Robert Williamson - apprentice to mining exec
from A Home in the Outback Hosted by Katherine Waite
Meet Robert Williamson, the A-grouper who trained as an apprentice in Broken Hill and worked his way up to be a mining executive. Robert is the oldest of four boys but when his mother died from breast cancer, he decided to stay in Broken Hill and help his father. He got himself a trade at Zinc Mine and was offered training in industrial electronics which became an in-demand skill. As a young man he travelled and worked at Bougainville Copper and overseas at a Kibbutz. When he returned he moved to the Western Australian region of Pilbara and was there maintaining dump trucks and mining equipment at iron ore mines. When he was working at Dampier mine, he introduced a robotic systems to the way Rio Tinto managed their port system which earned him praise and accolades from the mining sector. He was head hunted to develop and establish robotic systems all over the world, including iron ore ports in China. He went into mining consulting and among his achievements was selling US$10million dollars of technology to the large Brazilian company Vale. More recently, Robert’s attention has returned full circle back to Broken Hill which he says is completely coincidental. With his business partner Gordon Toll, he’s currently in the process of applying for mining licenses for Lodestone Mines to develop Australia’s next big iron ore project in the Braemar Region in South Australia. The proposed mine site is just over 1.5 hours south west of Broken Hill, inland from the small South Australian town of Olary. Robert is based in Adelaide but travels regularly to Broken Hill for business.
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