Voices of BlueScope

62. Maintaining Heritage with Walter Suber OAM

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0:00 | 15:00

BlueScope Company Historian is joined by Walter Suber OAM to discuss his recognition with a Medal of the Order of Australia, which he received for his long-term contribution to Australian manufacturing, collaboration with education and government institutions and the Slovenian community.

Chapters

  1. Introduction: 0:00
  2. Starting in Steel: 1:01
  3. Research, Distribution and Product Development: 3:28
  4. Supporting Australian Manufacturing: 8:47
  5. Recognition for Work in Community and Industry: 9:52
  6. Conclusion: 14:53

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Credits

  • Interview by Craig Nealon
  • Recording and editing by Martin Feld

Martin Feld  0:09  
Hello, and welcome to Voices of BlueScope: the podcast where we go behind the scenes at BlueScope to meet the people who create strength every day. I'm your host, Martin Feld; thank you for joining us. This time on the show, we're featuring an interview by BlueScope Company Historian, Craig Nealon, with Walter Suber OAM. Walter kindly sat down with Craig at the Inside Industry Visitor Centre to discuss his career with Bluescope and beyond, which has spanned metallurgy, research and product and business development. Furthermore, he covered some of the key achievements for which he was recognised with a Medal of the Order of Australia, including contributions to Australian manufacturing and associated collaboration with government and educational institutions, along with his long-term support of the Slovenian community in Australia. Let's hear their conversation now.

Craig Nealon  1:06  
Congratulations!

Walter Suber  1:07  
Thank you very much!

Craig Nealon  1:08  
You must be super-proud of getting this award.

Walter Suber  1:10  
Absolutely!

Craig Nealon  1:11  
And we'll get to the award in a minute, but tell me a bit about your career. Like, when did you start, and what made you come to the, well, the steel industry and manufacturing in general, in the first place?

Walter Suber  1:22  
It basically started with a love of, I guess, science, so I still enjoy doing science when I was in high school, whatever, and we were looking at either chemistry, something in chemistry, and then metallurgy popped up as well as an option, and because my dad used to work in the steelworks many, many years ago, I thought that was a pretty good connection and I decided to go down that path. I went for an interview and I started in 1978 as a baby trainee metallurgist—straight out of school.

Craig Nealon  1:53  
I'll just ask you about your dad. Where did your dad... did you know much about what your dad did?

Walter Suber  1:53  
Yeah, Dad actually worked at my first department, believe it or not. It was like it was, it was meant to happen. He actually worked at number two open hearth. He was actually working on the checkers and on the floor, so on the front side of the business, as opposed to where the tapping of the steel happened at the back end of the furnace.

Craig Nealon  2:16  
So that could have, that was a pretty brutal sort of place in its time, I mean, hot and dirty and quite confronting, but also I know that people really enjoyed working there, right? They had a real connection with it.

Walter Suber  2:28  
Absolutely, honestly, that was one of the best departments I've ever had. The guys were fantastic, everybody knew their job, they helped one another. There was over 900 people then—when I started, there was 22,000 people down here at Port Kembla, so it was a great number. There was people basically buzzing everywhere, and the guys on the shop floor were tremendous. I came on as a trainee, making sure that we put the right grades and whatever on the worksheets for the guys, and then we followed that all day and made sure that all the alloys went in the rear end of the furnace and made sure that it got tapped correctly and all that sort of stuff. So, that was one of the elements, and then basically working out of the production office most of the day, so it was pretty busy and pretty intense. You're right about being hot and you're certainly right about being a little bit daunting to start off with, because it is... everything was on a grand scale.

Craig Nealon  3:27  
It'd be fair to say, then, somehow your career took a pretty radical turn, because I can remember working with you in research in a completely different part of the business. How did that come about and how did you find your way into that?

Walter Suber  3:40  
Well, one of the great things about BlueScope (or BHP back then) at that stage, was that we had opportunity of going from one department to the next to actually find where you want to land at the end of your career or towards where you end your traineeship. So, I did steel making to start off with, I did quality control over at Flat Products and I finished up at Customer Services at Central Laboratory. And that was an introduction of commercial matters, discussion, any issues, concerns, development, all that sort of stuff in one bag. So that excited me a great deal, and then when I came to the end of that period, I actually had an opportunity of looking at jumping the fence and going to John Lysaght's at that stage, and I went and started working at research there, and I stayed, I think, three-and-a-half years at research before coming up to Chullora, which is the BlueScope state office.

Craig Nealon  4:36  
And you never looked back once you joined Lysaghts, right?

Walter Suber  4:38  
Well, look, Lysaght's, I loved Lysaght's. It had a great new uniform. We looked sensational back then! So yeah, it was great. It was great. I loved research and technology. The guys there were tremendous. We had great conversations—great group of people that, you know, were open to conversation and discussion throughout the time that I was there, so it was a very good opportunity for me at that stage.

Craig Nealon  5:03  
OK, but then you moved to Chullora, but you left the business, am I right in saying, and went to work for someone else? (Then came back!)

Walter Suber  5:09  
Yeah, yeah. Look, what happened was that Chullora, I went to Chullora in '85 and stayed there, became the coordinator looking after distribution, and then the business had a bit of a change in philosophy. We looked at getting McKinsey's in to come and look at the business to see what rationalisation we could do to improve our costs, and I put my hand up to take an offer and moved on at that stage. So, that was '94. I went and joined a company called Sheet Metal Supplies, which is a privately-owned company by the McNee family. That was a really terrific period. I was basically their technical manager for that period. And then 12 months later, a wonderful man by the name of Bob Wilton, who looked after George Ward, which was a part of Tubemakers, asked me if I wanted to become a BDM for them (business development manager), which was a fantastic opportunity for me again, because I really enjoyed talking to people, working with people, and more importantly, developing products. Let's face it, you know, we had a lot of opportunity back then, in particular with developing new products, there was a lot of manufacturing going on and a lot of opportunities.

Craig Nealon  5:09  
This is an interesting career, because basically you've started off as a steelmaker, gone into research and then gone right at the pointy end of where these steel products end up and how they're used, right at the sort of customer-facing side of the business.

Walter Suber  5:55  
I guess that's where I actually started working with individual businesses and companies, and I think if anybody wants to go down their career path, I can certainly say that I enjoyed that. You're talking to people that are owners of businesses, that are general managers, that are, you know, the guys on the shop floor that have got problems, and you need to solve them, or we had a product that they would need to develop, and back then again, the relationship I still had with research down at Paul Kembla was fantastic, in the sense that you know we had the product application lab down there, we had some tremendous people, very knowledgeable, very creative as well, that actually had that ability to help me develop something with a customer. That was probably one of the periods where you actually feel like you've really contributed to the marketplace.

Walter Suber  7:31  
We also, back then, also did a lot of work with trying to make sure that the sheet-metal-work industries was looked after correctly, not only within a supply parameter, but more importantly, also government understanding that there are requirements. Take colleges knowing that there's this new technology coming in with new lasers, new turret presses, all this stuff that was coming in. We didn't want the guys to learn just tin snips and bending and folding on pan breaks, we went all the way to make sure that people like Colin Johnson of FJP Manufacturing and people like him to make sure that government, that TAFE understood that these are the new requirements that industry moving forward and everybody else in education and technology had to come with us.

Craig Nealon  8:19  
Yeah, interesting... it's so varied compared to someone that maybe has spent their entire career at the steelworks and been a good iron- and steel-maker that you've sort of experienced the whole...

Walter Suber  8:29  
The whole shebang!

Craig Nealon  8:30  
...the whole range of it, in a way.

Walter Suber  8:32  
And I think that's, that's the beauty of back then, and I hope it's still the same now, where, so if somebody wants to move and progress and have the opportunity of having, doing something different, this is a fantastic, I guess, vehicle to take it and go with it.

Craig Nealon  8:47  
Yeah, and a fantastic industry to do it in, isn't it?

Walter Suber  8:49  
Absolutely! Look, we're still very lucky there's still Australian manufacturing here. People understand that having an Australian manufacturer like BlueScope is paramount, especially when we had just COVID coming through, there'd be a lot of industry not working if we weren't able to supply at that point in time. So, if you look at what we did that through that period, OK, we couldn't supply 1000 tonnes to you if you wanted 1000 tonnes, but we gave you 900, so that was pretty good—in the sense that we actually supported the industry, supported everybody going through that difficult stage. People recognise that overseas supply isn't what it's meant to be. There's issues there again with transportation lead times and all that sort of stuff, and what we made was here. We had a lead-time we stuck with, we actually had facilities of cutting and processing that material here, and we had the technical support, because a lot of people, when you buy from overseas, you get, you get duck egg, nothing!

Craig Nealon  9:52  
Tell me about your community here in the Illawarra, and I guess elsewhere, the Slovenian community. You've been recognised in your award for that.

Walter Suber  10:02  
For that, yeah...

Craig Nealon  10:03  
So tell me a little bit about how that's come about and what you've been involved with.

Walter Suber  10:06  
Look, I've been involved with them since, I guess, a child. We started going with church, and then going to our clubs and being, you know, doing community cultural events and stuff like that. Every other ethnic group that you have around, children would have gone through the same process. I got involved—a little bit more heavily involved—with the community by trying to get grants for various things. I actually got given a role by the Slovenian Government to actually represent the Slovenians in Australia, or in particular, New South Wales. So, there's three of us, or there was three of us, there's only two now, one in Victoria and one in New South Wales. So, we're just trying to make sure that the awareness is: if there's any issues in relation to cultural things, the language (to maintain language), all we want to do is make sure that our heritage is maintained. We obviously have become good Australians—we're very proud of that—but I think it's also good to remember where you come from, so, you know, I think our heritage is who we are, and I think we've got to maintain that.

Craig Nealon  11:14  
Yeah, wonderful. Now, tell me about getting your award and receiving your award, and what that meant to you—well, let me start by saying you've got a little pin on your jacket, I notice, and you're sort of required to wear that in a way, so you are wearing it formally. What does that mean?

Walter Suber  11:31  
Well, actually, this is this is a pin that they give you, part of the Order of Australia medal process. It is something that they would like you to to wear, and I guess this is bringing awareness of what we do and what we've done in the past. So, it's something that you use, if I go out and meet with people, then obviously I'll show the pin. If I go to more formal events, there's also some form, more formal sort of attire that you can use as well. So, I think it's a lovely thing. I mean, I'm very proud of it. I really like to thank everybody that's been involved in this, because this is not just me doing something, it's a lot of people that have actually supported this. There's a lot of people that have actually been either a part of this. I've been either a chairman of something or I've been actually a committee member of something. There's been a lot of nights, you know, so these are not during-the-day opportunities, they're all in the evening, like, when I was part of the Sheet Metal Work District Association and part of NASH, and whatever, we did lots of stuff that was outside the normal working hours.

Craig Nealon  12:40  
So, not just your job.

Walter Suber  12:42  
It wasn't just the job, it was actually something that I wanted to do as well, and that's, that's the, that's, I guess that's also part of the passion behind it all, yeah. Overall, I've been very grateful of people that have actually, again, endorsed that this is actually something that we've done together, because this is something that I've done, not only for me personally, it's something that I've done for my community, the Slovenian community, and also for the Australian manufacturing, because I'm very passionate about Australian-made products and very passionate about having an industry long into the future.

Craig Nealon  13:18  
Yeah, wonderful. So, getting an Order of Australia medal, you actually have an actual medal—if you want to show it to us.

Walter Suber  13:25  
Can I show you my medal?! Absolutely, yeah, this is... this is something that looks pretty cool, actually.

Craig Nealon  13:34  
And you received that from the New South Wales Governor...

Walter Suber  13:36  
New South Wales Governor, absolutely... so yeah, she was gracious and wonderful at the same time. We had a lovely chat there for a couple of moments, took a couple of photos. And there was 31 recipients on that day, so, again, some wonderful people that, you know, did medical research and all sorts of things, so they've saved lives, but at least we delivered steel and stuff like that from outside.

Craig Nealon  14:05  
Congratulations, once again, thanks for spending a little bit of time chatting to us.

Walter Suber  14:09  
It's my pleasure. Thank you, so much, good on you, thank you.

Martin Feld  14:17  
We thank Walter for sharing his story on the podcast. To learn more about Walter and any of the topics you just heard, please visit the links and show notes in your browser or podcast app. For example, you'll find a brief video version of this interview on TVBlueScope, which includes photos of Walter's award ceremony and some supporting industrial footage. Thank you for listening to this episode of Voices of BlueScope. It's been a pleasure to have you. Stay tuned for more.

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