked her Bluetooth hearing aids up to the site’s internal radio communications so she could safely drive trucks in the Super Pit.

To let her co-workers know who was behind the wheel she drove a truck painted bright pink.

“I probably wouldn’t make the best full-time truck driver, but we found ways around it,” she said.

Jayne is preparing to give another speech on resilience to the Women in Mining WA Summit in Perth on September 9

Albert Evans was a mining engineer, originally from the UK, who was recruited by Emertius Professor Odwyn Jones (former Director of WA School of Mines 1976 – 1991) in the early 80s to head up the Collie Federated School of Mines (CFSOM).

CFSOM was a sub-campus of WAIT/Curtin/WASM that was initially funded by the two Collie coal companies (Griffin Coal and Western Collieries Ltd), with the objective being to train Engineering Cadets (of all engineering disciplines, including mining) who were employed by the local companies straight out of high school, and gained work experience in the local mines for two years while studying part-time at the Collie School. This two years of part-time study at CFSOM covered the “common first year” of the Engineering degree, and then the students went on to full-time study to complete their degree at either Bentley campus (for other engineering disciplines) or WASM Kalgoorlie (for mining engineers).

The biggest benefit of this mode of study was the practical experience gained in the industry, very early in one’s career. It survived until the late 90s or early 2000s, when Albert retired and the Collie campus was subsequently incorporated into the local TAFE.

 

Albert’s funeral service will be held next Monday 8th August 2016 at Fremantle Cemetery.

Share your story with young people motivated to pursue science and engineering in the mining and resources industries!

Join our year 10 Focus on Mining camp participants for dinner, beverages and an evening of networking.

Focus on Mining is a great opportunity for young people to see, feel and chat about what it’s like working in the mining industry at real mine sites, with real mining professionals. This year we have expanded the program to include two 5-day camps filled with site visits, workshops, career talks and informal networking events. This networking evening will be spent with our year 10 camp participants who are visiting a range of mine sites, businesses and processing plants in the Kalgoorlie area.

Tony James, former President of WASM Alumni heads up Carbine Resources.

Ken Brinsden CEO Pilbara Minerals

Ken Brinsden is a mining engineer with more than 20 years’ experience in surface and underground mining projects.

Brinsden graduated from the Western Australian School of Mines in 1993, and member of the WASM Alumni. Ken has since created an extensive career profile working with companies including WMC Resources, Normandy, Central Norseman Gold Corporation and Iluka Resources.

He was Managing Director of Atlas Iron for more than three years, and continues his role there as Non Executive Director.

Former Western Mining Corporation general manager Doug Marshall reflected on the heady days of the Kambalda nickel boom yesterday as the Goldfields town limps on amid a lengthy downturn.

Kalgoorlie-born Mr Marshall was among five WA School of Mines alumni from the class of 1966 — the same year nickel was discovered near Kambalda — to be honoured at last night’s graduation ceremony.

The first intersection of massive sulphide ore was discovered in drill hole number KD1 on January 28, 1966.

Jack Lunnon was the driller in charge of the rig and in what became something of a tradition, the ore body was named the Lunnon Shoot.

“I was there the day the core was coming in from Kambalda . . . it was a pretty exciting place to be,” Mr Marshall said of his time as a cadet at WMC’s Mac-Donald Street headquarters in Kalgoorlie.

The practice of naming new ore bodies after drillers, including Ted Otter, Mick Lanfranchi, Stan McMahon and Jim Hunt, continued at Kambalda as more nickel was discovered.

WMC built the Kambalda concentrator within 17 months of the find and WA’s first nickel boom had officially begun.

Today, the concentrator is starved of ore with the closure of mines by Mincor Resources and Panoramic Resources, while Independence Group has wound back development at its Long operations.

The result has been more than 200 job losses in the past year for the tight-knit community of Kambalda, where 67 houses are listed for sale by real estate agency Ray White.

Output from the Beta Hunt gold and nickel mine — between 3500 tonnes and 4500t this year — is understood to represent between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of the ore being delivered to the Kambalda concentrator, which is now owned by BHP Billiton.

The nickel price also shows no sign of climbing off the canvas this year and was yesterday trading near five-year lows.

“I’ve seen the Goldfields through the peaks and troughs, Mr Marshall said. “I jumped in a taxi and went on the grand tour of Kalgoorlie and it’s obviously pretty quiet out there. But it always picks up again. It never stays down for long.”

Mr Marshall recalled working as a construction engineer for the Kalgoorlie Nickel Smelter, which opened in April 1973.

He also headed up WMC’s $1.9 billion Olympic Dam build as project manager between 1985 and 1988, and was involved in the development of the Mt Keith nickel mine near Leinster.

“We built the smelter, the water pipeline, railway from Kambalda and 14 houses in Kalgoorlie, all for $28 million,” he said. “Just think what that might cost these days.”

The 50-year graduates also included Malcolm Wills, Brian Philips, Dennis Sands and Kalgoorlie-born mechanical engineer John Kelly.

Mr Kelly followed his dad onto the Golden Mile, where both worked for Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie before heading to the growing Mt Isa fields in Queensland for most of the 1970s.

Last night’s WASM class of 39 graduates included 11 mining engineers, seven geologists, six surveyors and four metallurgists among various other Curtin University degrees.

Source: https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/31539490/alumni-recall-peak-in-nickel-trough/