Barry Golding commenced his mining career at Dawson Valley Colliery, a mine that supplied coal for the Mount Morgan Limited copper reverberatory furnace, in 1965. He accepted a cadetship with Mount Morgan Limited in 1966 and completed his degree in Mining Engineering in 1968. Barry went on to work in metalliferous and coal mining in Australia and gold and chrome mining in South Africa and has worked continuously in the mining industry from 1968 onward, apart from two years in the army that included a year in Vietnam. 

Barr completed a Postgraduate Diploma of Applied Economics followed by a Master of Economics by Research in 2002. The focus for both degrees was applying cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness techniques to resource management, incorporating risk analysis and sustainable development. In 2011 he was awarded his PhD in Economics at the University of Queensland for his thesis entitledMetals, Energy and Sustainability.

Suzanne Golding commenced her geology career at the Mount Morgan gold-copper mine in 1967. She graduated from the University of Queensland in 1970 with a first class honours degree in Geology. Suzanne worked in mineral exploration and production in Australia and gold and coal mining in South Africa throughout the 1970s. In 1982 she was awarded a PhD in Geochemistry from the University of Queensland for work on gold mineralization in the Kalgoorlie-Norseman region, Western Australia.

Suzanne has served at the University of Queensland since 1982 and is currently a Professor at its School of Earth and Environmental Sciences. She has published more than 160 journal articles and book chapters and edited a pioneering text on coal seam gas entitledCoalbed Methane: Scientific, Environmental and Economic Evaluation.