Copper Connection: Electrification and Sustainability with Freeport McMoRan

Freeport-McMoRan, the largest publicly traded copper producer in the world, is shaping industries globally. Kathleen Quirk, President of Freeport, shares insights on the company's history, its pivotal role in electrification, and innovative approaches to sustainability. From mining operations across continents to fostering a culture of teamwork and innovation, explore the intricate web of copper's impact on our modern world through the lens of one of its industry leaders.

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00:00:00.1
Welcome to the Tomorrow's World Today podcast. We sit down with experts, world -changing innovators, creators, and makers to explore how they're taking action to make Tomorrow's World a better place for technology, science, innovation, sustainability, the arts, and more. And now, this week's episode.
00:00:24.6
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Tomorrow's World Today. On today's episode, George Davison, the host of Tomorrow's World Today on science, sits down with Kathleen Cork, the president of Freeport MacMoran, the world's largest publicly traded producer of copper, an essential element in electrification powering everything from your lights to your cell phone. Kathleen shares insights into Freeport's extensive copper mining operations across the U .S., South America, and Indonesia.
00:00:48.1
With nearly 35 years at the company Kathleen discusses Freeport's rich history including the pivotal 2007 merger with Phelps Dodge, their approach to managing risks and failures, and the company's unique entrepreneurial culture focused on teamwork and innovation. Join us for an enlightening conversation about the copper industry and Freeport's journey to success. Now, George Davidson. Welcome Kathleen.
00:01:09.7
Thanks George. It's great to be here.
00:01:11.8
All right, well, let's start with the company so they can learn a little bit about the company. Maybe we'll go into some of your high school years.
00:01:21.8
So Freeport is the world's largest publicly traded producer of copper. And as you probably know copper is a very essential metal in the world today. It's used in all kinds of things, everything almost. You know, it's a big metal of electrification.
00:01:38.8
So anything that's electrified has copper in it and so our company operates in the u .s We're a very large copper producer in the u .s We supply more than mine more than 50 % of the u .s. Is copper our company does we also have operations in South America we operate in Peru and Chile and our biggest operation is actually in Indonesia and at that particular operation We produce both copper and gold so it's a very rich ore body But the company's been in existence for a very long time very successful company very focused mainly on copper and We're headquartered in the u .s. We're headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona So I've been personally with the company for a very long time almost 35 years and so I've spent most of my career there
00:02:35.0
Wonderful. Sounds like you really like working there.
00:02:37.6
I love it. I just love it. I love our business. I love the people. The communities where we operate, you know mining and metals production generally is done in smaller communities, remote communities. Yes. And so we're a big part of that. Our company's a big part of that. And even though we have a lot of people in our company, we probably have today between contractors and employees, over 70 ,000 people. Wow. It's still small enough to where we work like a family. We work like a team. That's really a part of our culture.
00:03:14.6
Well, that's great. I mean 70 ,000 people, you know just think of the size and scale of that and the size of this business today.
00:03:21.8
You know, it's great, I mean you're a success in your industry and it sounds like this business is a big business nowadays, but it doesn't always, it doesn't start that way. This business started somehow, how, what, a hundred years ago?
00:03:39.7
Was it a single person?
00:03:41.3
Is it an entrepreneur? How does business get started?
00:03:45.0
Well, it's an amalgamation of many businesses that have come together, but the big transaction that happened to create the modern Freeport was a transaction in 2007 when Freeport acquired a company called Phelps Dodge. And that was a big mining company located in Arizona. And Freeport was located where I grew up, in New Orleans, but we had a big operation in Indonesia. So we brought together the two companies and the companies all had long history.
00:04:18.6
but we brought together the two companies to have better geographic diversity.
00:04:26.2
I see.
00:04:27.3
So Freeport had the big mine in Indonesia, and you can have ups and downs for geopolitics, and Phelps Dodge had operations in the U .S. and South America. And so by bringing those two businesses together, we were able to become stronger and able to bring the company together for the best technology, best operations, and the best growth potential.
00:04:52.2
Let's jump back to Freeport for a minute. Let's talk about something maybe that didn't go so well at Freeport. So how does an institution that you're involved with...
00:05:03.5
handle, let's say, research and development projects that don't pan out. I mean, how do you manage failure at a corporate level?
00:05:11.9
Well, you have to manage risk. You know, you can't put all your eggs in one basket, but you have to take risks. Right. And if we don't take risks in our business, we're never gonna move forward. And so we have to go into a project knowing that if we're successful, it'll really make a big difference. It'll really make a big impact. So that's the first thing we want to know is if we're gonna take a risk and we're successful, doesn't move the needle. And if it does move the needle, then we say, okay, we might want to make some investments in this.
00:05:48.9
We want to put some people resources in it. We might want to make some financial investments in it. And we always know that potentially it could fail. But we want to keep track of it. Keep everybody accountable. Keep track of it so that if it is going off the rails, they try to get back together and say, what did we learn? What can we salvage out of this? So but we're going to, you have to take chances. You have to, you have to take risks. You're going to have failures. 00:06:21.1
Well, yeah, I think that's kind of built into the business world, isn't it? We're always trying to figure out a way to make things better for all sorts of reasons. We want our customers to benefit. We want our investors to benefit. And.
00:06:36.0
Still, helping others, that's a good framework for, I think, going into the world of the business community, because that's what we're doing, right? How do we make products and services to help others, right? And then you get rewarded for that as well.
00:06:52.4
So it's a plus. That's right. That's exactly right.
00:06:54.9
So, you know, there's a lot of teamwork. You mentioned being on sports teams before. Let's talk about teamwork at your company. Yep. And is there a way that you could talk about teamwork, that let's say you teach it or you coach it to set a standard of how teamwork works there?
00:07:14.3
Yeah. Our company is, I think, a little unusual in that even though it's a very large company, its roots are entrepreneurial. And so we really work hard to stamp out bureaucracy.
00:07:31.8
And we just feel like people are much more productive when they're sitting together, working together on solving problems as opposed to having too much structure. You need to have some structure, right? But we thrive on teams. If you're not a team player in our organization, you're not really gonna fit in. But in our organization, it doesn't matter who you are, what your title is.
00:07:59.9
What matters is you showing up and helping to solve problems, and helping contribute, and helping us think forward and bring solutions so that we can be a better supplier to our customer.
00:08:15.4
So, we can be a better employer to our people. We're very team oriented in everything that we do. Solving this question about innovation, that brings together teams and you have to bring together multiple disciplines. It's not just some technology guy sitting in a room developing the technology. You know, the technology people have to be working side by side with our business people and our operators trying to really understand it to solve the problems. It only works in our business when you've had strong teams.
00:08:53.5
And also part of the culture with respect to teams is we feel strongly that we win as a team and when we don't win, we all feel badly when we fell short.
00:09:07.9
We're not looking around for who's the scapegoat.
00:09:10.8
You know all of us take responsibility for our success and for our for our shortcomings, and that's that's just a part of our culture That's a great culture.
00:09:20.1
You know just hearing how that's operating yeah I imagine that you know you have a lot of different jobs in your operation Can you talk a little bit about the types of jobs and what level of education you have to have yeah?
00:09:34.2
Well more and more and more we're learning in our company That on -the -job training is the best way to to build people skills and That experience level on the job is very valuable to us And you know I've been with the company over 30 years And we have a lot of people around our company who stayed there for a long time
00:10:00.1
And so what we'd like to do is bring in people at an early age, you know, you don't need a college degree necessarily, but to come in after high school, and there's a lot of different jobs that you can come into, you have to work hard and you have to work your way up.
00:10:16.3
Sure. But you're going to get great training, great exposure, you can work all kinds of different places around the world.
00:10:24.8
We've got international locations, we've got locations here in the U .S., but it's all kinds of disciplines. I mean, our business touches all kinds of things, you know, whether it be technical, we work a lot with sustainability and environmental management, we work a lot on social issues because we're working very closely with communities, you know, we've got marketing jobs, accounting jobs, finance jobs.
00:10:54.1
Logistics is a big part of our business because in a lot of our operations, we're actually having to house people because of the remoteness of some of the operations. So we've got a lot of logistics, we've got supply chain, navigating where we're going to get our materials and supplies. There's so much opportunity in the company. Like I said, I started out in accounting, but I had the opportunity in the company just having a thirst for learning to learn all aspects of our business. And you can come in if you want to do that, if you want to learn, you know, and you've got that attitude of wanting to learn and cooperate and be part of the team.
00:11:38.6
Our type of company is a great place to start a career, so you don't have to have the college degree. Of course, we have jobs where it is helpful to have a college degree.
00:11:48.0
So we have both, but more and more we're learning that people can develop skills and can develop leadership training without the high school degree, if they put their mind to it.
00:12:00.8
So it sounds like if I was to apply for an internship or I want to come to work at your operation, that if I'm a hard worker, if I'm willing to work hard, that you're going to teach or train. So I imagine you have training programs there for all sorts of different jobs. Is that a pretty heavy commitment?
00:12:20.8
It is. And, you know, during the pandemic, that was one area where we weren't able to do as much as we were doing before.
00:12:30.6
and so we're in the process of rebuilding that training and development for people because it's so important. The onboarding of people is so important when they come into your job you know in that first month two months three months they're forming their impressions you know they're they're really learning you know what to do when to do it and then that just it just builds on that but the training is really key you know having people that feel comfortable in their job safety training in our business is really important you know we we operate in in dangerous environments sometimes not every job but but many of the jobs and so we have to be very very good about making sure that people understand the hazards and understand the protocols of dealing with certain types of things and in safety so that's that's a big part of the training as well.
00:13:24.9
So, you know, extracting copper from the earth, I'm sure there's a lot of complexity in that process and, you know, learning about that field. Do you ever find that young people when they are coming in that they are attracted to just wanting to be a part of that part of it? Or what are you seeing today from the younger people applying? Why are they finding your operation?What's so attractive?
00:13:55.7
Well, we're having to try to go find them because it's not as well known of an industry, you know, and so we work hard to go find people working with, of course, universities but also with high schools and community colleges.
00:14:15.2
So, they can learn about having a career. This is not just a job, you know, this is an opportunity for a very long -term career. We have some people, a lot of our stuff is word of mouth, because we have some people who are multi -generation employees.
00:14:33.9
Yeah.
00:14:34.4
So, some people are like the fifth generation employee. And so, you know, people's parents or their grandparents or their aunts or whatever have worked in our business. And so, a lot of it ends up being word of mouth. But we, a lot of jobs, we have something like 1 ,500 job openings right now in the U .S. And we're always looking for people that want to work hard and want to move up. But it's, you know, a lot of these jobs may be in a remote place. So, if somebody has to have that mindset, that they're going to try it out and see.
00:15:12.8
So I've heard that you're working on some new technologies. Yeah always that could really be helpful for where the world's Trying to go so, you know on tomorrow's world today. We like to kind of dive into that future Can you talk a little bit about? Some of the developments that are going on right now that would really empower you know with more copper in the world really empower us to Have a more advanced society Definitely You know the technologies that we're working on now are Basically trying to figure out how to produce more copper With the current resources that we have
00:15:55.7
And so we're working to be very sustainable in the way that we produce copper.
00:16:01.7
We're going back into material that may have been considered waste in the past and turning that into value by using new technology or technological approaches.
00:16:14.8
And as you look forward, any time you're using copper in something, you're improving its energy efficiency. And so what we're looking for in the future is in the decarbonization, is more and more copper is going to be needed. And so the more copper that Freeport can produce and others in the industry can produce, the better off societies are going to be because they're going to be more energy efficient, maybe cleaner, and more connected than ever before.
00:16:48.7
So...
00:16:50.2
Look out there and try to project for us, in a perfect world, if some of that, you know, the new mind, using extrapolated copper already and finding another way to get more out of that same pile, you know, what's it going to do for me, like in my cell phone or my car? I mean, where is this technology, where are these raw materials of copper going? How does copper affect this world that we live in? So your product's going into a lot of different things, and I think our audience would like to understand a little bit about that.
00:17:30.5
Well, the biggest thing that copper goes into is electrification. So it's like 65, 70 percent.
00:17:39.1
So, anything that's electrified is using copper. And as we are investing now more and more in our electrical grid and moving our electrical grid from traditional fossil fuels to renewable energy, that is requiring a lot more copper. There's a lot more copper in things like solar panels, things like wind turbines, things like electric vehicles, all the charging stations, all that's fueled by copper. It's in cars, it's in, of course, electronics, phones. It touches everything that we do. But the reason why there's now a renaissance
00:18:26.3
for copper is we're having to re -energize, re -electrify our grids to make them cleaner, our electrical grids. And copper plays a big, big role in that transition.
00:18:41.7
You know Kathleen, I want to thank you a lot for coming in and sharing your story with us. And thank you very much.
00:18:48.9
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.
00:18:51.3
You bet. And that is another edition of Tomorrow's World Today. Thank you, everybody.
00:18:57.1
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Tomorrow's World Today podcast. Join us next time as we continue to explore the worlds of inspiration, creation, innovation, and production. Discover more at tomorrowsworldtoday .com and connect with us on social media at TWT Explore. And find us wherever podcasts are available.