Meet Carol Nicklette, the first woman in WAIO to complete 40 years of service. How do you mark such a huge achievement? You have a locomotive named after you!

Carol’s career began in 1978, after she migrated to Australia from India. Not long after landing in Perth, she went to Port Hedland to visit family for a few weeks. These ‘few weeks’ quickly turned into 27 years at Nelson Point where she started her career with BHP as a stenographer to the Senior Project Engineer. This included her very own electric typewriter with the choice of six fonts!

Since then, Carol has worked in a variety of areas including onsite as the Executive Assistant to the Vice President/GM Port and Rail before moving to the Perth office in 2005 to work for the Vice President Integrated Planning and she’s now the Executive Assistant to the GM at IPRO.

Carol was also among the first women at BHP to take maternity leave after it was introduced in 1982. This meant that women no longer had to resign from their job if they wanted to start a family.

“If maternity leave hadn’t been introduced, I would not be here today celebrating this milestone,” she said.

When asked what has been the best part of working at BHP for 40 years, Carol emphatically responded “without a doubt, it’s the people.”

“I consider it a blessing to work for a company like BHP and I feel incredibly lucky to have worked with amazing people who have helped me learn new skills and develop my career," she said.

“BHP’s recognition of my length of service by naming a loco after me is a reflection of how awesome the people are in this Company. I’m very grateful to work here and can’t believe how quickly the last 40 years have vanished!”

Congratulations Carol!