Tracey notches quarter century at The Perth Mint
Tracey Cobby joined The Perth Mint in its centenary year of 1999 and is happy to be there 25 years later for the 125th birthday.
A mainstay of the Minted Products team as manager product development, she has worked across a range of roles and has a great repository of knowledge about how the place works.
“I’ve had about seven roles in the organisation, after starting out in sales administration and customer service,” she says.
“I’ve also been design studio coordinator, inventory controller, then worked in a role which helped establish the product development process which we still use. I’ve been in my current role since 2016.”
Tracey is proud to head up a team which includes the stable of coin designers, and others involved in product and packaging development.
“It’s a great team. Our designers especially are some of the best in the world. I feel very privileged to work with them,” she says.
Twenty-five years is a long time in one organisation, and Tracey says there have been significant changes to the workplace and to work processes.
“Packaging is a big one which we have expanded and developed, it’s something we are known for now worldwide. We use quality materials and pay strong attention to detail”
“A big thing has been the expansion of the buildings, with the commercial building opening in 2003. It was necessary because we were outgrowing the old premises, but we lost all the staff carparking in the process which caused a bit of an issue at the time because everyone had a parking bay.”
Tracey confesses to taking advantage of the revamp work to add some specimens to her home garden.
“One day, I noticed they were removing all the roses and agapanthus plants that were in a garden area along the edge of the carpark and I asked who was taking them,” she says.
“One of the security guards said to bring my car around so I just reversed up the driveway which was where the main staff entrance from Hay Street is now, and loaded it up with the agapanthus.
“The next thing I know I have the security manager yelling at me for driving over the ‘historic’ paving stones. I was a bit worried but then I realised that GoldCorp House has only been there since the 1990s so the paving was not exactly historic!
“I’ve still got some of the plants, they were in my old house and we transplanted them to my current home, and they’re still going strong.”
