CEO lunch with Mike Young

Business News sat down to lunch at Julio’s with the CEO of local uranium developer Vimy Resources.

Mike Young has had quite a ride through his mining career.

He arrived in Western Australia in the mid-1980s, famously listed BC Iron on the ASX as its sole employee, and struck a 50-50 joint venture deal with Fortescue Metals Group to gain access to its rail and port.

For the past two years, Mr Young has been CEO of the uranium developer Vimy Resources.

It’s all a long way from native Canada, where he grew up as one of four boys in a working class suburb of Kingston, Ontario.

“Kingston has several penitentiaries,” Mr Young told Business News. “So when people hear you’re from there, they ask ‘when did you get out?’”

Mr Young freely admits that life might not have worked out as well as it has. When Mr Young was a boy of nine, his older brother was sent to jail, and this was a huge wake-up call.

“Seeing what that did to my mum and dad I felt an obligation not to go down that road,” Mr Young said.

“As a teen, I worked hard, didn’t drink, never smoked.”

At school, Mr Young was inspired by his geography teacher, Sister O’Shaughnessy, and aimed to study this at university. He loved the outdoors and enjoyed family camping trips, canoeing and hunting.

At Queens University, he switched to geology and a chance meeting brought him to Perth in 1987.

Megan Clark, who would go on to work for BHP Billiton and be CEO of CSIRO, was doing a PhD at Kingston, and through her, Mr Young met a WA girl who he followed to Perth.

He immediately headed off to Curtin University to get the lie of the land from some geology professors.

“Professors are always tapped in to the local mining industry,” Mr Young said.

“Within a week I had eight job offers.”

Mr Young secured his first job in Marvel Loch, near Southern Cross (400 kilometres east of Perth), working for the Great Victoria Gold Mine.

“I just loved it,” he said. “In Canada we’d experience minus 40 degrees, four men to a tent for months. There’s something about Australia, it’s hard to explain. I love the self-effacing sense of humour.”

After a few years, Mr Young visited his family in Canada, but Australia drew him back. His relationship had ended, but he was later to meet another Perth lady and get married.

By the mid-1990s, due to colour blindness (he cannot see green) Mr Young had gravitated towards resource geology and a new job beckoned at Mining and Resource Technology (MRT).

“We had some of the earliest computer graphical packages,” Mr Young said. “It’s commonplace now, you can do this stuff on your phone.”

Around this time, Portman Mining hired MRT to look at its mine, and this was Mr Young’s first exposure to iron ore. He then went on to work for Cazaly Resources, and then another mining technology business.

“One of the best things about mining is that everyone knows each other, which must make it difficult for recruitment companies,” Mr Young said. “I was here at Julio’s one time with a friend from out of town. I tapped a random person on a table next to me, who knew someone I knew, and my friend thought it was a setup. Perth’s just like that.”

The BC Iron story

Mr Young was then approached to run BC Iron, a brand new business. It had no office and Mr Young was to be the sole employee when it listed in December 2006, with Tony Kiernan as chairman.

“By April 2007 we started drilling and the results were so good that we knew we could make it work,” Mr Young said.

An important factor for the young miner was gaining access to Fortescue’s rail and port.

“At that time the ore price was $US28, so it was all about access to the port,” Mr Young said.

“We made FMG a 50-50 partner. By late 2009 we had a test pit that had mined 650,000 tonnes. We went through native title in 2010, and had an agreement with the Palyku people.”

In February 2011, BC Iron made its first shipment from Port Hedland.

“Andrew Forrest was up there in support,” Mr Young said. “He was a big supporter. We would later fight the mining tax together. The first time I met him he had his feet up on the table. He said, ‘Michael, we’re not a charity’ and I thought this was going to be tough, but it all worked out really well.”

The iron ore price started to rise, and the iron ore industry was bubbling to a head. In Mr Young’s words, BC Iron then became a bit of a sausage factory.

With the business ticking along, Mr Young took nine months off and went cycling in Europe.

Mr Young was then approached by Energy and Minerals Australia (the forerunner to Vimy Resources).

“Andrew Forrest put $12 million in, we cleaned up our debt, and changed our name to Vimy Resources,” Mr Young said.

At the time there were 129 companies on the ASX with the word ‘energy’ in their name, and EMA was confused with many others. The new name came from a WWI battle. The Vimy Ridge battle is as much a part of Canadian folklore as the Gallipoli campaign is to Australians. The company has since raised a further $27 million.

Career advice

“You need experience on the tools,” Mr Young said.

“You can’t come out of uni and drive a desk. You have to be out on the coalface, for years. No matter what industry you are in.”

Mr Young has seen lots of ups and down through his career, and believes much of the current negativity is in the mind.

“I’ve been here 30 years and the last ‘up’ was unprecedented, so there was always going to be a sharp down,” he said.

“I see this as just another valley, but we’re still above sea level; the world is still growing, people are still using metals. When we look back we tend to say how great things were, but when we look forward all we see is doom and gloom.

In 10 years time we’ll look back and say what a good time we’ve just had.”

Away from the day job, Mr Young helps out with the SAS Resources Trust and the Ride for Youth, and the Albany to Perth bike ride in aid of Youth Focus.

Leadership style

Mr Young argues that the job of the leader is to bring together very strong, smart people and let them get on with their jobs. They should be allowed to challenge the leader’s thinking, but still respect the boss.

“I don’t see people as men or women, but for their skills and views,” Mr Young said.

“Diversity of opinion around the board or executive table is important. Megan Clark was a good friend from the get go, Cheryl Edwardes is my chair at Vimy and I know Gina Rinehart very well.

“The problem is that there are not enough women coming through geology. I’m sure there will be more over time.

“Sometimes, women need to say ‘yes’ more when given an opportunity, as men tend to say ‘yes’, then work out how to do it later.”

Mr Young uses social media such as Facebook to check in with overseas relatives, and Twitter to look into the latest publications on nuclear research.

“I get up every morning with the coffee grinder, read the morning papers, the Business News email … I don’t read many of the trade magazines, as they are bit dated,” he said.

After that, it is usually a bike ride, which he finds a very meditative experience.

“I need to do 200 kilometres a week, or I get grumpy,” Mr Young said.

“Just ask my wife.”