179 - Rob and Natasha Collins - Founder - Tidal Solutions

Arete Podcast with Richard Triggs

Tidal Solutions, founded by Natasha and Rob Collins in 2009, provides the Mining and Oil & Gas industries with complete maintenance solutions, including onshore, offshore, and isolated mine site support services. After seeing a gap in the market in the mining sector, Rob and Natasha thought that they could offer great service to their clients in mining maintenance, so they founded Tidal Solutions. Tidal Solutions offer onsite maintenance teams, engineering services, workshop fabrication, high-pressure water blasting,painting, temporary building installations, and personnel hire. Tidal Solutions has an extensive network and knowledge base within the Pilbara, WA Goldfields, and other regions throughout Australia. Natasha comes from the banking and travel industry. Rob and Natasha had a travel agency for five years. While running the agency, she also worked for a local bank on weekends. Rob, who comes from an engineering background, has worked with Rio Tinto for 11 years as a Project Officer and Sandvik Mining and Construction for four years as a project supervisor before founding Tidal Solutions. In this episode, they discuss their early career before setting up Tidal Solutions, what Tidal Solutions offer, and the difference in skills and mindsets of people working in gold and iron mining. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Tidal Solutions started in 2009 with one employee. The company now has 100 employees. The primary services offered by Tidal Solutions are mechanical maintenance and anything within the fixed-plant realm such as conveyors, stackers, crushers, reclaimers, ship loaders, etc. Among their clients are AngloGold Ashanti Limited at the Plutonic Gold Mine and CITIC Pacific Mining Company at their Sino Iron operation. Rob has worked within Rio Tinto’s rail system for ten years and had the opportunity to diversify into the engineering realm within the engineering group of the Cape Lambert engineering team. Rob's parents had a fish and chip shop in Point Samson, WA. Rob also worked for Sandvik Mining and Construction for four years. He helped the company to increase its turnover from $2 million to $25 million. Rob and Natasha started the company so that they could provide a range of different services and solutions and have a flexible workforce of people with a variety of different skills. Rob and Natasha meet with a business advisor every two months to find solutions for the skills gap in the company. To develop clients' trust, Tidal Solutions employ the right people in the right space so that they can drive the projects and deliver what the clients are after. Tidal Solutions has a reputation for completing projects on time, on budget, and safely. Tidal Solutions has a family-based environment and is a tight-knit group of people. The pandemic has made Rob and Natasha's business more durable. Natasha Collins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natasha-collins-752284115/ Rob Collins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-collins-61a419b0/ Tidal Solutions Website: https://tidalsolutions.com.au/ Richard Triggs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardtriggs/ Arete Executive Website: https://www.areteexecutive.com.au/