2011 Service Awards

Plant Operations held our annual Service Awards luncheon.  We had some good food and were able to show our appreciation to our dedicated employees for their years of service.

5 Year Recipients
Back Row: Mark Thornquist, Christopher Roberts, Darin Jensen, William Connett, Josh James, Ralph Fischer Jr, Nate Miles
Front Row: James Steed, Sara McBride, Brent Dixon, Elizabeth Valle, Catherine Kalwies, Lisa Mace, Bob Novasio
Not pictured: James Adams, Robert Baker and Jeff Drown



10 Year Recipients
Claude Jaramillo, Demetrius Wright, Cathy Hiseman, David Oakenson
Not pictured: Ivan McGavin




15 Year Recipients
Orfeo Kostrencich, Enli Xu, Alexander Varley, Roger Herbert, Dennis Denham
Not pictured: John Brothers, Jay Hansen, Jason Jewkes, Yvon Juteau, and Clyde Nelson




20 Year Recipients
Scott Leech, Stan Furrow, Tiberio Gonzalez, Edward Ayers, Donny Perkins




25 Year Recipients
Rodney Rodges and Victor Blindauer
Not pictured: Micheal Hughes




30 Year Recipients
Bob Stilson, Steve Hoskins, Scott Fullmer
Not pictured: Gary Forrest and Dean Ottesen



What's in a Name . . .

With the reorganization of CD&C, Mike has approved new names for several groups now under Facilities Management. The group names within Facilities Management are as follows.


Campus Planning – This is the new group Directed by John McNary. This group will deal with campus plans, project development and project approval issues.

Construction Project Delivery – This is the new group where most of the project managers were assigned. This group will focus on the design and construction of defined projects.
Facility Operations – This is our new name. This modernizes the term (“Plant”) used to describe what we do. It continues to emphasis the broader scope we are involved with in managing University assets.

New Associate Accountant

Christine Delliskave has joined Data Systems to fill the associate accountant position. Christy has a large range of experience and expertise. As an additional role in Data Systems, one of Christy’s responsibilities will be monitoring the completion of the CS work orders. Christy will also have the charge to make sure these work orders are completed in a timely manner in addition to her many other responsibilities. Therefore your shop may receive an occasional email reminding you to complete older CS type work orders. Our goal in this new process is to improve the completion time of these work orders. Please give Christy your support in her new responsibilities.

State of the Department

Monday, October 3, 2011 Plant Operations Director, Cory Higgins delivered the annual State of the Department Address.  Topics focused on scope of responsibility, capital request for infrastructure, and organizational growth/development.

Pop Tabs

 We would like to thank the many employees of Plant Operations who have participated in the Pop Tabs for Kids collections.  Plant Operations has been collecting pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald House since February 2011. 

All of the departments in Plant Operations have been collecting pop tabs and contributing to this ongoing service project.  We would like to recognize a few extraordinary contributions. 

Dennis Bouck from the Paint Shop has brought in 3 gallon freezer bags filled with pop tabs! 

The HVAC shop has collected a big box of tabs, contributing almost as much as all the other shops combined.

This program is an easy way for people of ages to support the Ronald McDonald House and know that they area making a difference to families and children.  For more information on the project visit
http://rmhc.org/how-you-can-help/pop-tab-collections/. 

Thanks for all of your support and remembering to pull pop tabs for charity, and after you take off the tab, remember to recycle the rest of the can!

Staff Excellence Awards

Plant Operations would like to congratulate Kim Collard; she is the winner of the 2011 University of Utah Staff Excellence Award!

Kim has worked in Plant Ops Dispatch Office for seven years, recently made the move to Data Systems as our new Payroll Specialist. We know she will continue to share her talents and dedication.

Kim was nominated on her commitment to service excellence to the University community, consistently demonstrated by making students, faculty, staff and the University’s mission her top priority.  She has developed systems and enhanced programs making her a more valuable employee not only to her department but to the campus community as a whole. She is respected for her ability to look outside of the box and provide direction on ways to improve processes. Because of these great qualities she is greatly respected among her peers.



Familiar Faces in New Places

We have had a lot of changes going on in Central Services and Data Systems.  As of September 1st we will have both a new Payroll Specialist and a new Dispatcher.

As many of you are aware, Kim Collard has accepted the position as our payroll specialist.  Data Systems is excited to have her experience and knowledge as their new addition.

We are pleased to announce that Wendy Traeden from the Grounds department has accepted Kim’s old position as dispatcher. Wendy has had a variety of experience and knows the campus well. We feel confident the Wendy will be an asset to the dispatch office.

Wendy and Kim will start their new responsibilities on Thursday September 1, 2011. Please give your support to them and the dispatch office during this transition.

State Building Board Visit

On August 18, 2011 the Utah State Building Board members visit the University of Utah to learn more about this year’s $50 million capital funding request for electrical distribution and high temperature water infrastructure replacement.

Should the request for $50 million be approved and the electrical distribution system is replaced the University will:

• Reduce the frequency of power outages from an average of six outages per year per building to less than one.

• Reduce the duration of power outages from an average of 48 hours per outage to less than 1 hour per outage.

• Save the University more than $350,000 per year in transformer service charges.

• Save the University more than $200,000 per year by eliminating utility power factor penalties.

Plant Ops Summer Barbeque

All work and no play . . .

Plant Operations had its annual Summer Barbeque this week.  Just a little way to show appreciate to all of our hard working employees before school starts up again. 

 

We had a great turn out this year.  With our Associate Directors hard at work at the grills they could barely keep up with the hungry mob. 

Serving up hot dogs, hamburgers and veggie burgers, Cory along with the admins and a few other helpers made sure everyone got enough to eat.

 

Dennis and the Electronics Shop made sure we had some great tunes and Events set us up with tents for the food and lots of seating in the shade.

 

Josh and the Waste Management crew set us up with recycling centers



Thanks to John Atkins and Terry Erickson for organizing this event for us.  Special thanks to Nate Miles and his staff for working hard to set everything up to we could all play for a couple hours. 

It looks like everyone had a real good time.

For more pictures from the Plant Operations BBQ check us out on facebook

FIRST® Robotics Competition

The FIRST® Robotics Competition was held at the Huntsman center this year starting April 7-9th. FIRST® is a non-profit organization that inspires young people’s interest and participation in science and technology. This is the second year that the University of Utah has hosted the competition. The first FRC event in Utah was held last year at the Huntsman Center and was a great success. The competition brought in 31 high school teams from all over the nation making a total of 300 students. The Metal/Machine Shop assisted in making and repairing various robot parts during the three day event.

Some of the robots we worked on…






New Energy Manager

We would like to introduce our new Energy Manager

Jeff Wrigley has been selected as the new Energy Manager in Plant Operations. Jeff comes to us from DFCM where he has spent the last three years managing the State Facility Energy Efficiency Fund. Jeff has extensive experience as a project manager and was a journeyman electrician. Jeff earned his bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Utah.


Jeff’s first official day is July 5th, but you may have already seen him in the building over the past couple of weeks getting to know our campus and staff a little better. I hope you will join me in welcoming him and supporting him in his efforts here at the university.

U2 Visits The U

 Tuesday, May 24th the U proudly hosted U2 at Rice Eccles Stadium.  Thanks to Dennis in Electronics for providing us some great behind the scenes insight at just how much work goes on to make such a great event.

Over 50,000 fans packed Rice Eccles Stadium and were treated to a show that truly rocked.



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Crew from Event Support Services helping with set-up

 

It takes a lot to accomodate 50,000 fans

Check out our Facebook page if you would like to see more pictures.



Welcome Aislynn

We would like to welcome Aislynn Schultz our new Executive Secretary for Campus Utility Services. 
Aislynn Schultz is the newest member of the Administrative Staff in Facilities, working with the Campus Utility Services Group. Aislynn came to the U from San Francisco, CA where she previously worked in Financial, Engineering and Litigation firms. She resides in SLC with her husband and two rescue mutts. She enjoys hikes to Dog Lake in Mill Creek Canyon and any dog friendly trail or hike she can find. We welcome Aislynn to the Facilities team!

Recycle Mania

The results from this year’s Recycle Mania are in! 

This year the University of Utah finished #1 in the state of Utah in the Grand Champion Category, coming in 28th amongst Division 1 schools and 109^th in the nation out of 288 schools.

In the Waste Minimization Category we placed 2^nd among Division 1 schools and 23^rd in the nation.

Thanks to all the efforts around campus we recycled 206,435 combined pounds of plastic, aluminum, cardboard and paper during the 10 week competition.  We appreciate Joshua James and our Recycling Department and would like to thank everyone who participated.  If you would like more information about our Recycling Program  on the Facilities Management home page.

Supercross

Here are a few pictures from Supercross at Rice Eccles Stadium last Saturday.  Thanks to our Electronics Shop for the great shots. 

100 pop tabs

We want to send a special thanks out to Robert Hoskins for bringing in over 100 pop tabs from home for our Pop Tabs for Kids Drive for the Ronald McDonald House.

Thanks to everyone who remembers to take those tabs off their soda cans!  It only takes a few seconds to help a family in need.  A little bit goes a long way.  Remember that these envelopes are near the recycling bins in and around the Plant Operations areas.  Thanks again!

Employees of the Month in Grounds - Feb 2011

Landscape Maintenance announces their Employees of the Month for February:

Dan Heister was recognized for interviewing, getting fertilization and seeding started, and keeping his crew organized and productive.

Richard Coombs was recognized for his leadership role as Lead Worker.  He has helped organize his crew and has led projects to make sure they get done.

Phil Holmes was recognized for the great job he has done this winter with snow removal in his area and helping cover other areas.  He also helped keep other areas stocked up on ice fighter.

Congratulations to these three employees who have worked so hard to earn this recognition!  Keep up the good work!

A Call to Recycle

Joshua James in our Recycling Department is helping to kick-off this year's Recycle Mania, a program set up to get students around the country excited about recycling. Read this article in the Utah Chronicle about some information Josh shared at a recent brown bag lunch event.  We appreciate Josh's conitnued efforts throughout the years to encourage all of us to recycle.

Olympic Torch

This picture is a close-up of the Olympic Torch that is displayed in Rice-Eccles Stadium.  This torch was actually lit and used in the running of the torch here in the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002.  In a sense, it has recently been re-lit.  Within the display case, an amber-colored light was installed above the torch to give it the illusion of being lit.  White lights below it highlight the writing on the handle.  Whenever you're in the neighborhood, make sure you stop by this display in the tower of the stadium to check out the fine craftsmanship and beautiful history.