Sustainability’s Senior Advisor, Marty Karow, a 36-year Australian Navy veteran, was recently a proud participant at MMG’s ANZAC Day service at their Dugald River mine in rural Queensland. Marty is currently contracted at Dugald River progressing through a 22-month Training Development Project. Dugald River is a relatively new Zinc and Lead Underground Mine situated 1,700km North-West of Brisbane.
Marty joined the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in 1976 as a 16-year old Junior Recruit, and he retired from the RAN as a Lieutenant (Training Systems Specialist) in 2012. In February 2012, Marty started employment with Sustainability, and later that year he accompanied then Sustainability CEO, Tony Webster-Smith, to the Australian War Museum in Canberra to collect the National Defence Reserves Support Award, which Sustainability fittingly won that year.
Sustainability has employed many ex-military personnel over the years, and Sustainability’s ties with the Australian Defence Force remains strong. Marty’s transition from the Navy to civilian Fly-In-Fly-Out (FIFO) work was relatively seamless. As Marty says, “My Mining FIFO work is like patrolling the Australian coastline on a Navy Patrol Boat. However, instead of spending weeks out on the remote ocean, I now spend weeks in the remote outback. My family and I are used to this unique work-life balance, but obviously it is not suited to everyone”.
The 2019 ANZAC Day Dawn Service at MMG’s Dugald River was very well attended and it was a very proud moment for Marty to be invited to be one of the ANZAC Day Dawn Service speakers. As with all of the contracted projects that Marty undertakes, he embraces each individual project and gets involved with its people and its workplace environment. “I don’t want to be viewed just as another contractor, but rather as a truly important and effective member of the team”.
Being part of MMGs ANZAC Day organising committee was indeed an honour for Marty that brought back some great Navy memories from the past, as well as respectfully remembering all of our Australian and New Zealand heroes that have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our families and our Countries.