The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia (CME) has announced four BHP finalists for the 2022 Women in Resources Awards. 

• Marie Bourgoin and Steve Campbell are both finalists in the Women in Resources Champion category, which recognises and awards an individual, of any gender, who has encouraged, promoted and advocated for the attraction, retention and promotion of women in the resources sector.
• Kim Tan is a finalist in the Technological Innovation Category; and
• Our Yandi Mining New to Industry Truck Operator program has been recognised as a finalist for Outstanding Company Initiative.

This year marks the 13th anniversary of CME’s Women in Resources Awards, which recognise the power of gender diversity in the Western Australian resources sector. 

CME received more than 85 nominations for this year’s awards and the quality of those is reflected by a strong group of finalists, who occupy a wide variety of on and off-site roles at mining and resources operations around WA.

Winners will be announced at the 2022 WIRA presentation dinner.

More about our finalists:

BHP - Yandi Mining New to Industry Truck Operator Program

The Yandi Mining New to Industry Truck Operator Program has enabled BHP to tackle a number of key operational challenges, including skills shortages on the open labour market, the need to increase female participation rates and the requirement to staff a South Flank operation that continues to ramp up while Yandi ramps down. Since the program began in 2019, it has helped increase female representation in the Yandi team by 20 per cent - including the achievement of gender equity in the load and haul team - while also meeting key safety outcomes as a result of a focus on coaching and mentoring by supervisors.

More than 450 candidates have participated in the program, with 75 per cent female and 30 per cent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation. BHP now plans on replicating the new-to-industry concept across its WA iron ore sites.

Steve Campbell - Women in Resources Champion Award Finalist

Steve has more than 20 years’ experience in mining and has been a long-time advocate for opportunities for women in the sector – having first started implementing flexible work options for parents returning to work in the early 2000s. As BHP’s Rail Operations Manager, Steve actively promoted females into leadership roles and established a gender-balanced leadership team for the first time in the company’s 50-year rail history, while also establishing a new-to-industry rail shunting school that attracted 60 per cent females hired locally in the Port Hedland region. In 2021, Steve took on the role of General Manager of South Flank, the largest new iron ore mining facility in Australia for more than 50 years, with 41 per cent female participation among its 800 employees and ambitions for gender balance by the 2023 financial year.

Marie Bourgoin - Women in Resources Champion Award Finalist

Over a career spanning nearly 15 years in the mining and resources sector, Marie has been a consistent and strong supporter of diversity and inclusion and the opportunity for all people to bring their full selves to work. As the first female General Manager at BHP’s Newman Operations, she helped significantly increase female participation, overseeing an increase in female leadership representation from 14 to 19 per cent from 2019 to 2021 and achieving gender balance in the senior leadership team for the first time. Drawing from her own experience of returning to work after having children, Marie sponsored flexible workspaces and creches in both Perth and Newman. Marie continues to mentor aspiring female leaders and present an active voice for change in her current role as BHP’s Vice President of Warehousing, Inventory, Logistics and Property.

Kim Tan – Technological Innovation Award

Kim is passionate about using robotic technology to find better, more productive and safer solutions in mining, as evidenced by the thermal lance feeder solution she has pioneered for BHP. That solution involved a common industry problem – a crusher jammed by mechanical debris – and Kim’s approach identified technology-enhanced but low-cost innovation that would help keep workers safe by taking them out of the firing line. The remotely operated thermal lance feeder was designed and manufactured in Perth, and has such far-reaching safety potential that BHP has shared the solution royalty-free across industry. The technology’s success reflects the quest for improvement and efficiencies Kim has shown since she started her journey in the male-dominated field of Mechatronic Engineering at Curtin University. In her 20-year career, Kim has been involved in a wide variety of innovative design work and become well-known for her willingness to share knowledge and experience with others, mentoring fellow BHP employees along with high school students and engineering graduates, and taking part in a variety of classroom STEM initiatives.

Congratulations to Marie Bourgoin, Steve Campbell, Kim Tan and our Yandi team (including Renae Peacock, pictured) on this incredible achievement.