PREMIER Coal general manager Patrick Warrand has quit after seven years in the role and nine years at the Collie mine.
He has not organised another job and expects to remain at Premier for three to four months to assist in the handover to a new general manager.
“I have been thinking about what I will do but just don’t know,” he said today (Tuesday).
“I will have a little bit of a break and look for something new and different.”
Mr Warrand is a mining engineer, who worked in the Pilbara and on Koolan Island then Canada and Indonesia, before starting work in Collie.
He had had never taken long service leave during his 28 years in the industry and would look around for something. “All options are open,” he said.
CFMEU mining and energy section secretary Gary Wood said it was disappointing the industry was losing “someone of Patrick’s calibre”.
“A change in management style often leads to changes in personnel,” he remarked.
Premier has already started looking for a replacement.
Mr Warrand said he expected the company to look mainly in Australia, but it might look as far afield as Indonesia,
When the news broke on Tuesday afternoon, Yancoal chief executive officer Murray Bailey thanked Mr Warrand for his leadership during Premier’s integration with Yancoal and for building on the mine’s extensive and successful community engagement programs.
“This is the longest time I have spent in one place,” Mr Warrand said, when the coal mine celebrated in diamond jubilee in 2009.
Aside from his work at Premier Coal, Mr Warrand has been a member of the Collie Rotary Club and was involved in many club projects, including the homeless for a night sleep-out, footpath to the cemetery and the annual adventure race.
He has served on the Chamber of Minerals and Energy executive council, the Bunbury-Wellington Economic Alliance and the Collie Visitor Centre committee.
“I enjoy being a part of the community. Liz (his wife) taught at Fairview Primary School for five years so I got to develop a good relationship with people through that,” he said.
Mr Warrand was also a director on Wesfarmers Premier Coal’s board which made all of the executive decisions on Collie operations.
