Cheryl Pocklington

Director, Mines Investigations - Ministry of Energy and Mines

An advocate of encouraging operations to learn how incidents occur versus blaming workers at the sharp end of the task. For nearly 20 years I have utilized human factors for the prevention of injuries and incidents through field inspection, health and safety program audit and now predominantly conducting incident investigations.

On behalf of the BC mining regulator, I am responsible for a specialized team investigating serious or fatal incidents. Operational learning is critical. Regulators have an important and unique responsibility to empower ourselves and the industry to consider the new view of safety in the study of how incidents happen. Diving into the context of everyday work is essential in administering effective compliance management as we need to understand the gaps between work as imagined, prescribed, done and reported to truly be effective as regulators.

Working with regulators and enforcement agencies across multiple jurisdictions, plus employers, employees, unions, and occupational health and safety committees, I seek innovative opportunities to learn and collaborate to ensure learning comes first followed by compliance, and escalated enforcement when absolutely necessary to promote best practices across health and safety within the mining industry.

Specialties: Incident Investigation, Human Factors, Musculoskeletal Injury Prevention, Mining Industry, Occupational Health and Safety, Mine Rescue.

Gordon Walsh

Principal Consultant, Energy Safety Canada

Gordon Walsh has been working in health and safety for over 20 years and is currently employed with Energy Safety Canada (ESC) as a Principal Consultant, Safety Centre of Excellence. Before starting a career in safety Gordon was employed in various industries including Excavation, General Construction and Underground Mining.  Over the past 4 years Gordon has been focused on learning about Human and Organizational Performance (HOP) and Safety Differently concepts, working directly with experts in industry and academia to progress the philosophy of the 5 Five Principles of HOP forward with industry.

At 5:13 am, on May 9^th 1992, the Westray Mne in Pictou County Nova Scotia sustained a catastrophic explosion killing all 26 miners underground. Gordon was on his days off, and due back to work that very night. As a result of the explosion Gordon volunteered to work on the rescue and recovery efforts over the next 5 days. This experience of Westray had a profound impact on Gordon’s understanding of why workers get injured and killed doing normal work.

Gordon has been an instructor of safety courses and a presenter at multiple conferences over the last decade covering topics relevant to frontline workers as well as manager level content. Gordon sits on the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Area OHS Advisory Council as well the Construction Safety Research Alliance (CSRA) Safety Culture research project.

Gordana Slepcev

COO, Lomiko Metals

Accomplished C-suite executive and registered professional mining engineer with more than 25 years of experience leading ten mining operations on two continents. Experienced in all facets of the mining cycle, including exploration, permitting, corporate and regulatory, First Nations negotiations, project financing and investor relations. Achieved record production at the Pine Cove operation exiting the yearly output for 30%. Evaluate, acquired and constructed Stoger Tight Mine in Newfoundland. Developed the Argyle mine through exploration, resource estimation, engineering, permitting into profitable gold mining operation in Newfoundland. Successfully acquired and developed into feasibility stage the Goldboro project in Nova Scotia. Raised $4.2M to finance Quebec exploration assets resulting in completion of 13,000 meters infill drill program, metallurgical purification studies and baselines studies since joining Lomiko Metals in November 2021. Experienced ESG leader that negotiated MOU agreement and completed ECOLOGO certification for project in Quebec. Six years of non-profit board experience with trade associations. Skills and experience include:
– COO and executive roles – non-profit Chair of the Board
– Reporting to public and private boards – Fundraising: retail, institutions and government
– International business experience – Budget preparation and delivering on the budgets
– Subject matter expert in mining operations – P&L responsibility and planning
– Project Development Expertise – Company M&A experience
– Investor Relation – ESG Expert