Glenn Duncan’s eyes light up when he talks about his many world travels.
He recently returned from a five week trip to France and the United Kingdom. Glenn’s now eyeing off Antarctica, the last continent for him to visit. “I once got within 250 km of Antarctica and then the ship got stuck in the ice,” Glenn says.
Glenn started working at Bell Bay Aluminium 37 years ago. He was just 14 when he started a fitter and turner apprenticeship. He did shift work for 25 years and managed the maintenance team in the garage. Glenn’s been in his current position as a Contractor and Induction Officer for three and a half years.
“My typical work days involve conducting contractor inductions,” he says. “I manage new contractors that come on site, put together training packages for key personnel and write the supporting documents and procedures.
“The main thing is trying to get things more user-friendly on site for contractors and to keep the focus on safety.”
While Glenn enjoys his job and the interaction it involves with other people, he says that the opportunity to travel extensively is one of the reasons he remains a long-term employee at Bell Bay.
Luxurious hotels and resorts are not for Glenn. Backpacking is his favoured style. “To me, four or five star hotels are clones of each other, they have no real character,” he says.
Glenn’s favourite trip involved backpacking through South America for three months in 1999.
“I love the interaction of people,” he says. “I stayed with a family in Bolivia where there were 16 people in one room, including grandma, grandpa and the grandkids. That was interesting.”
The trigger for his South American trip was a Rio Tinto scholarship he was awarded for an Earth Watch project. This involved working in the Amazon for three weeks tracking peccaries and helping teach the children English and assisting the locals with land care.
One of his treasured memories was watching hundreds of whales in Puerto Madryn in Chubut, Argentina. The film-maker David Attenborough helped put it on the map some years ago with the famous footage of a killer whale attacking a baby seal.
Apart from travelling, Glenn says hanging out with his 15 year old son is his favourite pastime.
