What is your job about?

Our job is to keep the equipment running at 100% so that it is always producing. We do this with a lot of planning and a lot of safety, knowing the equipment, the spare parts, and how the plant works more than anything, teaching people how to do the work and delivering the tasks on time and safely.

What are the most common tasks?

Generally, maintenance here is on the chutes, which are equipment that are on the belts where the load is transferred from one place to another, that is why they are called transfer chutes. Also the idlers, which is where the belts pass; sieves, which are the ones that classify the material. That is more or less our main focus on a daily basis: sieves, idlers and chutes.

There are scheduled and unscheduled maintenances, which are those that appear on a daily basis or in case of an emergency. We prepare the scheduled ones in advance, with the spare parts and everything that corresponds; the unscheduled ones, generally, have to do with rollers or screen panels that can fall, chutes that break or excessive wear that must be addressed immediately.

How long have you been working for El Teniente?

I arrived more or less in 1993 or 1994 to do the first jobs at this same plant, the secondary crushing. We made some auxiliary chutes, I was also a master welder. I have been around, sometimes I was in other places and since 2005 or so I have been permanently working at the Secondary Crushing Plant and I have not moved from here.

What do you feel has been your main challenge in all these years?

In the workplace, I want to keep my job and continue contributing. And in the family, I want to support my family.

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

Many things. I was able to educate my children and have my own house. And I feel that I have also contributed to Codelco, which has been a mutual benefit, because it has given me stability to support my family and I have also given a lot to the company.

What do you like most about your job?

Maintenance is a very dynamic job, you meet a lot of people. We have helped a lot of young people who are studying, engineers who have gone elsewhere, we encourage them to continue, we teach them and that makes us proud.

What message or advice would you like to give to people in the Division regarding security?

We must always take care of ourselves, know the job before we do it, be guided by what more experienced people say, not arrive and intervene in a team without knowing it well. Here we take the time to teach people, because sometimes there are some who say they are not afraid of anything and then they get injured, they don't listen, so we have to take care of ourselves.

What does it mean to you to work and contribute to the generation of Codelco's surpluses, which the company delivers to all Chileans?

It means a lot to me. I am convinced that we all make a contribution, being here already makes us a contribution to the country, maintaining this plant and it is something that we do as a team, both the people at Codelco and the contractors. And I feel good about being part of that contribution, I want to continue improving and doing so until I have the strength to continue working.