Rock ON: Careers in Ontario's mining

OMA helps launch new publication highlighting careers in mining

The "Rock ON: Careeer opportunities in Ontario´s mining industry" and its companion website has hit the streets -- and high school hallways.  Twenty ambassadors of the industry, who are bright, passionate, successful and love their jobs are eager to share their experiences with high school students.  These prospectors and geologists and miners, mechanics and engineers offer intimate, first-hand impressions of an industry young people need to know more about. 

The Ontario Mining Association is proud to be an original supporter of and contributor to this worthwhile initiative of Northern Ontario Business/Sudbury Mining Solutions.  The Board of Directors of the OMA views this project as a means to better inform young people about opportunities the mining industry offers.  The Mining Industry Training and Adjustment Council (MITAC), which is also a major sponsor of this project, predicts that the industry in Canada needs to attract 81,000 new highly skilled and well paid employees over the next decade to meet its human resource needs and to replace current workers who are retiring in the near future. 

"Rock ON" is intended to be a classroom resource particularly for Grade 10 students who are taking a careers course.  It is unique in that it allows mining industry employees themselves to talk about how they came to be earning a paycheque in the mining industry and what they like about the work they do.   Students can learn from young people in the industry how "video game technology promotes mine safety," how "mechanics keep big machines purring," how "First Nations go for gold," how prospectors have "a passion for the great outdoors," why "geology is a lot like detective work" and how scientists "keep the environment clean and green" and many other stories.

"The profile approach makes it a lot more personal," said "Rock ON" editor Norm Tollinsky.  "Students will be able to relate to the employees profiled and pick up on their passion for an industry that offers exposure to the outdoors, opportunities for travel, use of cutting-edge technology and the challenges associated with discovering, extracting and processing the Earth´s treasures."

 "Rock ON" will also be offering three $1,000 scholarships to students interested in pursuing a career in the mining sector.  Copies of the magazine are being distributed to every high school in Northern Ontario and they are also being made available to guidance counsellors elsewhere in Ontario.  The content of the publication -- which is available in English and French -- along with scholarship application forms are available at the "Rock ON" website at http://www.rock-on.ca/