Cameco’s commitment to workplace education taps a rich resource

Below is an excerpt from “Mining Potential,” an article about Cameco Corp.’s in-house education program that appears in the first issue of Canadian CEO. If you would like to receive a copy of the full article for reprint in a newspaper or newsletter, please contact ABC CANADA by e-mail at info@abc-canada.org.

Jerry Grandey, CEO Cameco Corp.

Despite the still-common perception of mining as a somewhat unpolished, old-fashioned industry, the reality is that it has been swept up in the technological revolution, says Jerry Grandey, CEO of Saskatoon-based Cameco Corp., the world’s largest, publicly owned uranium miner. “From an engineering and an operations perspective, mining has become a technically sophisticated business,” he says. “It is no longer about picks and shovels and dynamite.”

The skills required of employees at Cameco’s sites in Northern Saskatchewan, for example, go well beyond the typical scope of high school curricula. Besides general math and computer skills (“because everything these days has a microchip and a computer associated with it,” says Grandey), employees need the ability to read and follow strategic and tactical planning outlines or the technical guides to operate equipment safely and at maximum efficiency. Education is also important to Cameco because, like many mining companies, the company gives precedence in its hiring policies to the areas surrounding its sites. These are often remote, sparsely populated and economically depressed communities with limited access to public education. In the case of northern Saskatchewan, for example, the unemployment rate runs at 60 per cent, 61 per cent of families have an annual income of less than $30,000, and, partly because many northern communities did not even have high schools until recently, 36 per cent of adults have not reached a grade-nine education.

Cameco’s workplace education programs have played an important role in the region as a result. They have evolved gradually over the course of two decades, and in collaboration with a range of stakeholders - other mining companies, federal and provincial government agencies, and local First Nations and Métis groups. In fact, the programs are now part of the Multi-Party Training Program (MPTP), a much broader initiative designed to address basic equality issues across northern Saskatchewan through education and training. Between 1999 and 2002, Cameco and its partners in MPTP invested $7.5 million in the program.