IT WAS when representatives from Namibia’s heyday flagship school, Concordia College, came to recruit Tony Bessinger in 1982 that major shifts started happening for this former Khomasdal resident.
At the time, Bessinger was in Grade 9 – the then Standard 7 – at Ella du Plessis High School also situated in this Windhoek suburb.
He and the other debutants were the first-ever Grade 10s of Concordia College. In fact, he was one of 180 pupils who had been selected to further their secondary education at this high school.
He finished Grade 12 in 1985, but wanted to improve his grades and did so through Tucsin the following year after which he scooped a bursary from the then Consolidated Diamond Mines (CDM), Namdeb’s predecessor company, to study metallurgy.
Although 45 pupils had applied for this bursary, Bessinger became one of only four lucky recipients of the scholarship, he remembers.
He joined the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) and continued there until his third year. “Then the politics got quite busy,” he reminisces about what eventually led to an interruption of his studies.
Bessinger, true to his relentless and tenacious character, refused to give up and eventually completed a third and fourth year at the Vaal Triangle Technicon after which he was awarded a Higher Diploma in Metallurgical Engineering.
And that is how a decades-long career in many facets of Namdeb officially kicked off for him.
“At Namdeb, I worked myself up through the system. I started at the Auchas recovery [mine] as a plant metallurgist after which I was promoted to senior plant metallurgist and eventually metallurgy processing engineer.”
His great work as design metallurgist on the Daberas project eventually earned him special recognition through a badge from Founding President Sam Nujoma in 1999, he related. After that, Bessinger was sent to Botswana on secondment where he learnt a lot, especially about the diversity of the industry.
He returned to become the plant manager at Daberas.
Among others, during his ever evolving tenure at the group of companies, he was also responsible to start up the Ebay operations. Within three years, he had established a good team there.
Today, Bessinger is in charge of the transformation process at Oranjemund, a role he continues to fill with competence and dedication.
He says his main strengths revolve around his ability to turn around any part of the organisation that may be in trouble into a flourishing unit.
Moreover, Bessinger takes great pride in his excellent relations – both within Namdeb as well as with external stakeholders. “It (interpersonal relations) comes naturally for me.”
Two of his heroes are leadership gurus Robin Sharma and John Maxwell. “For me, leadership is a very personal thing.”
He also singles out his late mother as someone who epitomised leadership. “She had the character traits of a real leader. She could influence people in a beautiful manner to do things. She inspired, motivated and influenced.”
Bessinger is always geared towards problem solving. A total of 55 minutes of an hour should be dedicated to understanding the issue at hand, whilse five minutes should be devoted to execution, he says. “Be tenacious to keep on going and have staying power.
Your attitude gives you altitude and setbacks are inputs for success.”
