Tina Aylward left school in year 10, went travelling and became a chef. Years later she discovered the world of mining — and the excellent money you can make in the industry — after taking a catering job in Queensland. She started as the first woman in the ‘yard crew’ or clean-up gang of a refinery before getting a job as a refinery operator and slowly working her way up from there. She believes her proactive approach to her career has helped open numerous challenging and unique opportunities. She’s our latest ‘real role model’ to answer our Q&A about life and work.
What is your job now?
I’m a Senior Advisor Asset Management, Productivity Improvement, Technology & Innovation My job is based around Maintenance Management and best practice maintenance processes within Rio Tinto. It is a Perth based job, but I am required to travel to site for a few days every week to work with the maintenance teams on site.
Describe an average day for you.
It would be better to describe and average week, as the days can be totally different. Early Monday morning I board a charter flight and head up to a mine site in the Pilbara. I spend the next 3 days working with the maintenance teams on site to refine their maintenance processes, reduce costs and increase availability for their assets. I fly back to Perth late Wednesday afternoon and work in the office Thursday and Friday.
How did you get there? (Did you wing it?)
My trade background is a chef, and I spent many years working in Australia and travelling extensively through the UK and Europe while cheffing in my earlier years. When I returned to Australia, I wanted something a little different, so I got myself a job with a catering company working in the mines in Western Queensland. There I was introduced to the world of mining, and more importantly the money you could make in the industry. After working as a chef in the mines for a couple of years, I decided I wanted to try and get myself in the mines. So I started working towards getting the skills needed to get into the mines, HR licence etc.
I had some friends of mine that were living and working in a very remote part of the Northern Territory that just happened to have a large mine and refinery there. They had advised me that there was plenty of work around and to come up. I finally the made to decision to travel up there, and within 3 weeks of getting there I had a temporary contract working for Alcan within the refinery. I started in the “Yard Gang” the clean-up crew around the refinery, and the first women to work within that group in the 25 year history of the refinery. When my contract was coming to an end, I applied for a job as a refinery operator which I got, and again the only women at that time working in that area. I spent 2 years in that job doing shift work, and totally in a man’s world, which I found tiring and sometimes frustrating as I was continually having to prove myself to the guys “or so I thought”. After 2 years I was nominated by my boss to join a team on a special project which meant working with a team from T&I from Perth and Brisbane. I worked on that project for 2 years which is where I started my career in Asset Management. This was a great chance for me to take the learnings from the T&I team and help develop a path for my career development.
After 2 years, there was a position that became available in the T&I Perth team for an Advisor, which I applied for and got. I transferred down to Perth from the NT and have been in that team now for 3+ years. I’ve had a promotion along the way, and am now a Senior Advisor.
The next step in my career path is that I’ve just applied to enrol at UNI for the first time ever in a post graduate course in Asset and Maintenance Management.
How do you manage the logistics of your career and your life outside of work?
I have a very understanding and supportive partner. The fact that I only have to go to site for a couple of nights a week is not as bad as living a full FIFO (fly in fly out) roster, and when I’m in the office my hours are fairly flexible. So as long as I manage my work I can spend a bit more time at home when needed, and we always spend all of our weekends together.
What is the easiest part of your working week? and/or What is the hardest part of your working week?
The easiest part of my working week is, when it gets to Friday it’s nearly weekend time. Time for an afternoon drink on the deck
The hardest part is Sunday night when I start packing to go away again, knowing that I will be away from my family for the next 3 days.
How do you think your younger self would view your current career?
My younger self would not have believed that I would be where I am, in the position I’m in, where I’m living, and the money that I’m earning. Not in a million years, considering I left school at the end of grade 10 with no real focus on what I wanted to do. I spent the first 8 years after school trying all different types of things, and it wasn’t until I left Australia and went travelling did I start to get any idea of what I wanted to do. I pretty well fell into the cheffing trade, and it was certainly a life changer for me.
If someone else out there wants to develop a career like yours what advice would you give them?
Look the best advice I think would give them is to be a positive and proactive person. Never believe there is something you can’t do, always look at how you can do it, whether it be through education, mentoring, or simply just asking questions. Believing in yourself is the best motivator of all.
Have you got any anecdotes about your career or daily life you’d like to share?
Just because you’re a women don’t run yourself raged trying to be like the boys. I’ve found in my experience the boys like running around in circles, they tend to just get in a do it, rather than standing back and having a look at the best way of doing it. This tends to be a far safer and efficient way of doing things.