Refining family connections at The Perth Mint

Cameron Alexander’s time at The Perth Mint started in the mid-1990s when he was recruited as commercial manager at the refinery.

Cameron, known as Cam by many around the business, left in 2002 but rejoined in 2021 and is now General Manager Commercial Development which includes looking after refining agreements for our major gold and silver producers.

However, Cam has a family connection to the Mint that goes back to 1969 when his stepmother Katey Alexander was employed as a clerk-typist.

The organisation was a different place then, still under the ownership of Britain’s Royal Mint and well before the bullion coin program and shop and exhibition were even dreamed of.

Katey was one of only four female workers, all in an office which is now the Shop’s jewellery room.

She believes she was the first married woman and the first pregnant woman to be permitted to work at the Mint at a time when women were expected to be confined to “home duties” and raise a family when they married.

“I started in the office when I was 18. My first job was filling up the office ink wells each morning. Everything was recorded in pen and ink in big ledgers.”

“We typed everything in triplicate using carbon copies, and one copy always went by post to London in a bundle every few months.”

Among Katey’s office duties was operating a comptometer machine, a large and now obsolete calculating machine, to determine payment for gold and silver deposits.

“The office had one electric typewriter, and only one person was allowed to use it, that wasn’t me!”

I can still name 18 of the people in that photo,” she says. “My years working at the Mint were wonderful and I have very fond memories of the people I worked with.”

In the early 70s, the Mint’s coin production was limited to one and two cent coins for general circulating currency.

Gold was bought and refined at the East Perth melting house and most of the production was shipped to London in bar form.

It was not legal for members of the public to buy gold at the time although some gold was sold to local jewellers.

Katey says there was a high level of trust of employees with little to no security measures.

“I left to travel overseas with my husband in 1972. I wanted to take leave without pay but couldn’t get it so had to resign,” Katey said.

But she was re-employed in January 1973 when she returned to Perth and remained for another two years, even after she found out she was pregnant.

“When I found out I was pregnant I expected I would have to resign. But Mr Cook (Mint director Charles Cook) said to me, I don’t see that you should have to leave just because you are having a baby. So I was able to keep working up until six weeks before my due date. I left in February 1975 and Aaron was born in April.”

Subsequently Katey worked with her second husband David in the real estate and settlements industry and operated David Alexander and Associates and Park Settlement Services for many years before retiring in 2010.

It was a coincidence that Cam ended up at the Mint about 20 years after she left.

“I’m very proud that Cameron’s doing what he’s doing here now,” Katey said.

When he joined the organisation the Mint refinery was known as AGR (Australian Gold Refineries) and was a joint venture partnership with a private company. Cam was commercial manager.

After a period working as director of precious metals for Thomson Reuters, he returned to the Mint in January 2021. As well as handling refining agreements, Cam’s current role includes maintaining customer relationships and building and maintaining our treasury client base.

He is active in the wider gold industry as a Gold Industry Group board member, a member of the Minerals Council of Australia Gold Forum and serves on the London Bullion Market Association Refiners Committee.

Cam is happy he shares the unusual Mint connection with Katey. 

“I knew Katey worked at the Mint many years ago but her acute recollection of those times and the people she worked with is astonishing,” he says.

“The impact the Mint had on her early life was profound and it clearly meant a lot to her. It is terrific that we can share a few stories of our time at the Mint and have that in common.”