I’ve often wondered why people are attracted to geology. It seems to me somewhat random. Archeology I can understand: I always wanted to be Indiana Jones. But geology doesn’t seem to have a hero to champion its cause.
So, what is the attraction?
When I ask geologists, the answer is usually pretty simple: a love of rocks.
I remember skimming rocks across lakes as a kid. I enjoyed banging them together to make a noise. But I never really had any interest in features and composition.
Of course, geology is a lot more than that. It is the study of Earth’s physical structure.
Something which Dynamic Metals Ltd (ASX:DYM) managing director Karen Wellman knows a great deal about after 20 years in mining and resources.
Wellman makes rocks sound interesting.
In this article:
- From barefoot in the bush to WA mining
- Standing ground and gaining respect
- Becoming a leader
- A dynamic work life
- The spin out
- Finding balance
From barefoot in the bush to WA mining
Wellman has an infectious enthusiasm when speaking about her love for geology and the work she is doing with Dynamic Metals, and Jindalee Resources before Dynamic was spun out.
Wellman’s rise up the resources ladder didn’t take a traditional turn.
There was no mining in the family.
Her parents were working class people: mum a nurse; dad a builder. They had moved from Northern Ireland to Brisbane, where Wellman grew up – a long way from a WA mine site.
“We used to live on a 20-acre block of land on the outskirts of the suburbs. We grew up with horses and chickens and I grew up running around barefoot in the bush. It was a pretty relaxed lifestyle and I liked being outside,” Wellman told Proactive.
Aside from the chickens, Wellman was sporty. She may not have chased the chickens around the acreage Rocky-style, but her love for physical sport did lead to rock climbing.
Being in the bush also led to a love for rocks.
“I was always fascinated with things like volcanoes and had an interest in earthquakes and natural disasters. I read a lot about them.”
She developed those interests early. From the age of 10, she wanted to be an archeologist. She studied all the sciences through high school, along with ancient history.
A fedora, whip and adventures with boulders awaited. Except, in the real world, Wellman thought archeology was too narrow a field.
Geology became her major at university and the breakthrough into mining came in her last term of study.
“I was offered the opportunity to move to West Australia from Brisbane to do a one-year internship in an underground gold mine.
“It was the early 2000s and there weren't a lot of jobs around, nor had I done any vacation work. I was like, right, I need to jump on this and give mining a crack and find out what it's all about.
“I moved over for a year and stayed for five, which is I think a common story if you talk to anyone in Kalgoorlie,” Wellman said.
Wellman did have a previous taste of a mine site. Her parents pulled her and her sister out of school when she was in Year 10 for a traditional caravan around Australia tour. It was during those travels she first saw a mine. It didn’t mean much then, but today it is a fond memory of a first experience that became a lifetime pursuit.
Standing ground and gaining respect
In the early 2000s, mining was a different beast to what it is today. It was a blokey, almost closed-shop environment where the prevailing attitude was ‘women don’t belong in underground mines’.
“I arrived in Kambalda on my own as a 20-year-old. I started working underground on shift work and there were a lot of older miners with the ‘women don't belong underground’ attitude’.”
She was told she shouldn’t be there. But Wellman is a woman who hangs off cliff faces by her fingertips. Rock climbing taught her resilience, a sense of accomplishment and to trust in herself.
She’s tough.
“I held my ground and pulled my weight,” she says.
“I was on shift work, but used to help where I could. I was pretty strong - I was a rock climber, so I used to help out with the manual labour and got to know the crews and eventually they saw me as more than a little princess. In the end I won their respect and they realised it wasn't a bad thing to have a woman on site.”
The job was with Gold Fields, with whom Wellman spent almost five years in Kambalda. Gold Fields offered her a full-time stint during her internship and she finished her studies in a part-time capacity.
Becoming a leader
Rock climbing and leadership go hand in hand.
“You are working in teams and while you are focused on the individual part when you're actually on the side of the cliff, most of the time you're at least in a team of two or more,” Wellman states.
“You take turns whether you are leading from the front or belaying at the bottom. When there's a lead climber in front of you, you are paying attention to what's going on because you've got their life in your hands too. You have control over how hard they're going to fall.
“Rock climbing teaches teamwork and communication.”
These are two of the most vital traits of a good leader and are important to Wellman’s operational strategies as they have been the mainstays of 20 years of leadership growth.
“My leadership philosophy starts with people. I'm a big people person. I look out for them across the spectrum of work life and mental wellbeing.
“I believe that if you have the right team and keep looking after that team, it comes back to you in spades. It’s an investment - if you look after your people, it can have a positive effect on your bottom line and success will come from that.”
In terms of growth, she says she has developed from a strong-minded, strong-willed person to someone who can marry those traits with the ability to listen. “I will spend a lot of time listening first before jumping into change. I'm not the type of person who normally steps into a new role and changes everything.
“I like to see how things are happening and then work out how to implement change that is necessary.”
Establishing boundaries has also been important along with recognising that people have families and lives. Of course, Wellman says good projects also help.
A dynamic work life
Wellman has worked on substantial projects for a range of companies and has held positions as underground mine geologist, geotechnical assistant, open pit mine geologist and resource geologist.
She spent six years with Doray Minerals, finishing up in 2020 as resource development manager.
“We had done some amazing work at Deflector, so leading up to the Silver Lake Resources merger, we were really starting to understand the gold deposit. It's an incredible deposit if you look at the way it's performed and you don't get a lot of opportunities to work on something like that. That was like my fourth baby.
Doray merged with Silver Lake in 2020 creating a mid-tier gold producer.
At Doray, Wellman was responsible for growing the company’s resource inventory through managing the near-mine and in-mine exploration teams with a $10 million exploration budget. She also worked closely with the mine geology team at Deflector Gold-Copper Project to ensure grade control functions were operating at industry best standard.
Wellman took the job at Doray despite friends questioning the decision to step into a less senior role than she had been in previously.
“I decided I wanted more stability. It wasn't a high-ranking role but there was more to it. You've got to see the bigger picture. I had two young children at the time and it worked for me to have flexibility.”
It was pretty clear that once in the role of administration geologist, she could handle the job easily.
“I was used to higher pressure roles and I quickly picked up doing the resource estimation work. Once they realised I had all the right skills, they stopped using consultants and I took on that role and it blossomed from there.”
The lesson in that, according to Wellman, is that sometimes titles and money don’t matter, but if you can see the big picture everything comes naturally.
Wellman built up strong expertise in resource estimation, which she describes as being like black magic. “You're trying to estimate what is in the ground based on a small data set by thinking about what's happening with the geology.
“Generally, these things are all still hidden in the ground but people expect your predictions to be pretty much on target every time.
“It's quite a skill and it's another role where resilience comes into play. There is no right and wrong answer. You just try to get the best answer you can and be willing to defend yourself as to why you made the decision.
“I guess what I've learned from my time doing resource estimations is you need to stand by your decision. Most people will accept your decision if you can explain the rationale behind it, even if it's wrong in the end.”
In the background, Wellman had been approached by a couple of companies to take on their managing director roles.
She was looking into Jindalee Resources just as COVID hit, which delayed any transition that was about to happen. Jindalee felt it wasn’t able to make change at the time, however by July 2020 the market had accelerated not decelerated and talks were back on.
Wellman took the role to primarily look after Jindalee’s Australian assets. Yet, with the success of the McDermitt Lithium Project in the US and with her resource development background, McDermitt took over priorities.
That wasn’t to say she wasn’t excited by Jindalee’s Australian package - it took her right back to where she started 20 years ago. She was familiar with the geology and the land position and was raring to work for a junior.
Jindalee is a great example of a junior. The share structure is extremely tight for a company that has existed for 20 years and there's not a lot of liquidity. It's extremely stable.
That stability is being passed down to Dynamic Metals.
The spin out
On Monday January 16, Jindalee completed a spin-out of Australian battery and precious metal assets, forming Dynamic Metals with an IPO drawing $7 million in funding.
The move came as the company felt it was operating two separate businesses: a lithium business in the US and a broader battery metals exploration business in Australia.
The spin-out allows Jindalee to focus on its core McDermitt Lithium Project which holds an indicated and inferred mineral resource of 1,820 million tonnes at 1,370 ppm lithium for 13.3 million tonnes of LCE (lithium carbonate equivalent). It also retains a 25.5% interest in Dynamic and resulting exposure to any potential success.
Dynamic Metals’ portfolio includes landholdings in the Widgiemooltha district and the Lake Percy Project, prospective for lithium, nickel and gold, as well as an 80% interest in the Deep Well Nickel-Copper-PGE Project.
“We were at the stage where we had a large lithium indicated and inferred resource in the US and all these assets and exploration tenements in Australia. It was like we were operating as two different companies.
“I had my exploration manager focused on keeping the Australian assets ticking over and at the same time we had our exploration team in the US dealing with permitting and studies which were the next level up in development from where we were in Australia.
“It got to the point where the Australian assets weren't getting the money, time and resources needed to realise the value. All of our cash was rightly heading towards McDermitt as it was more the more advanced project.
“We were at a point strategically as to how do we make sure we are making the most of what we have. You won’t find too many tenement packages like Dynamic has.”
With the spin-out, the respective assets can now enjoy particular attention. The investment strategy looks like this:
Jindalee has introduced new board members with more of a development background to oversee the US asset. In Australia it is the geology veteran herself and the exploration manager taking care of business, while she looks to build out the team.
Over the next 18 months there are several exploration programs slated backed by the cash raised through the listing.
The company has good exploration targets on granted and yet to be granted tenements.
Wellman says it is a solid pipeline with a lot of depth and exposure to several commodities. She says Dynamic has the potential to play a good role assisting the battery metals industries.
“We're pretty close to the BHP nickel operations and I'm excited by the fact that we don't necessarily need to find something huge, because we're right there with all the other infrastructure in place.”
Then there’s BHP’s deal with Tesla, which makes Dynamic’s position stronger.
“In terms of where the battery thematic is going, I think it's going to be quite an interesting story to follow over the next few years because battery technology has a long way to go.
“We're only at the beginning. We haven't really seen the outcomes of all the investment that has gone into battery technology yet."
In terms of points of difference, Wellman says although Dynamic is a new company, it is already well established with a team that has been working together for nearly two years.
The exploration manager has been working on the assets for 18 months and is familiar with the ground. “The IPO was a formality and now we can actually get on with the getting the job done. It is an unreplicable land position, with a lot of potential across a variety of commodities.”
Finding balance
On top of rock climbing, Wellman should take up another sport: juggling.
She is running a company and helping to run a family with her supportive husband, but says she has the flexibility that she needs to succeed at both.
Wellman says if COVID brought on one positive change, it was the realisation that personal and professional lives can be in full balance most of the time.
Despite the challenges of running a junior company (Wellman is known for never backing down from a challenge), the lessons learnt about balance earlier in her career came to the fore during COVID. Work life balance and communication are key.
“I used to jokingly call myself a chief morale officer. I think success is about being as open and communicative as you can. If you've invested time in relationships people trust you, then you can overcome just about any challenge.”
She overcame the challenge of being one of the few women in the industry 20 years ago and is buoyed by the growing representation now.
Although not a paid mentor – she doesn’t believe in being paid for mentorship – she is happy to discuss her experiences with other women coming through the ranks as part of the necessary growth pathways being established.
Wellman says women are now holding roles in geology, legal and HR, and moving into higher management roles.
Attitudes have changed.
Now, when Wellman looks back at her internship in Kambalda 20 years ago, it is with a fondness but also with a keen eye for progress.
“I've never been a huge planner in terms of a career path. I initially wanted to be an archeologist, but I've kept an open mind.
“When I first started working underground, I thought this is amazing. I can't believe I get paid to wear overalls and run around in the mud. It was the best job in the world.
“Then when I started doing resource estimation, I thought this is pretty cool too – essentially problem solving, to look at the bigger picture and work out how to make a project viable.
“I have had quite an amazing run.”
And that run will keep going with Dynamic.