Ryan Land leaves Vale after 8½ years to ‘pursue the next chapter in my career story’

Ryan Land has left Vale after 8½ years.

Land joined Vale, becoming manager of corporate affairs for Manitoba Operations, on May 9, 2011. He spent most of his time with the Brazilian mining giant working in Thompson, with his role growing to include managing organizational design and human resources. He was transferred to Sudbury, Ont. 14½ months ago in September 2018 for an expanded role with Vale as manager of corporate and indigenous affairs for Ontario and Manitoba.

He has also served as chair of the aboriginal relations committee of the Mining Association of Manitoba since April 2013, and as a member of the aboriginal affairs committee of the Ottawa-based Mining Association of Canada since October 2018. He has been a member of the aboriginal relations committee of the Ontario Mining Association since October 2018. As well, Land has been a member of the Manitoba liaison committee on mining and exploration since last June.

Land arrived in Thompson originally in August 2009 to become principal of R.D. Parker Collegiate.

In a public Facebook posting Nov. 14, Land says,”I am officially leaving Vale to pursue the next chapter of my career! I am taking this step without knowing what (or even where – though our first choice is Sudbury as we are thoroughly enjoying it here and the kids are thriving) is next. Even though it was time for a change, it is bittersweet for sure as I am so grateful for the opportunities, challenges and growth that Vale afforded me. I’ve worked with amazing people and from the beginning the company (and a key leader or two – they know who they are!) took a chance on me and allowed me to influence outcomes, innovate and become a champion for the success of others. No regrets, and also no idea what’s next. Yikes!”

Land ends his brief post by wryly quipping, “Another of my favourite quotes is by Emily Dickinson who said ‘The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.’ Soul ajar. Hopefully the ecstatic experience covers the mortgage!”

Land posted a similar public message on LinkedIn last week to his one on Facebook.

“As some of you already know, I have left Vale to pursue the next chapter in my career story,” Land wrote. “The move from educational leader to corporate affairs at a mining company was an enriching, challenging and ultimately rewarding career pivot and I am so very grateful for having had the opportunity. I worked with, for and alongside so many remarkable people and the last (nearly) 9 years provided me with a real chance to grow, stretch, collaborate, influence outcomes, build meaningful relationships and work on being a champion for the success of my colleagues, our stakeholders and rights-holders, and the communities we work in and near. Importantly, it afforded me a real chance to deepen my understanding of truth and reconciliation, and my responsibility within it.

“I am not in a rush, but I feel like excited about what might be next. We have grown to love Sudbury and the region and we’d love to stay, but I’m anxious to invest myself as a servant leader in a great organization and I appreciate that the best opportunity may not be close to our current home. I’d love to hear about possibilities and ideas you have for me, so please message me if you have advice, coaching or suggestions.”

His wife, Carmilla Land, has been a registered nurse since 2016.

A number of Land’s former Vale colleagues posted their well-wishes on LinkedIn in response to his departure from the company.

Patti Pegues, mine planning manager for Vale North Atlantic, wrote, “Best of luck Ryan. It has been a real pleasure working with you.”

Said Anuj Agarwal, manager of mines and technical standards, North Atlantic at Vale Canada: “You will be missed. It was a pleasure to know you and work alongside you.”

Whether it is a local day trip travel fall colour adventure to Onaping Falls, near Sudbury, or an international summer jaunt from San Sebastián to Tuscany to Prague to Brussels, Land is well known to friends and colleagues as a bon vivant, who immensely enjoys adventuresome travel, sampling fine local cuisine wherever he lands, and a suitable craft brew to complement the rest.

Before becoming principal of R.D. Parker Collegiate in August 2009, Land had spent the previous academic year in West Africa as principal of the Canadian Independent College of Ghana in Accra, a Canadian university preparatory co-ed college day and boarding school. The Canadian Independent College of Ghana is a licensed sister campus to the Canadian Independent College (CIC), a co-ed university preparatory college, formerly known as the North Wilmot School, which opened in 1964 and is located in Baden, Ontario. It is a member of the Council of Advanced Placement Schools in Ontario.

Land completed one year of a five-year contract in Ghana, but, as was allowed in his contract, resigned from the position for family-related reasons.

Aside from Accra and Thompson, Land was a teacher and eventually a principal in schools in a number of communities, including a Dené community, Leicester in England, rural Saskatchewan, and Steinbach and Winnipeg in Manitoba. He has a masters degree in educational leadership and undergraduate bachelor degrees in education and the arts.

On April 27, 2010 trustees from the School District of Mystery Lake took the extraordinary step of publicly rebuking Land during a board meeting and announced that his probationary status as principal of R.D. Parker Collegiate which would normally be one year in duration, was being extended another year after a unanimous vote by the board of trustees, who had considered the option of terminating Land’s employment, but ultimately decided not to.

Trustees then twice in identical 5-2 splits on Feb. 22 and April 5, 2011, voted to remove him as probationary principal.

Then in mid-June 2011, trustees subsequently fired Land for cause – four months after they had removed him as probationary principal. At a trustees meeting the day before graduation, former superintendent Bev Hammond provided details of an investigation she said she had conducted, which she said found that students had had marks changed without doing remedial work, responsibility for which she later laid at the feet of Land in an interview with the Thompson Citizen. Hammond’s marks-changing investigation focused only on the years that Land was principal.

A year later, the saga, which generated strong feelings and emotions, with plenty of both pro and anti-Land sentiment, and national media coverage, ended when the school board and Land reached a deal, resulting in an arbitration hearing that had been set to begin June 18, 2012, being cancelled. Both Land and the SDML withdrew all claims against each other and ended litigation between the parties.

Land offered his resignation to the SDML June 14, 2012, effective Nov. 18, 2011. The school board accepted Land’s resignation and rescinded his termination.

Two years later, in what supporters saw as a rich case of poetic justice, Land would run for a trustee’s seat in the October 2014 municipal election for school board, where he not only won a seat, but was the top vote-getter among all candidates picking up 2,177 votes.

In between working for the School District of Mystery Lake and Vale, Land worked out of Thompson briefly in the run-up to the 2011 federal election campaign for then Elections Canada assistant returning officer Lou Morissette as a training officer looking after all the inland training for the polls.  A bit earlier, Land had been offered the position of part-time vice-principal of Hapnot Collegiate in Flin Flon, but turned it down, trustee Glenn Smith, chair of the Flin Flon School Division board of trustees, told the Flin Flon Reminder at the time.

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Ryan Land decamps to Sudbury for new Vale gig

Ryan Land, who arrived in Thompson nine years ago this month to become principal of R.D. Parker Collegiate, moves now to Sudbury for an expanded role with Vale. He joined Vale in May 2011 and has spent recent years as Manitoba Operations’ manager of corporate affairs, organizational design and human resources. Land became Vale’s manager of corporate affairs for Manitoba Operations May 9, 2011.

In an Aug. 27 Vale human resources bulletin sent to employees in Ontario and Manitoba, Angie Robson, based in Sudbury, and manager of corporate affairs and sustainability for Vale’s North Atlantic Operations and Asian refineries, said that Land will be the manager of corporate and indigenous affairs for Ontario and Manitoba effective Sept. 4. Robson said Land will report directly to her.

In between working for the School District of Mystery Lake and Vale, Land worked out of Thompson briefly in the run-up to the 2011 federal election campaign for then Elections Canada assistant returning officer Lou Morissette as a training officer looking after all the inland training for the polls.  A bit earlier, Land had been offered the position of part-time vice-principal of Hapnot Collegiate in Flin Flon, but turned it down, trustee Glenn Smith, chair of the Flin Flon School Division board of trustees, told the Flin Flon Reminder at the time.

Before becoming principal of R.D. Parker Collegiate in August 2009, Land had spent the previous academic year in West Africa as principal of the Canadian Independent College of Ghana in Accra, a Canadian university preparatory co-ed college day and boarding school. Land completed one year of a five-year contract in Ghana, but, as was allowed in his contract, resigned from the position for family-related reasons.

The Canadian Independent College of Ghana is a licensed sister campus to the Canadian Independent College (CIC), a co-ed university preparatory college, formerly known as the North Wilmot School, which opened in 1964 and is located in Baden, Ontario. It is a member of the Council of Advanced Placement Schools in Ontario.

On April 27, 2010 trustees from the School District of Mystery Lake took the extraordinary step of publicly rebuking Land during a board meeting and announced that his probationary status as principal of R.D. Parker Collegiate which would normally be one year in duration, was being extended another year after a unanimous vote by the board of trustees, who had considered the option of terminating Land’s employment, but ultimately decided not to.

Trustees then twice in identical 5-2 splits on Feb. 22 and April 5, 2011, voted to remove him as probationary principal.

Then in mid-June 2011, trustees subsequently fired Land for cause – four months after they had removed him as probationary principal. At a trustees meeting the day before graduation, former superintendent Bev Hammond provided details of an investigation she said she had conducted, which she said found that students had had marks changed without doing remedial work, responsibility for which she later laid at the feet of Land in an interview with the Thompson Citizen. Hammond’s marks-changing investigation focused only on the years that Land was principal.

A year later, the saga, which generated strong feelings and emotions, with plenty of both pro and anti-Land sentiment, and national media coverage, ended when the school board and Land reached a deal, resulting in an arbitration hearing that had been set to begin June 18, 2012, being cancelled. Both Land and the SDML withdrew all claims against each other and ended litigation between the parties.

Land offered his resignation to the SDML June 14, 2012, effective Nov. 18, 2011. The school board accepted Land’s resignation and rescinded his termination.

Two years later, in what supporters saw as a rich case of poetic justice, Land would run for a trustee’s seat in the October 2014 municipal election for school board, where he not only won a seat, but was the top vote-getter among all candidates picking up 2,177 votes.

While his seven-year tenure as Vale’s often public face in Thompson has been marked by substantial downsizing, first announced by the company in November 2010, Land himself has not been involved in  controversies or gaffes, and moves onto his new posting with an able record at Vale’s Manitoba Operations.

Land’s role within Vale that will be based in Sudbury, but he posted on Facebook Aug. 25 that he “will be in Thompson approximately 50-50 over the next few months (with accountabilities in Manitoba in the new role over the longer term).”

While most of the focus over the last year has been on the approximately 187 USW miners and above-ground workers laid off to date with Birchtree Mine being again placed on “care and maintenance” and the smelter and refinery being permanently closed, Land’s transfer to Sudbury is part of a Vale back story on office staff reductions, too, locally, as Thompson is no longer a fully integrated nickel operation for the first time since March 1961, and logically no longer requires the same level of daily on-site support based here in Thompson as a fully integrated operation did.

Mark Scott’s employment, as Vale Manitoba Operations vice-president, ended July 20 as the company has reorganized the management structure for its North Atlantic operations and Asia refineries division and eliminated the position Scott held at the top of the local Vale hierarchy.

Alistair Ross, previously the director of Ontario mining operations, also based in Sudbury, is now in charge of mining operations for the North Atlantic division, including mines in Sudbury and mining and milling operations in both Thompson and Voisey’s Bay.

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