Father-son duo working at Allan potash mines: ‘A fantastic asset to have through those years’

People say never work with your significant other, but what about your parents?

“Every once in a while, I bring him lunch his Mom sends him,” says Bob Boehm who works with his son, Justin, at Nutrien’s Allan mine outside of Allan, Sask.

Together, they have more than 66 years experience with the company. And with that experience, they agree innovation and safety make it possible for families like theirs to work together.

“(We) see the use of technology in our in our workplace, in the mill, moving towards more automation in our process,” Justin says. “Looking how can we recover just a little bit more… And the more in the railcars, the better for everybody.”

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Bob adds, “getting to work and getting home is very important to this company now. So, you know, get to work safely, work in a safe environment, get home safely. Those are those are constant positives that I hear.”

Bob jokes he wasn’t all that thrilled to be working alongside his son at first. “You know, I wasn’t impressed. This was my world and I liked it. I liked the separation that I had with my world and my home life. I really didn’t want the two to ever, you know, combine or crash into each other,”

But Justin says it’s nice to have some fatherly advice on-hand every now and then.

“And when you got your dad working here, you know that somebody is going to be just honest, brutally honest at times and truthful. And that was a fantastic asset to have through those years. Well, you know, it’s not being hidden. It’s going to be honest. It’s going to be authentic.”

Justin says he’s proud of his family’s mining history, and the impact he’s been a part of in the community.

“I now go into the town of Allen that I grew up in, I drive past the new fire hall that Nutrien had a big part of making sure was built, watching a hockey game in the rink. And you see the Nutrien logo on the Zamboni driving across flooding the ice.”

The Allan mine has been in production for the last 65 years. The first Nutrien mine in the province is near Patience Lake.