Caught In The Act

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

Doug Brown, Mike McCloskey, Paul Petersen, Houston Rowe, Josh Singleton, Shireen Ghorbani, Missy Tyrrell, Liz Blackner, Craig Davis, Danyal Edgerly, Jon Dean

The Amazing Cardboard Chair

Our University ends up with a lot of cardboard to recycle, so Brady, a part-time custodial crew member, decided to take the cardboard and upcycle it into an armchair. Using mostly notches, and only a little bit of glue, he created a sturdy and surprisingly comfortable chair. Josh James (below), recycling coordinator for the University of Utah, tests out Brady’s creation.

Read more about it on the University of Utah's Sustainability article.

Sustainability Resource Center Moving to Academic Affairs

In July, the Sustainability Resource Center, formerly the Office of Sustainability, will move from Facilities Management to Academic Affairs as part of an overall University effort to reorganize and streamline campus sustainability efforts in research, academics, administration, and operations.

From left: Stephanie Dolmat-Connell, Jen Colby, Myron Willson, Rachel Sanders, and Ayrel Clark-Proffitt

The new name better reflects the Sustainability Resource Center’s role as a hub for campus-related sustainability initiatives and engagement programs. The Center will continue efforts to foster a living, learning laboratory where academics intersect with campus operations.

In addition, the University created a new Chief Sustainability Officer who reports directly to the Sr. Vice President for Academic Affairs. The position is currently filled by Associate Vice President Amy Wildermuth, though a national search will begin soon. The new position will “take the conversation of long-term implications and sustainability to the highest level of administration,” says Myron Willson, director of the Sustainability Resource Center.

The Sustainability Resource Center will continue its current initiatives, including the Edible Campus Gardens, the Sustainable Campus Initiative Fund (SCIF), and sustainability internships. The Center will also continue to work closely on sustainability issues with Facilities Management, serving on steering committees and FMRC. Stephanie Dolmat-Connell, the senior research analyst for Facilities Management, will also continue to assist the Sustainability Resource Center with data collection and analysis.

FM Monthly Numbers

92

Number of projects funded by SCIF grants since Fall 2009

5,137

Sustainability's combined followers on Wordpress, Facebook, & Twitter

1,200

Volunteer hours worked in the Edible campus Gardens in 2012

In The Spotlight

Myron Wilson

Director, Sustainability Resource Center

The Cathedral in the Desert had a major impact on Myron Willson’s life. Myron visited Lake Powell in the early 1970s as it was filling up after the completion of Glen Canyon Dam. “If they fill this up, it will ruin this place,” he remembers thinking. Now, the Cathedral in the Desert is inundated, except in severe drought.

This vivid memory instilled a love of nature and wild places in Myron, leading him to study urban planning  at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and later architecture at the University of Utah and pursue a career in designing green buildings and healthy communities.

Myron joined the U in 2009 as the director of the Sustainability Resource Center (then the Office of Sustainability). In this role, he helps design, plan, and coordinate campus sustainability initiatives and assists FM with efficiency standards and making campus buildings more sustainable.

In his spare time, Myron enjoys hiking, camping, and sculpting clay (including the photo included here!). He rides his bike to campus most days (except when it is icy).

Janus Awards

The Janus Award is a monthly custodial award for excellent performance based on the SMARTInspect System scores.

Congratulations to the Theater/Law Building Crew led by Shawn Lindsey.

Recycle Mania

It’s Recycle Mania, so it’s time for Spring Cleaning

 

The University of Utah participates in Recycle Mania, a promotion during the months of February and March to stress the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Last year, the program helped reduce 121,436 metric tons of CO2 equivalents, which is the same as the annual emissions from 25,299 cars.
How can you help? Clean out your desk next week to recycle your office pack and mixed papers to boost the U’s contribution.

Check out University of Utah's Sustainability for helpful tips and facts through out the month.

Janus Awards

The Janus Award is a monthly custodial award for excellent performance based on the SMARTInspect System scores.

Congratulations to the Museum of Natural History/NPS led by Crew Leader, Lisa McCarrel.

Presidential Staff Service Awards

Facilities wants to give a shout out to all of the employees who received the 2013 Presidential Staff Service Awards at a luncheon on January 28th. Among those awarded from Facilities were John Anderson, Denice Bradfield, Thomas Christensen, Delmer English, Dan Keough, John McNary, Lonnie Medina, Perry Proctor, David Taylor, John Atkins, David Monte, Robert Wiscomb, Ernest Dal, Dean Mong and Harry Stout. Please congratulate them if you see them!

Caught In The Act

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

Keith Perry, Missy Tyrrell, Glen Nelson, Sam Robertson, Luke Williams, Todd Langston, Bill Billingsley, Colby Kalian, Zach Henderson, PJ, Bob Wilson, Rob Robinson, Ryan Hillam, Louis Frese, John Cross,

FM Monthly Numbers

1394 

Sinks and faucets on campus

1748

Toilets on campus

902

Urinals on campus

New Program in Facilities Management

This month, Facilities Management introduces a new employee-to-employee recognition program. Different departments have ways to acknowledge employees for their work, but FM has not had a comprehensive program that facilitates recognition and appreciation from one individual to another.

The HERO program seeks to fill that gap. Starting this month, FM employees will be able to pick up HERO cards, pictured above, for use as a sort of institutional thank you card. Pick some up from your administrative assistant or drop by Mary Ellen’s office, room 222 in building 350.  Filling out the cards is simple. Include your name, the name of the person you’d like to thank or recognize, and leave it on their desk, in their workspace, or mailbox.

The cards are for everyone’s use and are available to every department. The Communication Planning Team is working on increasing opportunities for recognition across the organization. The HERO card is one of many new initiatives coming to FM this year. This organization is made up of wonderful people who frequently help each other out, by sharing work on projects or just consistently offering a friendly smile. The HERO card will allow all of us to say, thanks.

HERO Program 

Employee to Employee Recognition

In The Spotlight

Stacy Hendrickson
Custodial Trainer

In a department as large as and spread out as Custodial Services it is difficult to remember everyone, but Stacy Hendricksen is one person everyone knows.

Hendricksen and Lewis Palmer are the Trainers in the Custodial Department. They interact with all new hires during a four-course training session on topics like chemical safety and floor care.  Over the last 11 years Hendricksen has worked with the department in various roles and is the go-to source for any difficult cleans or complicated techniques.

While Hendricksen and Palmer cover a lot of information during their training sessions, Hendricksen says the most important thing new hires can do is keep learning.

“Learn as much as you can while you are here and remember you don’t learn everything in a day,” Hendricksen said.  “And always remember how important your job is to the school, we keep this little city running.”

“I Love campus,” Hendricksen said. “We get to help so many students, staff and departments it really connects you to the U experience.”

Janus Awards Elevate Campus Cleanliness

In July of 2012 the Custodial Services Department introduced the Janus Award to staff of the department. The award introduced a friendly competition between crews in the department and has elevated the overall cleanliness of buildings.

The purpose of the award was to help build consistency in cleaning standards and expectations for the department and after more than a year the results are proving the award has been a success.
In year-to-year comparison for the months that overlapped, there was 3.6-percent increase across all areas. Some individual buildings have seen as much as a 20-percent increase in their monthly scores.
The crew that has the top score wins a catered breakfast.

While at first staff was hesitant towards the idea of competition the majority of crew leaders have embraced the program and now have metrics to more accurately gauge their work flow and better train their staff.  Scores are tabulated based on averages across square footage. Inspectors visit each building every month to check items of importance to the department. They inspect numerous elements of equipment, restrooms and common areas.

The staff that inspect for the award are students at the U. Custodial Services department sees this as a boon because they are the target demographic the department cleans for.

“It is great that we are able to employ students as building inspectors,” says Stacy Hendrickson, a trainer for the department. “We get the perspective of our campuses main users, and that is a great benefit to us.”

In year-to-year comparison for the months that overlapped, there was 3.6-percent increase across all areas. Some individual buildings have seen as much as a 20-percent increase in their monthly scores.

Janus Award

The Janus Award for monthly custodial excellence goes to The Museum of Natural History/NPS crew, crew lead Lisa McCarrel.

Caught In The Act

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

Alex Varley, Glen Nelson, Larry Urbaniak, Luke Williams, Tony Polidori, Leroy Winn, Heather Henderson

Energy Challenge, Say Watt?!

FM is hosting an Energy Challenge in the month of February.  Have an idea that will save electricity, natural gas, or fuel?  We are looking for everyone in this organization to come up with great ideas for changes that will reduce our overall energy consumption.

All employees across FM will be asked to help generate big and small ideas that we will then implement throughout the month of February.  Prizes and awards for the best and most unique ideas as well as participation prizes will be extended to those departments that demonstrate particular commitment to this challenge.  Watch for Green Team members at your staff meetings in January to explain the challenge and help you generate ideas to conserve energy in our work environment. We will also be installing sensors to turn off computer monitors when you’re not at your workstation.  This could help to save 10-20% of your workstation’s energy use every day.

How can you save energy in February?

Turn off lights.

Turn in your space heater for a free blanket.

Unplug cell phone chargers when not in use.

Turn off equipment when not in use.

Turn the key—be idle-free in your car or truck.

Take the bus to work.

Carpool with a buddy to work or to a job or meeting on campus.

What Is Lean?

Lean focuses on customer value and respect for workers.  Lean is a way of thinking and acting that puts the customer’s needs first, and offers workers across all levels of an organization the ability to participate in making processes and systems easier and more meaningful.  Lean thinking, tools, and processes help to break down departmental silos so that we work together to reduce waste and create more customer value.  Kaizen events bring together cross-departmental teams to find ways to continuously improve the services FM provides to campus.

What can you expect along Facilities Management’s Lean journey?

FM is in the process of finding a consultant who will help us to launch Lean within FM in the first couple of months of 2014.  We will start with some pilot projects, in which cross-functional teams will work together to find innovative solutions to issues that bug us and bug our customers.  Solutions found will be tested and implemented to see if they make sense and improve FM employees’ lives as well as our customers’ lives.  You can expect to see Lean grow to all departments throughout FM as we move from pilot projects to integrated daily Lean exercises and management.

Who else has adopted Lean?

FM directors and management visited the University of Washington’s Finance and Facilities group in October to learn how they have transformed their business practices to be less time-wasting, less headache-inducing, and more collaborative and customer-driven.  UW Finance and Facilities gives all employees the means and support to implement their ideas to make their workplace better a reality.  U of U FM management has also visited Autoliv in Orem, a renowned manufacturing firm that has adopted and excelled using Lean culture and has implemented over 35,000 employee ideas!

Facilities Management is Ready to Begin our Lean Journey!

FM Monthly Numbers

$1,523,614,133
Value of Major Capital Projects constructed/renovated over the last decade

In The Spotlight

Completed & Groundbreaking

In 2013 we completed construction on Thatcher Chemistry, L. S. Skaggs Pharmacy, Spencer Fox Eccles Business Building Phase 2, Football Training Facility, and the Ambulatory Care Parking Complex. 

We broke ground on the Student Life Center, the College of Law, Kennecott Phase 2, the Mid-Valley Health Center, and the Oral Health Science Building.

New Position

As FM has seen continued growth in new construction on campus coupled with anticipated large transformative projects on the horizon, I’ve created a new position, Director of  Capital Projects, dedicated exclusively to managing those large and high profile endeavors for me. The person in this role will lead steering committees and engage directly with senior administrators across campus. I hope to have this position filled early in the new year.

Happy New Year!

A greeting from Michael G. Perez, Associate Vice 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the hard work and support you have provided to the university throughout 2013. This was another year of tremendous growth and progress. We’ve shared a number of accomplishments. We’ve worked to keep this campus safe, clean, plowed, watered, warm, cool, and much more.

Though we’ve had many successes, I’d like to mention a few of them here.  
The newly founded FM Green Team provided the leadership to put us ahead of 300 teams across the state of Utah in the Clear the Air Challenge. When taking trax or riding the bus, I saw a number of our FM employees and whether it was to participate in the challenge or  your regular choice of transit, I appreciate your taking the time to track the miles and to help reflect our commitment to sustainability.

As service is an underlying value for our organization, I was also proud to participate in the first FM wide service project in collaboration with The Bennion Center.  A number of us spent a Saturday morning painting, cleaning, and sorting clothes at The Road Home.  It was both a humbling and rewarding experience. I’m grateful to all who took the time to volunteer and to those in Facility and Construction Ops who made 71 blankets and donated funds and materials to those most in need in our community.

This was also a year of continued growth of our FM scholarship program.  This year we were able to grow the scholarship from $300 to $500 dollars.  I thank Craig Bohn, Angie Meeks, Rochelle Randazzo, and Lynn Rohland for their service on the scholarship committee. I am proud to personally support this fund and thank those in the organization who also contribute to support the advancement of our employees. We anticipate the contiunued growth of this program in the coming year.
Above all we’ve done interally, we’ve also had others take notice of our work. FM’s committment to accessiblity was recognized by the Center for Disability Services. Also, Lora Mortensen was recognized with the Presidential Staff Service Award.

Too often the great things that happen here go uncelebrated. I am so proud to lead this organization and I value the excellent work we do together. As we begin this new year, please take a moment to pause, reflect on our good work, and thank those around us for all that is done to support this university.

Thank you and Happy New Year.

We have an excellent group of employees in FM. I am incredibly proud of the work we do. I thank you for your service and for helping us to lead the industry.