FIONA Hook has never thought of herself as a businesswoman.
Ancient history was her favourite subject at high school and this led her to studying archaeology at university.
What she couldn’t imagine was that this passion had put her on a pathway to becoming managing director of a business in the thick of Western Australia’s thriving mining industry.
Such is the demand from WA’s iron ore miners for Ms Hook’s Archae-aus that she has more than quadrupled staff numbers in the past decade to 40 archaeologists.
This has helped Archae-aus grow into the largest business of its kind in WA and one of the largest in the country.
Mining companies, such as Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group have engaged Archae-aus to provide independent cultural assessments involving indigenous and historical heritage for the approval process of their development projects in the Pilbara.
Archae-aus also works closely with two native title holder groups – Buurbalayji Thalanyji and Eastern Guruma.
The mining companies have pursued Archae-aus’ services to the point where Ms Hook is adamant she could double her employee base overnight if it wasn’t for a skills shortage in the profession.
“Our constraining factor is staff – if I could get another 10 or so experienced team leaders then I could then get the juniors to support them,” Ms Hook said.
“Our client base wants more people but I just don’t have more people to give them.
“It’s just the sheer scale of the development going on up there (in the Pilbara) with Rio Tinto, BHP and also Fortescue not far behind.”
This does mean, however, that Archae-aus should be well prepared in the future to provide more labour to the miners, which have in the past year outlined extensive expansion programs in the Pilbara.
To combat the challenge the demand has created, Ms Hook has already employed several graduates, as well as sourcing experienced archaeologists from overseas.
The business has introduced a training and development program whereby the graduates carry out up to four years employment alongside an experienced archaeologist before being given independent projects.
Management at Archae-aus have also taken courses to bridge the gap between archaeologists and business people.
“We are all archaeologists, that’s our passion, but our passion is to be as professional as we can possibly be as archaeologists,” Ms Hook said.
“With the business growing we saw we weren’t being professional as business people and we needed to ensure we had those skills as well.
“That’s an ongoing challenge as we change and grow, and for me it is huge challenge confronting those business issues.”
Ms Hook believes WA is in a unique position globally when it comes to archaeology, heritage and history. She said almost all of the information the state had on the archaeology of the Pilbara region was a result of the development mining companies have undertaken.
“That is really unusual to have this information purely supported by development and mining,” she said.
“It is paid for by mining developers and the government, but predominantly the miners.
“It is entirely their legacy and we wouldn’t have the information we have without them.”
Ms Hook’s development of Archae-aus was recognised with a short-listing for the Telstra Business Women’s Awards in 2011.
After graduating with honours in prehistoric and historical archaeology at Sydney University, Ms Wood moved to WA in 1993 to pursue a career in indigenous cultural heritage management.
She co-founded Archae-aus in 1996 with husband, Bruce Veitch, who died in 2004 of motor neurone disease, leaving her the sole director of the group.