Developer of the Global Minerals Industry Risk Management (G-MIRM)program, Jim Joy will be inducted in the Safety category (sponsored by Orica) at the gala dinner in the Brown Palace Hotel, Denver on February 16 (www.im-halloffame.com)- lead sponsor Stantec. He is a highly experienced and qualified risk manager who is well-recognised in the global mining industry. As the Director of the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre (MISHC) in the University of Queensland (UQ), he was contracted by Anglo American to develop an internal training program to enable its employees at all levels (executive to operator) to better understand safety risk and make better decisions both in day to day operations and major engineering decisions where these impact safety. In essence, Anglo American was looking for a cultural change to safety risk management within the organisation.

Phil Turner, General Manager Risk & Sustainability at JKTech says “what Jim produced was unexpected. Through his background and knowledge formed through many years’ experience, Jim developed a truly remarkable program that far exceeded the expectations of Anglo American as, for the first time, a structured process became available that challenged the mindset and tolerance of company executives and line leaders to risk, based on the principle of ‘care’. Notwithstanding the well-known and accepted duty of care in the mining industry, the approach developed in the G-MIRM program was confronting, challenging and almost life-changing for those leading Anglo American. The technical content of the program is based on a journey model from basic to resilient across four layers of risk (critical risk down to daily task risk). But it was the ability of the program and Jim’s approach to permanently change mindsets and behaviour across a global multinational that was truly unique.”

Anglo American was so impressed with the results that they transferred the intellectual property to UQ to enable a program to be initiated that would offer G-MIRM to the global resources industry. The short video clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbk6QhCln-4&feature=player_embedded explains this decision. Since then, university partners have been established in South Africa, Canada, Chile and Brazil where lecturers have been accredited to deliver G-MIRM by UQ through its commercialisation company, JKTech. Three major mining companies have committed over $1 million each to deliver G-MIRM throughout their business and many other smaller companies have made scale-equivalent commitments. Government regulators have praised the G-MIRM program and in 2013 the West Australian Department of Minerals and Petroleum contracted JKTech to take all of their inspectors through the program and opened those sessions to industry participants with the intention of driving consistency in risk management across the sector.

G-MIRM remains the major offering of JKTech’s Risk and Sustainability department and the list of clients is continuing to grow, even through a difficult period in the mining industry. In 2012, JKTech opened an office in Johannesburg, South Africa on the basis of the success of and continuing demand for G-MIRM programs. Currently, this office is dedicated to G-MIRM delivery.