Women in Mining – Page 6 – Republic of Mining

First female general manager at Kalgoorlie Super Pit promises to shake up status quo – by Bettina Arrow , Sam Tomlin and Jarrod Lucas (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – September 6, 2017)

September 6, 2017

http://www.abc.net.au/

The first woman to run Kalgoorlie’s iconic Super Pit has promised to shake up the status quo at Western Australia’s most famous gold mine. Cecile Thaxter officially began as general manager at Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines on Monday, taking charge of more than 1,100 workers and millions of dollars in gold reserves.

Born in Jamaica and educated at Columbia University in New York, Ms Thaxter worked in investment banking prior to shifting into mining, where she worked in various executive roles for Super Pit co-owner Newmont Mining. As mining companies continue to push for greater female representation in senior roles, she said she was delighted by the accomplishment.

“Not necessarily for the first [woman], but for the second, third and others that come along.” Having most recently managed Newmont’s Phoenix/Lone Tree mine in Nevada, Ms Thaxter comes to Kalgoorlie-Boulder at an interesting juncture in the mine’s life.

‘Hey gorgeous’: Meet 2 women sick of sexism and discrimination in mining – by Jamie Malbeuf (CBC News North – August 15, 2017)

August 15, 2017

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Some women stay silent and endure unwelcome situations, others quit the industry

The crass, sexist attitudes that lead to a camera being planted in the women’s washroom of the Ekati diamond mine don’t surprise some women with experience working in the mining industry. On July 27, a camera hidden in the women’s washroom of the mine was brought to a camp administrator’s office for safe-keeping until security could arrive. But by the time they got there it was missing.

Ekati is about 300 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife. Workers live at the mine, typically working shifts of two weeks on and two weeks off. RCMP and mine security are still investigating the camera incident, but two women with experience in the industry say the conditions that make an episode like this possible are all too common.

Kari Lentowicz worked at a mine in Saskatchewan for more than 12 years before she said she couldn’t take it anymore. “It was just a hard environment to work in,” said Lentowicz. “The men far outnumber the women and as far as mining goes, they really hardwire that gender disparity in there, into their camps.”

How mining could be a boon for African women – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – July 18, 2017)

July 18, 2017

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

In northeastern Congo, unequal pay and cultural taboos have kept women from sharing in the country’s mineral wealth. Activists are trying to change that, and Canada’s ‘feminist’ foreign aid policy has a part to play, Geoffrey York reports

Standing barefoot in a swampy pond, Bibicha Sanao sloshes the muddy water in her basin with an expert motion, panning tenaciously until she finds the hidden treasure: a few tiny slivers of gold. It can be hazardous work. She lifts her pant leg to show the scars from a water snake’s bite. Sometimes she gets sick from the contaminated water and the chilly rain. It’s not much safer when she toils in a nearby gold pit, where she was once buried in a landslide.

Yet, she won’t give it up. Her mining work here in northeastern Congo is crucial for supporting her family, and she’s been doing it for many years – despite obstacles that men never face. Now, activists are fighting to remove those barriers, giving African women a chance at the higher incomes that traditionally go to men, while improving the health and safety of their working conditions.

Guinean former fashion model digs into west African mining (AFP – July 5, 2017)

July 7, 2017

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Leaving behind chic gowns and catwalks to stomp in the mud in heavy work boots, Guinean former fashion model Tiguidanke Camara has made herself west Africa’s first woman mine owner. In the small forest village of Guingouine, in the west of Ivory Coast, Camara runs a team of 10 geologists and labourers who are probing the soil for gold deposits.

She readily wades into a mucky pond to help take laboratory samples. “When I was a model, I showed off for the jewellers. They have licences in Africa to provide their precious stones,” says Camara amid a swarm of gnats, still youthful and trim in her 40s.

She does not recall any macho male resistance to her rise in an industry almost devoid of women, though bemused men have been prompted on occasion to ask whose assistant she might be. “When it got too much one day, I had to produce my CEO’s ID badge!” she protests mildly.

Women in Mining: Judy Baker exploring for gold in Wawa and Red Lake – by Frank Giorno (Timmins Today – June 5, 2017)

June 6, 2017

https://www.timminstoday.com/

‘For women who have the drive to succeed, the opportunity is there’

Throughout Canada’s mining history, strong women leaders have made their mark in the mining industry beginning with Kathleen Rice and Viola McMillan in the early and mid 20th Century.

In the first decade and a half of the 21st Century, Judy Baker of Argo Gold and Ingrid Hibbard of Pelangio Gold, both spoke at the 2017 Canadian Mining Expo in Timmins, Ont. about their respective companies and the work they are doing to explore and bring into production their properties.

Baker and Hibbard follow the trail blazed by Kathleen Rice, a mining pioneer of the 1920s who explored nickel deposits near Thompson, Man. and set up gold mines in the Snow Lake area of Northern Manitoba; and Viola McMillan, who found several gold mines in the Timmins Porcupine camp of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. McMillan also served as the president of the Prospectors and Developers Association for many years.

Mining Giant BHP Wants to Banish the Boys’ Club – by David Stringer and Matthew Winkler (Bloomberg News – April 5, 2017)

April 6, 2017

https://www.bloomberg.com/

BHP Billiton Ltd., the No. 1 mining company, is taking diversity lessons from banks and law enforcement to achieve a gender-balanced workforce by 2025 and promote women into top executives.

The miner has held talks with companies including Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. on policies to boost female recruitment and retention, Laura Tyler, Melbourne-based BHP’s chief of staff and head of geoscience, said Wednesday in an interview at Bloomberg’s Sydney office.

“Banking had also been seen as a boys’ club and the high street banks, the retail banking sector, has made a huge turnaround,” said Tyler, 50, who was appointed last year to BHP’s 10-strong executive team, one of three women to hold a top leadership post. “We are talking with them about how did they change things.”

Who is Angela Bennett, Australia’s most reclusive billionaire? – by Dana McCauley (News.com.au – April 4, 2017)

April 4, 2017

http://www.news.com.au/

SHE’S the fourth richest woman in Australia with a net worth of more than $1.8 billion. But mining magnate Angela Bennett is so reclusive that her Wikipedia entry contains a photograph of her rival, Gina Rinehart.

The iron ore heiress, who like Rinehart inherited a vast swathe of mining interests from her father, is said to prize her anonymity so highly that she owns the copyright on pictures of an empty staircase at her former palatial abode on Perth’s Swan River.

And in two decades of chronicling legal disputes over her family’s iron ore fortune, photojournalists failed to capture a single image in which Ms Bennett could be easily identified — managing only to snatch blurry glimpses of the billionaire with her face partially or totally concealed.

Pink Trucks, Netballers Power Billionaire’s Iron Mega-Mine – by Rebecca Keenan (Bloomberg News – March 30, 2017)

March 30, 2017

https://www.bloombergquint.com/

(Bloomberg) — The woman who became the richest person in Australia by developing some of the nation’s vast iron ore deposits has learned one key lesson from the last commodity bust — hire cheaper workers.

Billionaire Gina Rinehart is expanding her payroll to ramp up production from the Roy Hill Holdings Pty mine in Western Australia’s remote Pilbara outback. Many of her new employees get paid less because they have little or no mining experience, like Courtney Grove, 24, who studied animal health and science at university. Since last month, Grove has been driving a pink mining truck that shuttles 226 metric tons of ore at the $10 billion mine.

Targeting so-called “greenies” who can be taught basic mining skills is part of Roy Hill’s push to keep costs low in an age of global surpluses and to diversify its workforce. The iron ore industry was hit hard by a three-year slump that eroded profit and left some companies stuck paying unskilled workers as much as A$200,000 ($154,000) annually, twice the average salary in Australia. While prices have rebounded over the past year, the rally isn’t expected to last.

2017 PDAC Special Achievement Award: Women’s Association of the Mining Industry of Canada (WAMIC)

March 10, 2018March 28, 2017

PDAC 2017 Special Achievement Award: Women’s Association of the Mining Industry of Canada (WAMIC) from PDAC on Vimeo.

http://www.pendaproductions.com/ This video was produced by PENDA Productions, a full service production company specializing in Corporate Communications with a focus on Corporate Responsibility.

From time to time, the PDAC presents a Special Achievement Award that recognizes exceptional contributions to the mineral industry.

Women’s Association of the Mining Industry of Canada (WAMIC): For continuous philanthropy to the mining industry, as well as Canadian health and educational institutions for 95 years.

WAMIC was founded in 1921 with the objective of promoting friendship among women connected to mining, supporting the industry and people in it, and participating in work that related to the well-being of Canadians.

Over the past 95 years, WAMIC members have overseen the distribution of more than $1.8 million in support of young people’s education, most of which was raised directly by their efforts. WAMIC is probably best known for its fundraising, its numerous and imaginative social events, and the association’s strong presence at both the PDAC and Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum conventions in Toronto. WAMIC was also the inspiration for the similar Greater Vancouver Mining Women’s Association in British Columbia.

While the role of the association has evolved in recent years, it continues to make a significant impact. WAMIC has provided financial support for hundreds of students undertaking earth science and mining-related subjects and programs at colleges and universities across Canada.

Sudbury mine engineer writes kid’s mining book – by Laura Stradiotto (Sudbury Star – March 9, 2017)

March 9, 2017

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

A Sudbury mining engineer has penned a children’s book as a way to promote diversity in the workplace and encourage more women to enter the industry.

Theresa Nyabeze works as a front line supervisor at Vale and is president of Women In Science and Engineering (WISE) Sudbury. She is also part of a small demographic who make up the mining workforce. According to a 2014 study by Global Mining Standards and Guidelines, women account for only five to 10 per cent of the international mining workforce and only seven per cent serve on board positions.

In response to this trend, Nyabeze started her own business, Diversity STEM, with a mandate to create products and avenues to promote careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The first project launched under her business is the illustrated children’s book, Underground! My Mining Adventure.

Adventures of a Australian female opal miner – by Jason Bainbridge (The Age – February 26, 2017)

February 27, 2017

http://www.theage.com.au/

If Sue Cooper has a problem with her telephone reception, it is a 10-hour round trip for a Telstra Remote-Area Service technician in a four-wheel drive to fix it. If she needs to refuel? That’s a three-hour round trip with a 2000-litre tanker on a dirt track. And if she needs medical attention? Build your own airstrip in order for the Royal Flying Doctor Service to land.

Welcome to Sue Cooper’s life, six to seven months of every year, as an opal miner in western Queensland. One of Sue’s mining leases is on Mount Margaret Station, a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station. Located about 50 kilometres west of the township of Eromanga (Australia’s furthest town from the sea), Mount Margaret was once Australia’s largest sheep station, occupying 600,000 hectares.

Sue is a relative through marriage, and I visited her mining camp in late 2016. To give a sense of scale out here, the “bush paddock” containing Sue’s small mining lease is a rugged, fenced-off corner of the property comprising 69,000 hectares – roughly the size of Singapore. Often Sue, her partner and her children are the only people out here.

Risky business pays off for Canadian mine developers – by Ella Myers (Northern Ontario Business – January 13, 2017)

January 13, 2017

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Goodman School of Mines fireside chat yields inspirational career stories

In 1991, Catherine McLeod-Seltzer and Eira Thomas embarked on journeys that would separately launch their careers in mine development and discovery. In 2015, the women celebrated together as their company, Lucara Diamonds, unearthed a softball-sized diamond in Botswana.

The third largest diamond ever discovered signified the risky but rewarding nature of their industry. McLeod-Seltzer, the chair of Bear Creek Mining, and Thomas, founder of Lucara, joined Jonathan Goodman, Laurentian University’s executive in residence, for an informal, fireside chat in Sudbury, Jan. 10.

Speaking from a couch nestled beside a tiny gas fireplace, McLeod-Seltzer shared how she accepted a job running an office for a gold company in Chile in 1991. She said the global economic climate was open and optimistic and that there was a “shiny path” in South America.

World’s Top Miner Wants to Hire 21,000 Women – by Ann Koh and David Stringer (Bloomberg News – October 20, 2016)

October 20, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

BHP Billiton Ltd. wants women to account for half of its workforce by 2025 as the world’s top miner seeks to change the gender balance in an industry dominated by men. The company isn’t “as inclusive or diverse as we could be,” Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mackenzie said in a statement on Thursday. BHP has a workforce of about 65,000, including contractors, of which 18 percent are female.

Based on these numbers, its target would mean an additional 21,000 women employed by the middle of the next decade including both its own staff and contractors, according to Bloomberg calculations.

The $800 billion mining industry has long been a male-dominated business, with women even banned from working underground in some countries until recently. Men hold a majority of executive positions in resources companies, lagging behind other sectors.

Digging into diversity: Mining panel reflects on women, Indigenous inclusion in the workplace – by Ella Myers (Northern Ontario Business – October 20, 2016)

October 20, 2016

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

When Anna Tudela walked into her first mining conference, she was the only women in a room packed with men. She was sure she had found the wrong place.

On October 18, the vice-president of diversity, regulatory affairs and corporate secretary at Goldcorp was happy to see other women at the Maintenance, Engineering and Reliability/Mine Operations Conference (MeMO) in Sudbury, where she participated in a panel on diversity and inclusion.

She was joined by Jennifer Maki, executive director of Vale Base Metals, and Sudbury’s Ron Sarazin, special projects coordinator at Gezhtoojig Employment and Training. The panelists tackled gender, Indigenous peoples, immigrant labour, and mental health and wellness in mining.