From collecting lunches to coining division manager
Neil Rogers can trace his time with The Perth Mint back to its modern renaissance in the late 1980s when Gold Corporation was established and the highly successful bullion and collector coin programs were launched.
Neil started as a general labourer in 1986 and reaches the 38-year mark in the Mint’s 125th anniversary year in 2024.
The organisation’s longest-serving employee has no intention of stepping away from his senior role in the Coining Division just yet.
He has seen an outdated and inefficient factory transform into a progressive and modern operation that ranks as one of the top mints in the world.
It was a stroke of luck that saw Neil land a job at the Mint soon after arriving from his native New Zealand.
“I was second in line for the position and missed out, but then got a call after the other fellow failed his medical,” he says.
“It was a totally different place back then. We’ve grown significantly and our equipment and processes have improved out of sight.”
“It was a totally different place back then. We’ve grown significantly and our equipment and processes have improved out of sight.”
Starting at the bottom, Neil’s first important job was fetching lunches for his colleagues.
He has worked in a range of roles and projects after virtually having to teach himself how to work the coin presses in the early days.
He is now manager of coining and production and oversees the manufacture of close to 20 million coins and other minted products annually.
He says notable events along the way have been his involvement in a short-lived venture into establishing a mint in Thailand, and a major refurbishment of the coining facility in the 1990s which involved a considerable logistical and security effort to move the entire operation offsite to a factory in Belmont for two years.
