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ALAN TITCHALL chats with quarry and mining consultant Andy Loader about industry training and safety, public perceptions, and saloon car racing.
These qualifications start when he was employed as an inspector of quarries (Auckland and Northland region) for the Ministry of Commerce during the 1980s, and gather force over the past 13 years while he has been managing his own consultancy company – providing training and assessment services and auditing in safety and health for the mine and quarry industries. Amongst other accolades, Loader is an accredited safety auditor (QSA); registered assessor for the extractive industries training organisation (Exito); registered tutor with Industry Training NZ; and accredited as a registered safety professional and auditor by the NZ Safety Council. Loader spent nine years employed with the mining inspection group within the Commerce Ministry before it was merged with Occupational Safety and Health Services (OSH – which is now the Department of Labour). He didn’t see a place for himself within the new regime, but saw an opportunity to capitalise on his ‘inspectors’ credits as a consultant interpreting the new OSH rules and regs. “It’s one thing to hand out laws and regulations, but another to interpret and put them into practice,” he says. “Twelve years after the changes to quarry and mining laws, I still came across operators talking about the ‘new’ act. It was particularly hard for the smaller operators to interpret these laws.” Loader is one of about five very experienced industry personal, mostly ex-inspectors, doing industry consultancy work and implementing courses for training providers. The uptake of training over these years has been one of the biggest changes he has witnessed. “Exito has been a boon for the industry,” he says. “And most of my workload now is training and assessment, driven through Exito national certificates.” He also works through a company in Westport called Industry Training NZ, a subsidiary of the Buller Community Development Company. “In the end, quarrying is very simple. It’s about turning big rocks into little rocks and you can either dig it and crush it, or blast it and crush it. It’s the machinery and working conditions that have changed, and we have seen revolutionary jumps in equipment such as the Barmac crusher, continually improving workplace safety through education and training, and the use of safety equipment such as earmuffs, safety glasses, better seats and dust proof cabs, etc.” Knowledge is the key to improved safety, he iterates. “Rules are sometimes broken because of financial pressure, but more often because people just don’t know any better. By raising the level of knowledge we raise the level of safety. “During my years as a safety inspector I attended a number of site fatalities. The industry used to kill about four to five employees a year. If I have saved just one life through my career, it has all been worthwhile.” Public perceptionsIf there’s one thing that gets up Andy Loader’s nose it is officials not recognising the importance of the quarry and mining industries. “Politicians have to realise that if every quarry closed tomorrow, within a month the country would come to a stand still – no concrete, no road works, no construction.” Every developed society in the world is using between six and 10 tonnes of quarry product per person per year, says Loader, and every technology since the first stones were turned into tools has been driven on the back of quarrying and mining. “In New Zealand less than one percent of the surface has been altered by quarrying or mining, yet 67 percent has been altered by farming. If both industries were working under the same perceptions and rules – quarrying and mining in this country would be a lot easier and healthier.” Part of our aging workforce problem is because of these negative connotations. “We need to change our public image – make it a career path for youngsters.” A good bunch of bastardsLooking back on his career, Loader says it is the ‘people’ in the industry that holds it together and makes it such a satisfying career choice. “I joined the Institute of Quarrying quite early in my career and through it, met a lot of quarrymen and that have made a difference.” Some of these ‘friends’ he prosecuted as an inspector. “Yet there’s no animosity and I can sit down and enjoy a drink with them. They took the attitude, ‘Hey we made a mistake and lets get on with it’ – no grudges.” Nor is it an industry to suffer fools gladly. “The people involved in the quarrying industry tend to be stayers, you don’t get fly-by-nighters. The investment outlay is large and it’s a long-term payback.” It is also an industry where knowledge is freely passed on, and if you are prepared to listen, you will learn lot, says Loader. “The old timers taught me everything I know. When I started at Puketutu Island Quarry [Auckland], Buck Hohaia, the foreman, would often grab a piece of chalk during smoko or over a beer, and start illustrating how do get a job done on the old wooden floor of the hut. “It’s amazing how people in this industry have always been prepared to help others with their knowledge and expertise. “And I now get a big kick at seeing some of the guys I trained reach senior levels of management in their respective companies.”
His son made his first win a couple of meetings ago and was second equal over all in the two-day nationals. Loader used to race stock cars when he was younger, then ran out of funds when he got married. He’s back into it for his son’s sake, as much as his own and his ‘training’ skills are paying off. “It’s a carrot for behaving himself – if he starts coming home with a fist full of speeding tickets that’s the end of the race car unless he can afford to fund it himself.” Loader says he is also always planning for retirement but it seems to be getting further and further away. “I’ve been working for myself since 1995 and my boss is very hard – he doesn’t pay me unless I go to work.”
Q&M Vol.6 No.3 June-July 2009 |
Andy Loader has a list of qualifications and diplomas literally as long as your arm, most of them on the subject of safety.
In his spare time, Loader races saloon cars on the dirt track at Meremere with his teenaged son. He says their four cylinder, turbo Nissan Silvia with a tickled up engine and suspension, “hops along pretty good”, although it can always be “tickled up some more”.