Brian Midgley

Brian Midgley is an engineer who, prior to 1995, spent the previous 26 years of his career with the Rio Tinto group of companies. He was born in York, England and trained as an electrical engineer through a student apprenticeship with the Central Electricity Generating Board of the U.K. He holds a Higher National Diploma in Electrical Engineering and is a Chartered Engineer. Before emigrating to Australia in 1969 he worked for a number of years on the construction, operation and maintenance of coal fired and nuclear power stations. From 1969 onwards he held various supervisory and management roles with Rio Tinto Aluminium at the Bell Bay aluminium smelter in Tasmania and at the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter in New Zealand culminating as General Manager of Tiwai Point for four years. Other work included leading an organisational development study of the former Martin Marietta aluminium rolling mill and recycling facility in Kentucky, U.S.A., soon after the company was purchased by Rio Tinto, which resulted in a complete restructuring of the company and a relocation of their headquarters. As Chief Project Engineer for Rio Tinto Aluminium in the late eighties based in Melbourne he carried out a number of pre-feasibility studies into the potential expansions and/or upgrades of their Tiwai Point, Boyne Island and Bell Bay aluminium smelters. The major project, which came to fruition, was the Potline 3 expansion at Boyne Smelters. In Chile, South America, commissioned by a consortium of international companies, he headed up a series of studies into harnessing the potential water resources of southern Chile through the development and construction of hydro-electric power stations and aluminium smelters. In the early nineties as Managing Director of Anglesey Aluminium, Rio Tinto’s aluminium smelter in North Wales, he restructured the operation and made significant gains in Industrial Relations through system changes and the introduction of management and leadership training. Since 1995 he has worked as a consultant, based in Invercargill, New Zealand and has worked mainly on systems development and management/leadership training and development. Most of this work has been for Rio Tinto initially at their bauxite mine in Weipa and then over the last eight years at their NZAS, Tiwai Point and Bell Bay, Tasmania smelters and at the recently constructed Alumina Refinery in Gladstone, Queensland. In 2004 he headed a major power option study for Rio Tinto Power New Zealand to provide electricity to the NZAS smelter. In 2006 he was involved in the pre-feasibility study for a proposed new large aluminium smelter to be built in the UAE. He is an Associate of Macdonald Associates Consultancy. He is married to Voreen with a grown up family. His outside interests are house renovation and vintage cars.