From Ski Instructor to Superintendent with Operations Services 

To celebrate Operations Services (OS) turning five - BHP’s mining services provider, we’re celebrating the people of OS, and who better than Superintendent, Werner Priess, the first standing member at our original deployment - Field Maintenance in WAIO.  

With a previous life as a ski instructor across Japan, Australia, New Zealand and home country Austria, OS ‘day-oner’, Werner, has just celebrated his ten-year milestone with BHP.

Werner transitioned as a fitter from WAIO to OS when the team took over field maintenance, which he described as a smooth transition, but it wasn’t the OS we know today. 

“When we started the job there were five fitters, two sparkies, one trailer, no crib facility and two containers”, he said.

“Five years on, there’s 43 people in our deployment, another 4000 teammates across Australia and we’re completely self-sufficient with 10 containers, crib facilities and all our own tooling.”

And the team have achieved a lot! Recently hitting 1 year RI free and celebrating their 100th outage across the WAIO sites, they’ve reduced excavator outage time by 40% which Werner attributes to standard work routines, BOS and machine modulisations and the team.

“I’ve seen huge growth and change from the assets too”, Werner said. “We didn’t always have it right, but now, with a strong safety record and consistently delivering quality work, we have established great relations with the business at all levels.”

As performance improved, so did Werner’s career progression, accelerating from fitter through to Supervisor, then planner coordinator and finally Superintendent when the Whaleback deployment kicked off.

“All my promotions were internal, and that’s what OS is all about”, he said. “We tailor people to the deployment, and are experts at what we do.

“I never saw myself in leadership when I first started out, I was focused on doing a good job, the best I could. Once I had the knowledge I was asked to step up. With OS you have strong leadership, who become your support network.

“My favourite thing about OS is that we are a national team and have the opportunity to connect with the East Coast and learn from each other. We have a wealth of knowledge in OS and we are well connected to support each other.

“If you’re self-driven, work hard, do the right thing, follow procedure, anything is possible, and there are no limits to what you can become.”

Outside of work you can find Werner still tackling the slopes, taking his partner and daughter to Japan every year and chasing white Christmas’.

We’re lucky to have you Werner, here’s to another five!