Today, he has been at Codelco División El Teniente for fourteen years, where he works as shift manager at the SAG Plant in the Colón sector.

What is your job about?

The shift manager's job is very intense, because we have several plants, two mills, a flotation part, the pebble crushing plant, plus the auxiliary crushing plant that we are also in charge of. We analyze indicators, respond to failures that may occur shift by shift, and also look for innovations and continuous improvements in the processes.

The first thing we do when we arrive is to hand over the shift with the previous shift manager, to find out if there were any anomalies and determine solutions, in addition to analyzing data, sequences and trends from the previous shift, to see gaps, and then analyze them in the performance dialogues we have with the team.

The group I lead is made up of ten people, plus another person who is in the Integrated Operations Center (CIO) in Rancagua, plus the electrician on duty. I am also responsible for the collaborating staff who are at the plant, so we are talking about a hundred and fifty people in total.

What is the main challenge in your work?

Taking care of people, making sure they are well, motivating them to be energetic day after day. And that is not easy, because we all have problems outside of work and it is important to be attentive to how they arrive, how they are and how they leave, because there are families behind them.

And there is also the daily motivation to continue growing as a professional, helping the process, the plant, the Division and the Corporation.

What safety message would you give to the workers at El Teniente?

The role we play as leaders in motivating people is very important, because there are always dangers in industrial processes and there are always families involved. I also have a seven-year-old son, a wife, a father, a mother… so having an accident or one of the workers that we, as leaders, are in charge of is very hard, because here we are all one family, one team.

How long have you been at El Teniente?

I arrived in 2010 and, honestly, it was really fun, because I said I was never going to work in mining. I graduated from an industrial high school in 2001, where they offered me an internship at the Division and I said no, because I didn't know mining and I didn't know what it was about.

Then other people offered me work and I said no, that it didn't interest me. From there I studied industrial engineering, then in 2009 I lost my job and they called me to work at Codelco. There I joined Sewell, I started as an operator and in 2015 I arrived at SAG, also as an operator. I made a career and since 2020 I have been working as a shift manager.

What do you feel El Teniente has brought to your life?

A lot. It has given me knowledge and values. I met people who had been working for 35, 40 years and I learned, acquiring the values they have, learning from their history, their achievements and how they passed that on to their children.

Today, when my son tells me that he wants to go see the different minerals with me, I am excited, because I am giving him the values of mining and he wants to learn about this. “Feñita” is seven years old and he likes minerals, dinosaurs, robotics, he reads and acquires that information. So I tell him son, I only rescue copper, but there is also molybdenum, gold, silver and perhaps there are other minerals in other parts of the mine that I do not enter, but he is interested and likes the subject very much.

What does it mean to you to work at Codelco, a company that delivers its surpluses to all Chileans?

I am motivated to come here to try to maximize as much as I can in copper recovery, processing, innovations, improvements, to contribute with that grain of sand and motivate the teams so that we achieve everything that is delivered through copper, the contribution to the country, which is very significant and what the Division contributes, with the effort that this requires, because it is also a sacrifice, but the important thing is to contribute to the country, to families, to communities.