After 17 years working for an Australian gold mine, Nedra Burns is taking her skills from the corporate to conservation sector in her new role as DOC Te Anau's new operations manager.

Risk analysis, streamlined systems, and greater efficiency — they're ideas common to the world of business that Nedra Burns says she'll be applying in her new position in Te Anau.

At the Cadia Goldmine in New South Wales, she began working as an environmental liaison and in her final role, she was responsible for managing community relations, environmental issues and the health and safety plans for the mine's 1500 staff. 

"[There are] lots and lots of things that can kill you in the mining industry. So, it's a very systematic, methodical approach to managing risk. And not only health and safety risk, but business risk and stakeholder risk."

Suffice to say, she enjoys a challenge. When her Kiwi husband, Daryl, took on an operations manager role for the Milford Road Alliance in Te Anau, she said she wanted to wait to cross the ditch until she found the right job in Te Anau. 

"I thought, 'I can't go and not work.'... I like to be busy and I like interacting with people. Love problem solving, challenges, those sorts of things."

When the role at the department appeared, she said it was a great opportunity, even though from the outside it might seem like an unusual jump. 

However, there were commonalities such as sharing the same kind of high-stress 24/7 operations, as well as her own professional expertise in environmental work. 

"In the mining industry, environmental performance is more about mitigation and rehabilitation of the impacts of development. With DOC... it's more about conservation and preservation of the environment. 

Rather than mitigating development impacts it's maybe preventing development impacts — a different angle on the same topic of environment."

Some of what she hoped to bring to the job was her experience with efficient systems and processes that were imperative to the mining industry, and she was excited to work with a team whose passion for their work was "palpable".

"As soon as you walk in, I have to say, they've been so welcoming, and when they sit down and talk to me about their job, I can feel the passion. They just want to do a good job and they want to do it for all the right reasons."

And she also pointed to the window view of Fiordland National Park from DOC offices.

"And that. That's a unique part of the world that most people would be envious of, to be able to work with Fiordland and to help to protect it."