Jo-Anne Dudley

Leading the way for women in miningThe first big shock for aspiring engineer Jo-Anne Dudley was that she was one of only five women studying for a mining engineering degree in her year at university. She also discovered that no women had been enrolled in the degree for five years and only five had graduated in the 40 year history of the degree. There were more shocks to come.There was a vacation stint at a FIFO mine where colleagues had never worked with a woman before and the physical strain underground was almost a knock-out blow. Life in a central Queensland coalfields camp, where she and an 18-year-old metallurgist were the first women to live on site, was another example. Then there was the challenge of being site manager in charge of 40 people at a remote Northern Territory workplace where the only other female workers were in catering. Today Ms Dudley is manager strategic mine and resources planning for Rio Tinto’s Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia. She is one of only eight female ‘competent persons’ for Australasian Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) reporting in Rio Tinto and a Fellow of the AusIMM. She has devoted much effort to inspiring and assisting other women in the mining and engineering industries including as chair of WIMARQ (2008/2009) and as a current member of the University of Queensland Women in Engineering Initiative Advisory Board. And her advice to anyone considering a mining career? “Do it! The workplace environment has changed so much since my early years,” she said. “There’s a strong focus on safety and an acceptance of diversity in the workplace now. “It’s a great industry with varied roles, opportunities to change career path and to live in a multitude of locations. Roles are well paid and a shortage of people in many disciplines means that you are generally guaranteed decent treatment at work, which cannot be said for many other careers.” Ms Dudley grew up in Caboolture north of Brisbane and went to live with her grandmother in Sydney to study at UNSW to pursue her goal of becoming a mining engineer. She graduated from university in 1994 with an honours degree and worked for Farnsway-Faminco at various sites in Queensland and Northern Territory before they were bought by Roche in 1999. “Faminco was a great experience and a rare organisation that was accepting of women working as underground loader and truck drivers,” she said. But her first FIFO experience came at a mine in north-west Queensland while she was still a student. Herself and two other female mining engineers were employed on vacation work at the site, where they were the first women to work underground. She said they were put on different shifts and had to share bathrooms in camp with the male students also employed. The physical work as an offsider underground seemed impossibly hard at first, but by the end of the three months Ms Dudley said she could run back to camp after a 12-hour shift. Ms Dudley describes that period of vacation work as formative in her life. “…It was survival of the fittest, mentally and physically, and I survived it - however it is also the reason I am involved in women's mentoring today because it was a lonely and tough time during which I would have benefitted from interaction with an older ‘sister’ in the industry,” she said. There were further challenges at a coal mine, where Ms Dudley and an 18 year-old female metallurgist were the first women ever to have lived in camp at the site. “An example was the night a group of intoxicated young men were banging on the door of the donger I shared with a female co-worker and making some very real threats,” she said. “There were no phones to call anyone for help. To the credit of the site, the offenders were disciplined and the experience was a catalyst for positive change at the camp.” Less than a year after graduation Ms Dudley was promoted to site manager in charge of 40 men at a Northern Territory mine. “I was only nine months out of university leading 40 men and a fleet of equipment and managing client relationships,” she said. “It was a bit overwhelming really. I did learn an amazing amount about people and myself. I don’t for one moment regret spending time in that role.” When asked if she had ever felt she’d made the wrong career choice given those experiences, Ms Dudley points to an entirely different type of shock at Northparkes Mines – which she praises for its HR practices and management structure. “After November 1999, I did briefly consider leaving the industry after the airblast at Northparkes Mines (New South wales),” she said. “My manager, the technical services superintendent, the mine manager, and two other underground workers were killed and 70-80 people more had narrow escapes. “The men I worked with both had very young families and it was a terrible time. At the time I was in the early stages of my own first pregnancy and I was deeply affected by the accident and subsequent inquest” Ms Dudley spent almost 10 years at Northparkes, during which time she and electrician-husband Darren owner-built a house and had two daughters, Darcy and Caitlin. Her next move was to Brisbane in a technical services consulting role which saw her involved in projects in underground mines in Australia, Africa, USA and Mongolia. In 2010 Ms Dudley moved to Vancouver to work on the Oyu Tolgoi feasibility study. As the underground project went into execution phase in 2016, she moved into a role managing strategic planning for both open pit and underground mines at the sites. In the last six months she has gained responsibility for resource geology and exploration for the site. “I have been based in Brisbane since 2014, with travel every six-eight weeks to the site in Mongolia, which enables better work-life balance with access to education and facilities for our family, including our now- teenaged daughters,” she said. Remote sites have changed significantly since her early days. “These days at FIFO sites the connection to the ‘outside world’ is so much better,” she said. “Now when I’m working for Oyu Tolgoi in the Gobi Desert I can video call my family and chat for hours at no cost to me. “It’s not a monoculture anymore and every site I visit now has some professional women. At Oyu Tolgoi there are many women who are highly educated and wonderful to spend time with.”

Jo-Anne Dudley

Industry Queensland

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