Our Team
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Kari Armitage
Managing Director
She might be small in size but her thoughts are enormous! Kari is the ponytail driving force behind the trademark that is Quarry Mining today.
Her single minded dedication to customer service drives the culture and her obsession with sticking the red and black logo all over everything is why this Australian manufacturer is now recognised and highly regarded as a business partner amongst some of Australia’s largest bluechip mining and construction companies.
Decisions get made here and now within our close management team, and they reflect that Quarry Mining values; quality, service and value for your money over profit.
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Phill Breese
General Manager
Want to talk Coal Mines or drilling methodologies? Phill is your go to man for all things technical.
Always on the move, you never know if he is on the surface or underground in a coal mine or tunnel, overseas, designing a new product, training crews, trying to catch a minute with a rep, riding a Harley, or drilling with some kind of experimental product or pneumatic contraption.
Phill began his career as an underground coal miner at North Goonyella mine in 1994. The “Goon Show” as it is affectionately known has put some great training in to Phill and two other Quarry Mining team members and we are most grateful to them for that.
Phill’s momentum infects everyone and he takes our team on a fast paced ride full of achievements with the customer first in mind
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Samantha Cooper
CFO
Every business needs a great CFO and Sam is here to reconcile us out of the park – in the nicest possible way. Fresh thinking, leadership and a strong understanding of a turbulent mining industry will help us to stay strong through the tough times and not take the good times for granted.
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Callan Boslem
Business Improvement Manager
Callan is our Gen Y intellectual powerhouse – computer stuck? – excel or CAD work too hard? Go see Callan. And to top that off, he’s also very handsome for such a brainiac. He loves to model and we always hope he does more. 3D Inventor is his modelling software of choice, analysing and interrogating designs in the quest for perfection of our proudly Australian manufactured products.
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Dave Southwood
Technical Sales Representative, QLD
Dave is our third in the collection of experienced personnel we have collected from North Goonyella.
He too loves drilling and roof support and knows a stack about it. His attention to detail to customer requirements is second to none and is as reliable as the day is long. He also has a personal dedication to safety and training initiatives and applies this to our products and solutions.
He’ll see you around the northern area of the famous Bowen Basin.
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Kevin Royal
Manager, QLD
Kev has unmatched passion and commitment to his projects and runs the Queensland Quarry Mining branch the same way. Our happiness and success in Queensland is due to his dedication and self motivation.
Ever seeking improvement or better ways to do things, his brain works something like this – “the only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.”
Quarry Mining is proud to be a community focused outfit and for the past 5 years has donated regularly to the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service and other charities. Thanks to Kevin’s advocacy of these initiatives, the Mackay based CQ Rescue helicopter and other local and charities and sporting teams in their region are also starting to benefit.
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Peter Baskerville and Darren Arnott
Technical Sales Representatives, NSW
Pete and Daz are our dynamic duo of all things underground coal NSW. We suspect it is their other amazing skills make them exceptional overachievers. Pete has a black belt in Shotokan Karate and Daz is a many times Ironman Triathlete. That’s two very dedicated blokes right!
Oh - and – they have both been hiding underground in various pits getting the black stuff out of the ground for over 10 years each.
They love to help - and are more than happy to get coalfaced again to do so!
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Ben McMillan
Technical Sales – Civil and Tunnels
Resident funny man – avid cyclist – as long as he can carry enough to eat on his bike!
He’s a mover – if you need him, he’ll be there with a smile to sort out your product requirements from the quick and easy to the most complicated product issues.
We are very proud to have this friendly handsome head around here - #Youcantgrowgrassonabusyhighway!
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Ben Barnes
Business Software Manager
A super funny, super smart, nerd – how lucky are we to find one of them!? He truly does have the most wicked sense of humour in the office. He deliberately covers his computer screen in all sorts of gobbeldy gook - we haven’t a clue what he is really working on – and then voila - a solution appears like some kind of magic and brings our reporting and systems information to meaningful life! He will never reveal just how he managed it though – he’s a bit like batman really.
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Brian Barnes
Workshop Supervisor
Our funny fitter Keith once said “he has got a great big dose of congeniality hasn’t he!” And yes Keith is right – and popular - so everyone agrees. It is a pleasure to have Brian flying around at his Mac 10 pace juggling pumps, rockdrills and roofbolters, almost in one hand!
Don’t let his cheeky grin trick you though. He has all the right ingredients in his exploded diagram! Leadership skills, fussy on quality, communication, commercially savvy but most of all – a really great guy. Come and meet him if you can catch him.
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Tony Fraietta
Manager, Heat Treatment
Tony is the proud manager of the Quarry Mining Heat Treatment plant.
Tony is known for his love of tolerances and thresholds and critical dimensions. He gets upset when they don’t sit within the charts. He has thermometers and graphs and monitors on his monitors to make sure your metal is tip top when it comes out of his furnace.
This man can stand the heat in the kitchen! He is your go to guy for anything you need warmed up over about 700 degrees!
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Neil Alston
Business Development Manager
We are keeping up our quest to have good people around! Look what we have found!
Neil has worked for over 30 years in the coal mining industry in a variety of roles including; Mining Engineer, Technical Services Manager, Mine Manager and consultant. Like a lot of us here, his extreme interest in strata control is bordering on unhealthy!! Some serious innovation in ground support systems has come of it though.
This is a crazy coincidence as in the late 1980’s Angus Place became Quarry Mining’s first-ever coal mine customer!
Ask him about the marathon he did... we're very pleased to have him join us in our daily marathons here too!
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Michael Aubrey
Safety Officer
Joining us in 2021 from a background as a Printing Press Plant Manager at the mighty Fairfax Media Operation, Michael brings to us a wealth of experience and organisation, and an even bigger dose of kind, cool, calm and collectedness. It has also recently been revealed that he is a qualified electrician to boot…… from a distant past at Wallarah and Chain Valley Colliery.
He is a famous saltwater fisherman in his spare time, even managing to strike up quite a conversation on this very topic with ScoMo on his recent visit to our head office.
