What's your job about?
I am currently working in a secondment for the Resource Centre of Excellence (RCoE) to attract, build and retain the pipeline of technical talent in the geoscience and resource engineering fields. My most recent project has been the project management of the Minerals Australia Resourcing Your Future (RYF) first year intern program. RYF exposed 60 first year university students to the resources industry to showcase the range of careers that are open to them if they choose to select resources-related tertiary education.
My usual role is a Process Engineer at our Brisbane Integrated Remote Operations Centre (IROC) where I work with Control Specialists, Controllers and site Processing Operations teams to optimise the safety, efficiency and quality of our Coal Handling Preparation Plants (CHPP).
What's your background?
I am a Brisbane born-and-bred girl who didn’t leave the area where I grew up until I did my internship with BHP in Dysart, QLD. When BHP called to say I was heading to Dysart, I had to look on a map to know if it was even in Australia! Since then, my fiancé and I have lived in Blackwater while I was a graduate (which we absolutely loved and still miss to this day!), moved back to Brisbane while I did fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) at Saraji Mine and had two crazy daughters who are now 1 and 2 years old. I secured the Brisbane IROC role after returning to work with my first daughter and the RCoE secondment after my second where I have now worked for 8 months.
I scored my current secondment as I am extremely passionate about STEM in our future workforce and regularly volunteered at school and university events. It was also a completely different role from anything I have done in my engineering career so was a great opportunity to learn some new skills. A very smart person once told me that if you can do something you do for fun and get paid for it, you’ve found the secret recipe.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Absolutely! Not only can someone with a different background do my job, but it is necessary for people of different backgrounds to be in the team for us to excel. My IROC Process Engineering team is a diverse bunch in terms of culture, thought, gender and working style and it is the best team I have ever worked in. While it is necessary to have a foundational knowledge of Process or Chemical Engineering to do my IROC role, most of the day-to-day skills I have used in all my roles are soft skills of organisation, communication, management, and collaboration.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
I’m an engineer so I love data and graphs. In my job, I get to use that data to identify inefficiencies, propose and plan improvement initiatives with other engineers, scientists, operators and trades, project manage and execute the initiatives and then physically watch them unfold on a CHPP. I see and manage the whole project from start to finish, all while balancing my family and personal life. For the most part, I have the flexibility to work my hours whenever I want if I am meeting my deadlines.
What are the limitations of your job?
My role as a Capability Specialist is a Minerals Australia role meaning that my teams are dispersed across the country and sometimes even internationally. I thrive off collaboration, so I sometimes struggle to form that personal, team bond when I am working via video calls. Similarly, as a Process Engineer, it’s tricky executing projects on sites in Central QLD when I am based in Brisbane. If I could step foot outside of my home onto a mine site I definitely would.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...