U of U Farmers Market Opens

Student volunteer coordinator Kate McCarty sells produce from the Edible Campus Gardens at the U of U Farmers Market, which the Office of Sustainability helps coordinate. The market is every Thursday from 10 am to 2 pm on the west side of the Union.

Interns trained in facilities roles; help reach out to other students

Campus Project Delivery
Marin Hebdon is a hard working intern in CPD and is a graduate student in Architecture going for her Masters.
Ryan Hillam has been a huge support to our Infrastructure Upgrade project.
Colby Kalian was just hired on with CPD and is studying architecture.
Zach  Henderson also has just been hired on with CPD and is going into Mechanical Engineering.
 
Campus Utility Services
Richael Hurless and Benjamin Gilmore are engineering students assisting Campus Utility Services. Richael is a Senior pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering. He is assisting with Fathom Models for both High Temperature and Chilled Water Systems.  Benjamin is a Junior pursuing an Engineering degree.  He is assisting in obtaining the original building plans and converting them to an electronic format.
 
Sustainability
The Office of Sustainability has a large number of student interns to help get the word out about on-campus initiatives and programs.
Sustainability Ambassadors: Samantha Jackson, Alicia Wrigley-Gailey, Erin Olschewski, Jai Bashir.
Student Energy Ambassadors: Natan Chetrit, Alev Bilginsoy, Connor Bevins.
Environmental Humanities Graduate Assistant: Laura Schmidt.
Sustainability Student Research Journal Coordinator (funded via SCIF): Max Stiefel.
Garden Stewards: Georgie Corkery, Annaleigh Sanderson, Mike Lynch, Natalie Allsup-Edwards.

Janus Award

The winner of the Janus Award was presented once again to the USTAR Crew led by Crew Leader Glen Nelson for the month of August. The team topped other crews with the highest score on the SMART Inspections for the month!

Caught In The Act

These employees have recently been recognized for going above and beyond expectations in Customer Service, Teamwork, Innovation, Safety, or Excellence.

Craig Erickson, Bill Triplett,  Larry Urbaniak, Angie Meeks; Harry Corsi , Dennis Denham, Troy Young

FM Monthly Numbers

350,000
Gallons of chilled water produced last fiscal year. through the East Chiller plant

10% increase
Improvement over last year in chilled water produced (with addition of Skaggs Pharmacy)

180
New students signed up for the Office of Sustainability newsletter.

In The Spotlight

Part-Time Staff

There are 13 part-time positions in Landscape Maintenance throughout the year. Custodial has around 200 part-time positions in their staff of nearly 350 people. In addition, nearly half of Facility & Construction Operations staff are part-time positions, and those employees help keep our buildings and landscape in tip-top shape. We are grateful and appreciate the hard work from this group of individuals. This group brings a strong energy and level of dedication to their daily tasks. 

Facilities Insider: FM Survey and Projects

The Facilities Insider was held on Aug. 20. Mary Ann Berzins, assistant vice president of Human Resources, presented the macro level results of the employee survey.

The survey was focused on 25 functional groupings and received a completion percentage of 68.7 percent. This survey sets a benchmark as it is the first employee survey in Facilities Management history. Most employees reported feeling that things work well within Facilities and support from colleagues was noted as a highlight. A total of 73.2 percent would describe morale as fair or higher, and 26.8 percent would describe it as low. Most employees believe there is good collaboration within groups and many appreciate the scheduling and variety of work.

Areas for improvement include the need for a career track, administrative resourses and recognition. Opportunities for growth and advancement were identified as leadership styles, inconsistent policy application, communication, resources and pay.

Now that Facilities Management has a general sense of the results, next steps will be management and supervisor-level meetings to review results and themes of comments. Once those meetings have taken place, more specific action plans that respond to the results will be developed. HR will work with groups on action plans, as well as help administration leadership on management style and culture. To be continued!

Mike stated that he hears the concerns regarding pay. He commented we’ve made strides in recent years, but he’s aware we have room for improvement. He will continue to advocate for us.

John McNary also provided an update on university projects.

 Projects completed end of 2013: Thatcher, Skaggs Pharmacy, Business school phase 2, parking access, Sorenson Arts & Education, infrastructure, women’s softball field.

Next up: Basketball facility, Central and Business loop parking garage.

Seeking approval: Crocker Science addition, Lassonde living learning center, Alumni house, infrastructure projects.

Mike stated that he hears the concerns regarding pay. He commented we’ve made strides in recent years, but he’s aware we have room for improvement.