by Alex Atkins, ASX Non-executive Director and Corporate Advisor
Just before Christmas last year I headed into the Western Australia mine safety regulator (known as DEMIRS) and sat two exams to keep my First Class Mine Manager’s Certificate (FCMM) current and obtain a Site Senior Executive Certificate (SSE) under the new Workplace Health & Safety (WHS) Act 2020 and WHS (Mines) Regulations 2022. At the age of 56, you might wonder why.
Because I was in what I call ‘the first wave’ of female underground mining engineers to earn an FCMM Certificate in Western Australia (1998), in Queensland (2000), and in Tasmania (1999; though they repealed the legislation on the day I went in to pick it up). These tickets are a treasured and hard-won part of my unique value proposition— part of my mining ‘street cred’.
I didn’t know women ‘weren’t meant to be’ underground mining engineers when I decided that would be my career. When I tried to take the mining engineering stream after completing common first-year engineering at the WA School of Mines, I was instead encouraged to study for a BE (Mineral Exploration & Mining Geology with a major in Structural Geology). After a couple of years of working in Queensland gold mines and exploration as a geologist, I was accepted into the University of Queensland’s BE (Mining), majoring in Rock Mechanics. I then focused on obtaining my minimum five years of post-graduate operations experience all over QLD, Tasmania, Papua New Guinea and WA to get my ‘tickets’. This experience was in addition to over a year as a miner, rotating through drill and blast (which, incredibly for me, included time as an airleg miner with a fabulous air-legging crew), load and haul, and services. This ‘underground time’ was, and still is, a regulatory prerequisite for statutory mine management tickets. How can you give directions to miners, and appreciate the safety implications and time and resources required if you haven’t done the job?
When I completed high school in 1985, it was straight after the Equal Opportunity Act of 1984 was enacted. Girls in high school were told, ‘Girls can do what boys can!’ I was keen to pioneer!
I earned two engineering degrees, qualifying me as a mining engineer, geologist and geotechnical engineer. I worked across siloes performing various tasks that enabled me to understand cause-and-effect relationships and to see—through operational experience—how to holistically and commercially optimize the mine as a complex system of interdependencies. This was a valuable foundation for my work today overseeing safe mine management, technical and operational due diligence, and transitions to new technologies (like Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning and Automation).
Over my more than 30 years in mining, I’ve seen both enormous and very little change. The enormous change is the number of women in the industry and how amazing they are, thanks to the development opportunities they now receive, making them next-level awesome. They were always wonderful because they joined the industry for a challenge, wanting to do a good job. But spirits were often broken, often making women give up. Those with the mental grit to persevere have mostly done so because of purpose—making the industry better, and self-belief—knowing they earned their seat at the table. Those female seats at the table almost weren’t there. In Australia’s mining states, it only became legally permissible for women to work in underground mines in 1987. It’s still not legal in Papua New Guinea and was only recently made legal in India.
Great contributions women have made over the last 30 years in mining include: improving safety performance/risk management; fostering innovation and encouraging the collaboration required for the transition to digitalization and automation; as well as improving social performance. I believe women and their collectivistic qualities can bring out the best in people and thus projects.
For more information: Get in touch with Alex on LinkedIn
