 All right, so we're about to begin an interview with Heather Bruce Vitch the interviewer, as usual, will be William McCrack. It is November 26, 2015 and we are in St. John's, Newfoundland. So, let's begin. So, can you please state your full name? Heather Bruce Vitch? Can you please state your age? 56. And where were you born? St. John's, Newfoundland. And what did your parents do as a child? My dad was a sales rep, presented a manager of sales, and my mom was the homemaker for the most part, although she had a daycare in her latter years. I was a reader. I was always involved in public speaking and I was from a big family, so I'm one of seven and actually, when I was growing up, we didn't have as many organized activities, so really, with six brothers and sisters, we basically, I lived quite close to a park and we played outdoors. When I was a child, just a little bit of everything, I think, yeah, just typical kids books. And did you, was there ever a point, as a child, that you were at school when you were young? Were you interested in school of sciences or No, in actual fact, I was always interested in languages and so it's ironic that I would end up in a mining career. French and English, I really like to write, so English was a favorite and I was always fascinated with the fact that people could speak a different language and because of the proximity to the French islands of Saint-Pierre-Miquelon, I had traveled there and so was quite interested in learning the second language. So what did you do after high school? I actually went to Memorial University without a real idea as to what I wanted to do, but thinking that French was a great subject, so perhaps I'd pursue a degree in French. Spent a year in Trois de Vierre and a year in Stoutini and then came back into my last year at Memorial University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with a major in French. So any, I guess, quite often in University, that's where you discover yourself and realize what you thought you liked and sometimes that changes. Did that do, did that at the University have any impact on you in terms of changing your perspective? I think it did in the sense that I knew that I wanted to work with people. I was more clear that I really wanted to work with people. I wanted something, I think with an arts degree because it's general and you touch a little bit of everything. It gave me a sense that that's what I wanted to do in life. I wanted to touch a little bit of everything and so I guess I wanted to be a generalist without knowing what that term really meant. I wanted to be a generalist rather than a specialist and I think the language just opened up the fact that I think I realized how much I wanted to travel. So sort of a career with a little bit of travel and a little bit of use of the French language. My first job, my real first job was with the R&R company of Canada and I think the interesting thing of how I ended up there is that I was actually, in my last year of university, I was teaching French as a second language to what I would have called grown-ups. I was about 20 years old at the time and they were all professionals in St. John's area and one of them happened to be a recruiter for IOC for the R&R company of Canada. And so as I was getting closer to graduation, not knowing exactly what I was going to do, I said to them, if any of you here have a job, you know, that might be of interest, please give me a call. Lo and behold, I took the summer off and in September the interviewer from IOC called and said there's a job in Labrador City and having never been there, I thought Labrador, I think that's Igloos and lots of snow and said I don't really know and he went on to describe, they were looking for a second language teacher in the mining company to teach employees because they have a facility, we still have of course a facility in Sitzel, Quebec and our mining operations in Labrador City. So I was offered the position to teach employees French as a second language. That was my first job in Labrador City. So how was that? It was a really big transition. I grew up in St. John's, Lab City, Wabush, which is now called Labrador West is about, you know, 13,000 people combined, so it was very small and I missed family and the first time, the first year or two, I really wasn't sure I was going to stay, but people were very friendly, so the weather really wasn't anything to be worried about. You know, I sort of got used to the snow and the cold fairly quickly, people were great. We always say the weather is cold, but the people were warm, so that was helpful and then over time I just became very interested in the work and really committed to sort of the company and enjoying the company and then just grew a bigger network of friends and decided to stay. 25 years, 25 years. So I've actually spent about half my life in St. John's and about half in Labrador West. I was just curious, it must take a while just to get to Labrador West. Did you always buy? It's a milk run, so unfortunately it takes about three and a half hours, a direct flight's about two. And when I joined first and up until about 2000, we had a company aircraft, we had a couple of company aircrafts in the real good days, so we take the company plane and it'd be about two hours. I didn't think it was always a direct flight. That's better than I thought. I guess it's 25 years and about two. So I know now, I mean we work with new resources, so when was that transition or what was next after your second... So I joined in 1980, which was actually a really volatile time for the iron ore company, for the iron ore market, which is again where we are today in 2015. So the position was actually became redundant after a couple of years and I was asked if I was interested in a position in public relations in Sattile. And of course the advantage of having a French language meant that I could function in French. So I relocated to Sattile for a year. The iron ore industry continued to do significant downsizing and I was laid off. So I came back to St. John's for a couple of years, my parents were still here and I came back for a couple of years and worked with federal government and I worked with Revenue Canada. But again, keeping the French language, I was their language retention coordinator. So for the employees who were bilingual, I helped them maintain their skills. And I was really interested in leadership development. So I started to sort of do some volunteer work within the taxation center in terms of leadership development training, just as a little bit of a side. And then the next thing I knew I transferred back with Employment and Integration to Labrador West. I had met my husband and I wanted to go back and I went back as a bilingual employment counselor. Did that for a couple of years, got married, had a couple of children. Really began to enjoy as a family the smaller community because all the advantages of a smaller community when you're raising children are just wonderful. And IOC asked me in 1990 if I was interested in coming back and I came back as the superintendent of government relations. And interestingly enough, I said, interestingly enough, my first reaction was no thank you. I got laid off before. The mining industry is cyclical. I want something that's more life long. In those days, you took a job for life long, unlike what most people do today. Sure. And IOC said, oh no, you really have to think about this. And I went back in, I met with a number of colleagues and I was an automatic guest. I mean, I just, you know, just the atmosphere within the company and the energy and the commitment was a great place to work. Tell me a bit about that. That sounds interesting. So I primarily was responsible for provincial and municipal liaison on major files. It could have been anything from environment to apprenticeship, sort of quite a wide range. And I did quite a bit of travel back and forth to St. John's was luckily able to balance home and work. Quite well because I'd often take my children on the plane and bring them home here to grandparents while I do my work. So that was an added advantage for sure. I was the first female superintendent hired at the company. So that was quite an honor within IOC and continued to use my French quite a bit with my counterparts in Sattile. Did that for a couple of years and then moved in on to the leadership development and training side of HR. Design and delivery of training really enjoyed that. Got to meet across section of employees, worked with, at that time we co-facilitated, you could have been an hourly or staff person. We co-facilitated a lot of training based on your strength as an individual, not your job title. So that was a lot of fun. So I might have had the vice president of operations working with me to deliver time management or I might have had a journey personal electrician. And so that was really kind of cool because we were doing a lot of cross-training and it was more about the role models than the sort of formal pieces of the education as your background. Did that for a couple of years and then I guess then the next move was into manager of HR for Labrador City in Sattile. And then I had responsibility for recruiting organizational effectiveness, labor negotiations, comp and benefits, so really the full HR portfolio. Did that for about I guess about almost 10 years and again used my French constantly because it was back and forth between Labrador City and Sattile. A couple of rounds of labor negotiations which was certainly a learning experience. United Steel Workers were at the union at IOC, had never done labor negotiations before. So that was certainly an experience. I mean typical IOC is to give you great development and training. So we were sent off to Harvard to do the training for interest-based negotiations which was quite an exciting opportunity. But thought we would change the world and came back and realized it isn't quite as easy as that. It was quite a challenge. We had work stoppages in both rounds of negotiations. But certainly a great way to learn the business, a great way to learn people. And a great way to learn how to influence because there is equally as much negotiating probably with your management team as there is with your union team in terms of what are the priorities and what does the business really need. So it was a very good learning experience. And was there any project or have you been dysfunctional or just unsuccessful? I guess I don't know if there is anything in particular in terms of a particular project. I mean I think you know when you go through so much the cyclical nature of our business just means that you are continuously in a change management mode. And so I think you always look back and think oh what could we have done differently here. How could we have perhaps moved things along more quickly. But I think for the most part it's been pretty productive. I'll ask the different two. What would you consider to have been one of the most difficult parts of your career? Oh certainly it would be the negotiations. So I was new to negotiations. It was a wonderful opportunity given to me by VP who was very close by to coach. My counterpart in Satil was equally new to the process. We were looking to make some dramatic changes in the business. And I'll just give you a quick example. We were looking to take a wide range of roles and compress them into some broader occupations to allow for more flexibility in the business. That was very different. We were looking to introduce what would be a performance assessment type of tool for hourly employees. Not something that we've seen quite often in the industry. And differentiation is very different from sort of union's mandate if you will. So some very tough negotiations successfully completed but very tough. And when you're in a small town in a role like that it becomes challenging because your neighbors are often times people who have to make a feeling to have to take sides through those periods. And so yeah so it can be tough. And at the same time if you understand the real business rationale while you're doing it it helps a little. I had mentioned you were the first woman to become superintendent for the company. Yes. Now speaking of women how absent or pleasant were they for your career? And I mean you were through the natural resources so. Yeah in the early days certainly very few. I would say that you know when I started back in 1980 if you sat around a table I was likely the only female for quite a number of years. And then we had a few supervisors and we actually had a couple of trades people and a couple of laborers quite early. But in terms of the management employees not a loss. That has certainly changed. IOC now has about 20 percent females and rising quickly. And in the mining industry I would say the numbers are still fairly low. I think it's I think the national average is somewhere around 13 percent 12 13 percent. So certainly not near where it needs to be. But it is growing quickly. And as a woman were there ever and maybe more common earlier on but were there any experiences or times in your career where it was made obvious that women weren't as prominent in that industry. No I have to be honest. Right from the beginning I was quite comfortable. And I know that there were earlier days prior to my arrival sort of in the early 70s when women first started to come into the workforce that they may have experienced some different things than I did. But no I felt very comfortable from the beginning and to be honest with you. And you know I mean I would say to you that certainly from time to time you run across someone who perhaps thought that you should still be at home in the house. But I don't think that's any different from today you're still going to run into an odd person like that. But for the most part it was really you know if you could do the job well you did the job well and really it was the gender wasn't a huge issue. Thank you. Now as a now now working for HR would you still consider one of the biggest challenges to have been the negotiations or now at the new title? Well my role now is actually director communications and external relations. And when we spoke I was actually I did have the HR portfolio so I'll just clarify. So five years ago we decided in late 2010 we decided to open the office in St. John's. We were in a growth mode and obviously when you're in a growth mode there's a lot of interaction particularly with government. And so we decided to open this office to strengthen our relationship with particularly the provincial government. Great opportunity for me to move back home. My children were raised my husband was retiring I still going to work so wonderful way to combine both my own experience and come back a little bit closer to my original home. And I travel back and forth now because I have municipal government and community as well for Labrador West. We open the office and we were very successful I would say to you in the last in so sort of 2011-2012 in strengthening our relationships with the external stakeholders. Now we're in a very different position. It's very tough times in the R&R industry. The price is very low. It's very competitive. We've had to make some really tough decisions in the last year. And the external piece was a little less required and we needed much more focus on the internal in order to sustain the business. So I actually went back into for 2015 and managed to help out in both roles. So I did HR and did the communications and external relations piece as well. And just in the last week or so and moving back full time into communications and external relations. Now working relations in a natural resource company are there. I mean you haven't necessarily worked HR in different industries and sectors but are there like signature challenges that come with dealing with working HR for natural resources? Certainly I think so. I mean if you think about communications first of all the ability to communicate whatever the messaging is. You have people on machinery. You have people in plants. They're not all sitting in front of computers. They're not all easy accessible. So trying to cascade important messaging and you know business basics is often a challenge. And even though we have the technology of the iPads and you know and cell phones and things sometimes parts of the plant or parts of you know if you're operating a piece of machinery it's not practical or safe to be doing it that way. So that's one of the challenges. The fact that we operate 24-7. And particularly as we move into not just increased women but increased appearance you know who need to be at home or who. So daycare for example. Daycare for a 12 hour shift is one thing. Daycare for a 24 hour shift is a completely different thing. So there are some unique challenges. It is remote. And oftentimes we are able to recruit one of you know if there are two partners we can recruit one into the business. But because it's a small region and a small area the question is can the second person find that same career opportunity. And so you know in the good old days I think companies were able to create jobs for that second person. Those good old days are long gone. And so that's another one I think that is unique in terms of probably not just mining but remote and generally mining is a remote and they come together. And yeah this would be an interesting perspective to not necessarily as someone who is working in the lab for the mills. But do you think there is a disconnect between the general population and the natural resources for Canada? I don't believe people understand the value that it brings. Certainly I think that because you don't visit the mine because they are often in remote locations people don't get to see what the day to day jobs are. And so I think for that reason it's often an overlooked opportunity for career choices. And there is a terrific amount of automation for example now as well in mining. And so gone are the days when you know people sort of typically they would have pictured the underground miner with the light on the hash. And you know we now have autonomous trucks for example in some of our operations in Australia. We have you know certainly we're using drones to do satellite imaging in the mine. So it's a completely different place even then when I started. But even when I did start we had some terrific opportunities as career choices that I think would not have been known to many people who would not have visited a mine site. Part of the challenge over the years and certainly as part of the CIM and some of the mining promotional work we've done is to try and bring the mine as best we can to conferences. And so things like mining matters which is a terrific educational tool and form through our local CIM we try to do as many interactive displays as we can. So again what we always joke about is we're bringing the mine to St. John's every fall versus bringing the miners or people to the mine. And a couple of years ago we had a promotion IOC had a promotion where we did a contest and we allowed school children to apply and we actually flew them up with the teacher to site to get a first hand look at the mine. Loved it absolutely loved I think the teacher loved it as much as the kid I think he was I think was a kid in the teacher. Yeah but you're very right I don't think most kids realize they understand roughly that there's mining and what a miner does but the countless jobs around that. Well if you think about you mentioned lab I mean there's terrific you know chemists there's chemists and there's that piece of it there's statistical analysis there's all your regular IT finance all those jobs that support any kind of a business that are you know that are generic. And then you have you know the actual operations of the mine itself the mine engineers for example the metallurgists in the plants. We have a full occupational health and safety group so we have everything from a hygienist to a you know to safety safety advisors. What has been your most important work with stakeholders. I would say there's certainly been a lot of a lot of variety one of the ones that I've certainly enjoyed is worked over a number of years to to develop and facilitate a women in mining form in the province and which was held here in St. John's we did that for five years and we have we brought women from across the province in a variety of occupations and have been present school groups. And groups of interest and that grew from I believe the first year might have been about a hundred people attend up until I think it was seven or eight hundred the last year so that was terrific. And we also we also provided a booklet to the schools that showed career choices for women in mining along with sort of the educational requirements for typical salary range. So again that was a really rewarding project for sure from a from a women in mining perspective from a general perspective we have in Labrador City created two community forms since 2010. One we call a community advisory panel which really is the grassroots leaders of the community and we work together collectively on on things like recruiting and environment and homelessness. And then what we found when that was up and running a number of years. We really needed a more senior group who could commit kind of the funding for some of these things so it was great to have a group who could come up with some of the ideas but we needed the money and we needed the the stronger influence in terms of a higher level. So we organized a group called the regional task force and that actually is really creative in that it brings together municipal federal and provincial players. Quebec as well because nearby Fillmore Quebec which is Arcelor Mattel have been involved the town has been involved and we have deputy ministers sitting on that assistant deputy ministers. And so really it's a regional committee which began together looking at growth. And as I said to you in the last year and a half has really completely switched focus to issues like sustainability and are now looking at things like potential regionalization of services such as fire services because the whole community of the whole region to communities three communities has changed significantly. So that that has been really rewarding because it's brought together people from a whole variety of backgrounds who have a common a common vision who developed a common vision and are really working toward achieving it. Yeah you just mentioned sustainability. It's something that you see not just because she used to see kind of companies hire from the outside to build a sustainability or stakeholders. But now it's more and more it's become a must have for each company. Definitely. And I think the interesting thing is that we all learn from each other. So you know in this past year it's been very difficult and very challenging as I said to you. But one of the things we've drawn on more than ever is our stakeholders and asked for their support and support might be in terms of financial. But the term but the support might also be in terms of just helping us to to to get others to understand you know what what the nature of the business is about and what the market is about. And so in other words they're an extension they're almost ambassadors if I can say it that way to helping us you know get better understanding of a situation. Now the next question may seem loaded but there's there's no wrong answer. It just seems like a broad question but really it's whatever you do. So it's it's in your opinion are there any events people inventions disasters anything really that you must be mentioned when discussing the natural resources. I don't know if there's anything that comes to mind in terms of a particular event. I think though that what comes to mind is how far we've come from when I began in 1980 to today. In terms of in terms of just in terms of the whole the whole social you know the social environment the sustainability of the mind. I think that you know it was always very short term thinking and I think that now it's certainly it's certainly not. I think the whole safety health and environment well I would say health safety environment and communities. That whole you know that was sort of a you know in the early days safety was really the one branch that we looked at. I think from a mining industry now we you know those those four areas are covered very well by the majority of businesses and are really deemed to be a part of your social license to operate. So they're not a nice to have their equally as important as the operating metrics. So when we sit around a table and I just don't think that's unique to IOC I think in the mining industry in Canada when when executives are sitting around the table they're not just talking about production. They're talking about health safety environment and communities and the roles they play. So I think while I can't think of something that sort of brought us to that I believe that a variety of events over the years have brought us to that where that is now just part of everyday dialogue within within the mind and business. And I think that's really wonderful because it's taken us to a very much more responsible place and it's exactly where our communities want us to be. It's where our stakeholders want us to be. Our employees are just as interested in us being environmentally responsible as are the regulators. And so I think that's I think that's progress. Do you think that's come from the stakeholders? I think it's come from the stakeholders. I think it's come from awareness. I think it's come from increased education. It's bad points to some degree. It comes from that certainly social media plays a role again a good and a bad part sometimes but it certainly plays a role in terms of people's expectations and people's exchange of information. So I think it's been a it's been a healthy a healthy transition. Thank you. We'll just go into a few last questions. This again might seem like general one I can split it into what what are you proudest of in life and I could say in life and also professional. Proudest in life is that for some reason when I was 21 and just starting my career I decided that family were number one. Career was number two real close number two but there'd never be a question. And so I've been really lucky to have traveled extensively to have a great family and have a great career that I'm now in my 29th year. And honestly I enjoyed as much as I did when I started when I was 21. That comes from having a great family a great support a great support system. It comes from having some great bosses over the years. But I think it also comes with for whatever reason having a real clear understanding of what you want out of life and then not deviating from that. So that's been really wonderful from a personal perspective. From a work perspective I have I would like to say to you that one of my strengths is coaching. And what I had a great VP a number of years ago who was coaching me who actually helped me move into the labor side when I was very hesitant to do so. It looked pretty overwhelming. And he was great at helping you to stretch your boundaries. And I remember saying to him what do you like most about your job he was about 15 years at that point as a VP of HR. And he said I love to watch people develop and go beyond the comfort zone. And I would say to you it's really interesting but that is what I love about my job. And so I have the opportunity lots of times to help coach. I've done a lot of recruiting of junior engineers and I ran the graduate program for a number of years. And so a lot of that was mentoring. And I continue to do mentoring in a variety of ways. And the most rewarding part is to actually see some of the young people develop to be very strong leaders in the organization and beyond the organization. And to them watch them go ahead and go on to mentor and coach others. I think that's the most rewarding part. You just mentioned a while ago the CIM. Are there any organizations you're part of? Yes I am. I'm currently a member of CIM but I'm actually the president of Mining NL. So the Mining Association for Newfoundland and Labrador. First I want to say yes. First female president. So again that's kind of cool. And I'm certainly enjoying that. It's been a tough couple of years because we have a great board and we have a great executive director. But you know again it's a tough time to be in the mining industry but we're continuing to pull together and continuing to move ahead as best we can. We're looking at a great innovation conference early in the new year. And that's partly to sort of say to the membership yes it's a tough time. But you know we have to keep growing and innovation is a key part of the success in any business going forward. So let's look at what mining can do in terms of making themselves more competitive. So we're looking forward to some top notch speakers to do that early in the new year. So from a mining industry and L perspective we're working on that as one of our challenges. Yeah unlike what many people say or used to say that mining is a sunset industry. It's so much innovation. It's really rewarding and interesting to see. And again I'll say to you one of our Australian operations actually operates a control center in Perth which really controls what's happening in the mines in some very remote areas within Australia. And we're now looking at doing something similar in Labrador West. And we've just begun our operations excellent center. It's amazing and I think the other interesting the fun thing is that it's going to be allow a number of employees to upskill. So there are a number of employees who have jobs that for which you know after a while they become fairly routine and so the chance to introduce new technology into their jobs I think is going to be really well appreciated. One last question. If you were speaking to someone like a student you would just say you'd like to mentor and coach. What would be the one important life lesson or piece of advice you would give them? Resilient. You have to be resilient. You have to be resilient. You know what I've seen since 1980 to 2015 in IOC and within the mining industry. You have to be able to roll with punches. You have to be able to move as change requires. You just have to keep adjusting. So yes there are good times and there are the bad times. The good times, bad times. If you're a person who can't handle the gray or the ambiguity which was a word I remember at one time looking at it in a job hosting and I didn't know really what the word meant and I looked it up and thought oh I'm very good at that. So if you can't live in the gray zone mining I don't think mining is the place. If you like never knowing what's going to happen the next day and you can roll with punches I think mining is a great opportunity for anybody in any sort of block of life whether it's science, resources, technology. What are a few of your examples of the grays? Well I think again we went through a growth period and opened this office and within two years and staffed up and within two years we were taking 50% of the workforce from this office and unfortunately making redundant and heading into a survival mode. So that's a pretty tough and as a community liaison with your stakeholders you're out investing all kinds of money in community groups and doing all kinds of growth and then within days or weeks it seems you're turning around and going into a completely different mode. So emotionally that's tough for people to be able to sometimes move through. So I think miners are a different breed. Yeah, they're always better. A cyclical business, yeah. Yeah, so thank you. Is there anything else you'd like to add or share? No, I just think this is a wonderful project. I think mining is sometimes not as out there in the forefront and I think the opportunity to speak to some people who've been involved in mining is a great project and certainly across the country there's a range of experiences and within the age groups there's a range of experiences and I certainly commend you for the work you do. Well, thank you Emma. Thanks for your time. Thank you.