There are some incredibly fierce women in the mining industry. All of them have worked hard to get to where they are, even if they had never imagined working in a dirt pit. Kustiani Tuckerman is one of them.
Kustiani is a Drill and Blast Engineer at The Bloomfield Group’s Rix’s Creek mine, something she had never even considered as a career option when thinking about entering the workplace.
She grew up in Wollongong, moved overseas with her family and went through primary school in the Middle East. Before Kustiani started high school, they left Bahrain and moved to Gunnedah where her dad got a job as a Mine Surveyor.
“A career in mining didn’t really appeal to me at the time. I always thought our move to a tiny country town was just temporary, and although hearing Dad’s stories about big blasts and working with life-sized versions of my brother’s little tonka truck was awesome, I couldn’t picture myself doing it.
“My mum is Indonesian and true to Asian mum stereotypes, encouraged me to pursue a career in the medical field, but I loved math and science and being outdoors, so engineering felt like a great option for me.
“I picked a civil/environment double major after a year of flexi engineering at the University of Wollongong. At the end of my first year, Dad suggested I come home over the uni break and do vacation work at Whitehaven’s Werris Creek pit so I could save some cash but also see what mining looked like.
“It was a small pit and had a few different things going on like through seams and hot shots in underground workings, so it was great to be able to get hands-on experience.
“It made me think that mining may actually be an industry I could be a part of.”
This opportunity inspired Kustiani to explore mining further, so she added additional mining subjects to her degree.
“At the end of my second year I did three months of vacation work at South32’s Dendrobium underground coal mine. I loved the experience, the comradery and the mateship underground was awesome. I also worked with two other female engineers for the first time!
“I loved that underground was like a different world. You did your time underground, came up and had a shower and no one knew what you did. I loved the roster I was on; it was the afternoon shift so you could go to the beach all morning and then work until midnight.”
The experience underground was not without its challenges, especially for a 19 year old woman.
“The logistics of having a period underground was a challenge. There are facilities but it isn’t always practical to use them. Uniforms and safety gear add to this challenge – I remember I was given a menstrual cup and a shewee to help – but there were many women who would use the pill to skip their cycle while working underground because it simply wasn’t easy to use the facilities.
“I have so much respect for my colleagues and other women working underground in coal especially. They’re tough.”
From underground, Kustiani ended up taking up some work at Rix’s Creek in Singleton.
“It was a fluke that I ended up at Bloomfield. At the last minute before the summer of my third year I decided to go for some more vacation work. A friend was living in Singleton working as an operator at the time and offered a spare room so when I saw a job at Rix’s Creek I thought, why not.”
Kustiani finished her summer at Bloomfield before getting stuck into her final year of uni having made the switch to a pure mining major. In the midst of applying for graduate jobs and interviews, a call from Bloomfield came offering her a Graduate position.
Rix’s Creek was where Kustiani learnt her drill and blast engineer trade.
“I am someone who really likes the satisfaction of seeing the whole process from start to finish. We do our own survey pick-ups, geological interpretation, then design, blast it and you immediately see the results. I love that every time there is a closed loop.
“Some of the places we’re blasting are very technically challenging, so I like that we are pushing the boundaries in certain areas. I’ve got fantastic mentors that have coached and supported me. My role works hand-in-hand with the shot crew so there’s that close relationship which I love. It’s also very cool to blow stuff up!”
Kustiani has recently returned to work following a 12-month break thanks to Bloomfield’s flexible work program taking some time to reset and reflect.
She played with the Singleton Roosters AFL club, a club that suffered significantly in June 2023 after the Hunter Valley bus crash.
“It made me step back and realise you only get gifted this life once and you have no idea how long you’ve got so I wanted to experience all the places I dreamt of travelling.
“It was a huge leap into the world of unknowns, the joy of passing friendships and reconnecting with old ones 13 years later after leaving home in Bahrain. Solo travelling taught me so much about confronting the world on my own but also about living among other people, depending on them and falling in love with their stories.”
There is a big drive for women to join the mining industry which Kustiani fully supports, however she believes that ultimately, they must be prepared to handle the realities and challenges the industry presents.
“There have been a lot of positive changes and improvements over the years, but mining still is a different world. I have a lot of guy friends who wouldn’t be able to hack it. I don’t believe it’s as simple as filling quotas – the stats aren’t fair, if the pool of candidates were even the probability of a 50/50 split still isn’t guaranteed.
“I think it should be the best person for the job. The bottom line is, not every woman is interested in mining, and that’s okay.
“It’s tough but rewarding – the opportunities are unreal. The grind is hard, but the rewards are totally worth it.”
At the end of the day though Kustiani loves the industry she’s a part of and strongly believes her line of work will be needed for a long time to come.
“The cool thing about mining is that there is always something different, and that is awesome.”
