Published in the June 2014 International Coal News Magazine
He has worked at the Cook colliery, Gordonstone mine and Moranbah North. He holds masters of business and technology, a bachelor of applied science, as well as first class mine manager, undermanager, deputy, ventilation office and site senior executive tickets.
His favorite hobby outside of work is golf.
What is your earliest mining memory?
Starting out at Westfalen colliery at Redbank Ipswich. I was a “boot-end boy” and as the mine did not have a breaker feeder my job involved standing on the grizzly to break the lumps with a 10-pound hammer. The continuous miner was a Marietta borer miner and it produced lumps of slabbed coal from roof partings. I was really keen to impress but the crew was equally keen to sort me out ... they would load as big a lump as they could get into the shuttle car just before crib to stop the show and ensure they had a good sit down for cards.
What made you choose mining as a career?
My dad was behind it. He was an old hand work miner who had found his way to be a undermanager in charge in the rapid technical advances of the 1970s. I had finished a university degree in building construction and quantity surveying but upon graduation the building industry was at rock bottom and there were no jobs. At my dad’s suggestion I switched to the mines to get some work and started as a cadet mine manager under the Coal Owners Association of Queensland. After six months of getting coal I was hooked.
When was your first underground visit?
At 14 years old. My dad took me and a prospective son-in-law for a tour of the New Hope mine at Ipswich. What a day out. Drift haulage entry, riding in scout cars, watching men timber up roof falls, watching coal getting cut, riding the belts out – a full-on adventure.
What was your favourite job in a coal mine?
Undermanager at Cook colliery. I was the “swing shift” undermanager and my crews had the honour of finishing the scores for each day’s bonus. Swing shift people are a little different and share a mateship seldom equalled in the industry. One night each crew had cut 100 cars and so sang to each other in the cattle rake on the way out.
What was your least favourite job?
Being an outbye deputy – walking the same road day after day is brain destroying.
Who, or what, has most influenced your mining career?
It’s a “what”. A longwall. And it was when Cook colliery bought into longwall mining and we could mine three times the coal without the routine injuries, risk and hard work of pulling pillars with continuous miners and shuttle cars.
I took my retired dad underground to see the longwall for the first time. I made him turn off his light and just stand next to the armoured face conveyor and just listen. I asked him to tell me what he could hear. I informed him that he was listening to a river of coal and that we mined one or two of his old hand worked wagons every second.
What do you consider your best mining achievement?
Being part of leading Moranbah North from a start-up mine to a huge mature mine in some of the toughest conditions in the world. Heat, gas and strata are all at extremes at Moranbah. At its peak it had more than 800 men, 700 cubic metre ventilation, 6cu.m gas extraction, 4.5 megawatt air conditioning and two Joy longwalls. Then wearing out the first longwall at 40 million tonnes and starting up the new bigger wall – the biggest shields in the world.
What do you see as being the greatest mining development during your career?
Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems – being able to monitor and control and automate.
Do you hold any mining records?
I have longwall top coal caving at Austar – formerly Ellalong colliery.
Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions?
I would love to be part of transforming a longwall to be fully automated.
What was your most embarrassing moment in a coal mine?
Organising an emergency drill for a single crew and watching it all go wrong when a full evacuation of the mine occurred instead. The problem wasn’t missed communication – the problem was jealousy.
What was your scariest time in a coal mine?
Being a pillar panel deputy. As the cockatoo watching the goaf and deciding when the robbing of coal was over and it was time to go. One time we didn’t have much time to go and when the wind blast and dust had cleared the goaf had fallen right up to the breaker props that we had only just finished setting. It was time to go and have a settling cup of tea after that.
What is your worst memory of coal mining?
The Box Flat disaster at Ipswich. It shook the town.
Do you think that the day of the fully automated remotely operated face is near?
It’s very close. Family cars can self park now and watching my son’s gaming on Xbox it seems like it could be very close.
What major improvements would you like to see on longwall operations?
Longwall crews need to have tech engineers in the crews to take SCADA to the next level. There also needs to be dust scrubbers everywhere – scrubbers on the shearer, on the crushers and on the belts.
