A West Coast geologist, an Auckland lab manager, and a kaiārahi and environmental compliance manager were celebrated as the stars of mining and quarrying at industry awards given out today in Hamilton.

Celebrating diversity and inclusion, Straterra, AQA, and MinEx hosted the Komatsu Women in Extractives lunch and awards ceremony.

Charlotte Buxton-Blue took out the MITO Emerging Star award for her geology work at Federation Mining.  She has shown innovation, playing an integral role in setting up industry best practice geological logging, mapping, and database systems. Charlotte is looked to for her leadership by others in the geology team and she is managing diamond drilling contractors in a highly changing underground production environment with challenging drilling conditions.

Charlotte Harrison was named Hanga-Aro-Rau Workforce Development Council Leader of the Year for her hard work at Winstone Aggregates. Charlotte has shown creativity in team building and feedback from her team shows her leadership skills. She is a firm believer in safety first and to promote that, her team has created a wall with reminders of why they all want to go home safe. She leads a diverse team of laboratory technicians, ranging in tenure from a couple of months to 28 years and She’s has so smoothly integrated with her team that you would have thought she’s been there 28 years herself.

The Kristy Christensen Memorial Award (sponsored by MinEx) was awarded to Tara Edwards-Tusa. Tara leads the continued advancement of Te Ao Māori within Fulton Hogan and Stevenson in a considered and unassuming way. Tara never makes anyone feel like she doesn’t have time for them, even when she herself is constantly under the pump. That’s a rare skill and one that makes her a great leader. Tara not only has the leadership skills to guide Stevenson Aggregates to a place of cultural inclusion, understanding and diversity, she also has the full support of her peers.

Lindy Nelson, food producer, founder of the Agri Women’s Development Trust, and ardent supporter of women was the guest speaker and spoke about her diversity and inclusion journey and what happens when we have cultures of belonging. Lindsey shared her stories and experiences of diversity and inclusion and pose the question- ‘can we truly have diversity and inclusion without belonging?