Allison (Kate) Gear knew she needed to make a change in her life when her place of work continued to mistreat her and other women of colour.
Living in Marapikurrinya (Port Hedland) and ignoring the naysayers, she resigned from her job and put her name down for Fortescue's new Vocational Training and Employment Centre program. Now the Ngarluma-Yindjibarndi woman leads the VTEC program as the superintendent.
Fortescue launched VTEC in 2006 and marked 15 years of operations in a ceremony on Friday, October 28 in Marapikurrinya.
Since its inception, it has seen over 1000 Aboriginal people graduate the program into jobs. Although she's now a superintendent, Gear said she definitely didn't start there and slowly worked her way up.
"In 2009 I was a VTEC trainee myself, part of Summit 300," she said.
"After graduating I headed out to Cloudbreak as a dump truck operator heralding the beginning of my Fortescue journey, which has included being a VTEC coordinator, Indigenous development coordinator, training facility facilitator and back to VTEC coordinator.
"Tonight, I stand before you as a VTEC superintendent."
Compared to other workplaces, Gear said there were times in her past where job growth was not an option for someone like her.
"Throughout my working life I have had many roles working for different companies," she said.
"But it was during these times that I found out being an Aboriginal person meant you say on the lowest rung of the ladder.
"And being an Aboriginal woman meant the ladder didn't even have a rung for you to sit on.
"So opportunities for me no matter how hard I worked, they just didn't exist for me at those times."
Gear said coming into the VTEC program was a breath of fresh air as she knew she'd at least have guaranteed employment afterwards.
"For the first time I graduated a training program where I actually was guaranteed a good job at the end of it," she said.
"Instead of getting a certificate not worth the paper it was printed on and an empty handshake."
Given the success of Fortescue's VTEC program, founder and chairman Andrew Forrest said there are plans to replicate the program within Fortescue Future Industries "as soon as possible".
